The End

OK, I am finally done. It was a fun ride while it lasted. I did learn a lot of new stuff. It is good to know what the kids are up to now a days.

Quest 12: Media 2.0 Part 2 Podcasts

I looked at all three. I preferred Podcast.net (no registration). After searching the term "library", I found the Hennepin County Library – TeenLinks Podcasts interesting. They have podcasts of book reviews, movie reviews and teen club news. These podcasts are done by their YA patrons. Since YA’s are up on the latest technology, I think that having podcasts on CCPL’s website would attract some teens.
After registering, I found on Podcastalley.com some very interesting podcasts. I listen to Tech Tracks Podcasts (Podcasting for the tech tracks classes of the SC State Library). How about listening to their introductory podcast?

Quest 12: You Tube PLCMC Video "Get a Clue @ Your Library"

Quest 12: Media 2.0 Part 1 You Tube

Ok, What can I say about You Tube? First thing that I thought about was copyright. It does not matter if a professional studio or artist or any old Tom, Dick or Harry who made the video, the videos are copyright protected. Tom, Dick or Harry might not might not know or care about copyright. A video is considered to be published once it is uploaded to You Tube. Therefore, technically one should gain permission before using any video.
I noticed a lot of copyright infringement when searching the film and animation category. Fans not the studio or artist are the ones who uploaded many of the videos in this category. The same problem is found in MySpaceTv.
I can see CCPL using You Tube to publish promotional videos. PLCMC has done this for summer reading and programs. They even have new employee orientation videos.
I plan on using a Naruto ad on Dorchester’s anime MySpace page to promote the club. I will be getting permission from FUNimation even though the library falls under fair use.

advertisements

I do not pay any attention to advertisements. I also find that if we (the library) have too many signs posted, that people do not read them. I do like the Bob Dylan video.

Quest 11 part 2

A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work - he is the purpose of it. We are not doing him a favour by serving him.  He is doing us a favour by giving us the opportunity to serve him.

-Mahatma Gandhi

Quest 11 - Online Apps!

Ok, I can see some advantages to using these online applications. I tried out both Zoho and Google Docs. The advantage of Zoho Writer over Google Docs is that it can be used offline, when you download Google Gears. Ironically, Google Docs does not at this time have this feature. One might want to work offline especially when one is on dialup. When I used to write wed pages, I always worked offline.
Zoho also has more services: spreadsheet; web conferencing; slide presentation, note taker; web application creator; planner; wiki; chat; and writer. Google Docs has a spreadsheet and slide presentation besides the writer.
Both can download an excel spreadsheet, but neither can freeze-frame. When I am working in excel I need the option to freeze-frame.
Google presentation is better then Zoho Show in that Google has some themed backgrounds. Neither is as good as Microsoft PowerPoint or Corel Presentation when it comes to the verity of backgrounds.
Zoho writer has 50 templates one can use: resume writer; cover letter; or booklet. Some take the place of Microsoft Publisher. Google Docs does not have this option. Both have a spell-check but neither have a grammar-check. I have been spoiled by Corel’s grammar-check.
Zoho also has applications that apply to businesses.They have online database and reports; project management software; web conferencing; customer relationship management (CRM); and a chat room. They also have Zoho Mail and Zoho Business that are in a beta testing mode.

Quest 10 - Son Of TechTrek Playhouse!

I have tried all the recommended sites. By far, the best site is Artpad. I have had a lot of fun computer painting. I also liked Dogstar and Catstar, because I have both a dog and 2 cats.

Quest 9 part 2

I had fun posting to tech trek's wiki. I added favorite YA books and YA authors, besides adding to the existing TV shows, anime, pets, books and authors.

Quest 9 Wikis

In the past, I have used Wikipedia as a last resort. I would never use it or suggest it be used in a research paper due to its’ unreliability as to the information’s source. Ironically, a good place to get articles discussing editing on Wikipedia is from Wikipedia on Wikiscanner at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiScanner. Wikiscanner is a tool created to search for the editors of Wikipedia articles. Here is the problem with Wikipedia: many companies, politicians, and famous people edit their entries to remove anything negative. The journal Wired also has a list of edits at http://wired.reddit.com/wikidgame.
Ok, enough about Wikipedia. I definitely can see our library use Wikis for pathfinders like St. Joseph County Public Library system. I search on cooking. The book jackets were helpful. Also, I liked the fact that the suggestions linked to their catalog. The U.S. government gave links the various government web sites. This use of pathfinders is a good homework helper.
Once again I can see us using Wikis for book clubs and book reviews like Princeton Public Library does on Book Lovers Wiki. I liked the star system of rating books. I also liked the read more about the author link to biographical material. This is a good way to share with others ones favorite books.
All right, I have to admit that I spent the most time at Library Success since this site is for librarians by librarians. First, I took a look at the weeding section. This section gave some good tips on what and when to weed. Next I looked at the services for teens, since I am DOR’s YA librarian. Under Library 2.0 Services to Teens, I found examples of MySpace pages. I loved looking at others YA pages. When I am ready, I will add DOR’S anime club page to the list. Since, John’s Island YA page is listed, I now have them as my friend on DOR’S page.
Another interesting use for Wikis is for a calendar of events and for library news. I like the fact that the library public can be interactive with the library, but library Wikis do have to be monitored just like library blogs. One would not want offensive, derogatory, or inflammatory comments on a library’s site. It would also be a good idea to have a disclaimer about the accuracy of patron’s contributions.

Quest 8 Myspace

I have created a MySpace account for an anime club that will be starting in January. The name of the account is Dorchester Road Library Anime Club. I have requested Tech Trek 2.0 to be my friend. You can search for this account under Dorchester Road Library Anime Club. I will make the account public sometime in December. It is only for my friends for now, since it is a work in progress.

Quest 8 Social Networking

Part 1 article “ Your Guide to Social Networking Online”

Looking at the history of social networking online is a snapshot of the past. In years gone by, teens and young adults had the telephone. Remember talking on it for hour with your friends. Then came the personal computers and the Internet, which gave YA’s email; chat rooms; personal websites; Usenet; bulletin boards; and Live Journal. Now, it is MySpace and Facebook. The geeks and fandom still prefer Live Journal. In the past one would join a club in one’s hometown now there are special interest social networks that let one interact with people a world away. There is an anonymity that one does not get locally. Ah, like everything else it is here today gone tomorrow. So, what does the future hold? As technology advances and changes, each generation changes. Oh, what fickle youth. The geeks are always looking towards the future. One only has to read the comments at the end of Mark Glaser’s article.

Part 1 articles “Tips for Educators or Parents” and “Social Networking Sites: Safety Tips for Tweens and Teens”

Although both articles had some good advice, good luck getting YA’s to listen to anything an adult has to say. YA’s view parents and other adult authority figure as complete idiots who know nothing and who never were a teen. YA’s are sophomoric. They know it all and cannot see why they cannot be treated like an adult. They are invincible. From experience as a parent, there were times when I felt I would get better cooperation from a wall. I found that reverse psychology worked best. Remember what a parent love a teen hates and vice a verse a. Tell a teen not to do something guarantees that they will. Just ban a book, and every teen will then read it. My tip to educators and parents is one that was not listed in either article. Monitor your teens Internet use. Some schools have blocked social networking sites like MySpace, because they are not educational related. At home, have the computer in the family room not the kid’s room. If your child does have a MySpace page, check it out. Like the TV adds from the 80’s, do you know where your teen is and what they are doing?

Part 1 article “ Social networking fuels new Web boom”

What can I say? Money, money, money, big money always goes where it can make more. Yesterday, it was the dot coms. Today it is MySpace and Facebook. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

Part 2 Discovery exercise

Ok, I took a look at all five social network sites. First off, I read all the sites privacy policies. Two things that they all have in common are cookies and web log files to track usage. Only Linkedin did not seem to share certain non-personal information (ip addresses and browser information) with advertisers. All the others do. Also, the advertisers use cookies. All the sites let the user set their own security level (friends only, friends of friends, or everyone). MySpace, bebo, and Friendster do share some user profile information (members pictures, first names) with the public in order to help in user interaction. Facebook and bebo have age limitation of no one under 13. One can always lie. Linkedin has an age limitation of no one under 18, since this is a site for professionals to network. It also has two levels for members to join (paid and free) depending on the level of service. Since, bebo, friendster, facebook, and MySpace are very similar, I found bebo interesting. I liked the way bebo had it tabs at the top of the page, particular the music and authors. I know that I am out of it, but I did not know all the different types of music. Under feature authors was the book Seeker by William Nicholson and yes CCPL does own it. I like the way they do their cataloging of the music and authors. Yes, I know that MySpace has something similar. As for MySpace, I just helped my younger daughter pimp her page. As for searching for libraries on any of these sites, it would be easer if the libraries had a link off their web sites.

Library Thing

I have started a Library Thing account of some of my favorite young adult books. My account is http://www.librarything.com/catalog/mindwarpsmom.

Quest 7 Photosharing

Flickr is fun. The Trading Card Maker is a hoot.Check out my profile.



How about taking a look a my Flickr account?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mindwarpsmom/ I bet you might know some of the people in the photos.

Quest 6 part 2.5 Technorati

I have now set up an account and claimed my blog.
Technorati Profile

Quest 6 part 2 Technorati

Ok, I am trying this out. When you use the keyword search, you get all blog posts that have either have library or 2.0 in them. This is a bad way to do any search. I never use a keyword because it is too imprecise. Who wants over 31,000 hits. Using the tag search or the blog search is much better. When searching the popular blog search, I found either techies or major news events. Right now Burma (Myanmar) is very popular, but I normally watch CNN or the nightly news for my news. Hey! How about using the regular search to search for "tech trek 2.0"? Guess what I found? You got it. I found us. All of the tech star blogs and postings. Note that I put tech trek 2.0 in quotation marks. This site is neat. Here is the URL:
http://www.technorati.com/posts/tag/%22tech+trek+2.0%22

Quest 6 del.icio.us is delicious

I have been playing with del.icio.us. It is great for bookmarking web addresses. I found some good one for librarians. However, what happened to the 12 minute Del.icio.us tutorial? No active link, need to check all links before publishing them, some come some go. Ok, I see that you put a new link in for the tutorial, but this was covered in the State Library's class that I took. PLCMCL2 was interesting, but make sure you click on the saved by pink link to see the comments and tags. The September 15 edition of Library Journal has an article on del.icio.us. Check out the Nashville Public Library teen wed page at http://www.library.nashville.org/teens/teenweb.asp. They use tag clouds on the teen web page.
My del.icio.us account is http://del.icio.us/Mindwarps_mom .

Trading Card Maker

I did a trading card on Trading Card Maker. I was Pippi Longstocking one Halloween. The patrons voted mine the best costume. So, I added the card to my profile.

Animated pictures

I just used Google image to find a free animated butterfly. I then did a copy and paste of the image. You can also save to a disk then down load off the disk.

Quest 4 - RSS

Ok, I created a Bloglines account. The blogroll is at http://www.bloglines.com/public/Mindwarpsmom . So what? I looked at this in class. I could not see me using it. All though, I do like some of the feeds. I remember learning about RSS in one of my MLIS internet classes. If I want news, I go to CNN or Reuters. Other than that, I do not have time either at work or at home to play on the computer. Besides, I never manage to have an empty computer either at home or work to just play on. Just try to get my geek daughter off our home computer so, that's life.

Quest 3 - IM

I just finished IMing CCPLHELP. I ask about their most unusual patron question. They answered that a patron asked last week if bugs (he meant bacteria) on and in the body were intelligent. He added, like aliens. Ha ha ha. A patron once came up to me and ask for a current map of the Middle East, she wanted to know where the Garden of Eden was located. She wanted to visit. At MTP, the reference desk had a patron say that she could not find the Bible in fiction. She had looked under g for God. Yes, these are real reference questions. This is like a chatroom, which I did at USC.

Tech Trek 2.0 - Lifelong Learning and Blogging

It is not that I am per say opposed to blogging as much as I am not a diarist. I did not keep one as a teenager when it was popular. I am my own thinker, not a sheep that follows the crowd. Just because everyone is joining the bandwagon to MySpace and Blogging does not make it okay. Please be careful with what you write, some may be offended. A few weeks ago I read an article in USA Today about the negative side of Blogging. I then ask my resident geek daughter (Jenn) about it. She told me that TROLLS were old news. Trolls (not the fairytale kind) as defined by Wikipedia:

In the context of internet culture, an internet troll, or simply troll in Internet slang, is someone who intentionally posts messages about sensitive topics constructed to cause controversy in an online community such as an online discussion forum or USENET groups in order to bait users into responding.[1] They may also plant images and data on networks that others may find disturbing in order to cause confrontation.
More specifically a troll is an insult or accusation made against a poster. It would be highly unusual for any internet poster to claim the title of troll[citation needed], rather a community member may try to deflate a post that is controversial or thought provoking by referring to it as a “troll”. In usage troll is more of an insult like "jerk".
To call someone a troll is to say that any dispute over a post is not valid not because the issues raised are not valid, but to claim the intent of the poster invalidates the post. As a speech act the term troll is generally used as an ad hominem argument, attacking the poster rather than the content or issues of the post.

So, Please monitor CCPL’s blogs. Do not rely on Blogspot to do it for you. OK, enough with the lecture.

As for the 7 ½ Habits of Highly Sucessful Lifelong Learners, I am a firm believer. When you stop learning, you shrivel up and become stagnant, and might as well be dead. Age has nothing to do with becoming stagnant and old. I know some young people who are old because they have stopped learning. Conversely, I have known some elderly people who are forever young because their never stop learning. My credo is one is never too old, one will never learn it all or do it all but one should still try. If I did not believe this, I would never have gone back to college at age 46 to get my undergraduate degree, let alone got my MLIS at 51. This philosophy on life is also why I took the Tech Trek classes.

Habit # 1: Set goals. This is what a forward thinking person does. The here and now generation does not know how to delay gratification, which is what happens when you set goals.
Hahit # 2: Accept responsibility for your own learning. This should be a no brainer, but there are those who blame the teacher for their or their child’s failure to learn.
Habit # 3: View problems as challenges. My father once told me that one does not only gain an education in a classroom. Otherwise, life is learning. Only a pessimist does not learn. You know them by their sayings: I am too old, I don’t have the money etc. Even one's failures should be a learning experience. When you were in 1st grade, you answered 1+1=3. The teacher marked you wrong, then corrected you by saying 1+1=2. Hopefully you learned that 1+1=2. That is learning from your mistakes. I find that (hopefully) people learn more from their mistakes and failures then from always getting it right.
Habit # 4: Confidence. Be like the Little Engine that Could. Change negative thinking to positive. There is that silver lining around that black cloud. Think instead of I can’t to I think I can to I CAN.
Habit # 5: Learning toolbox. The best education comes from many sources, inside and outside the classroom. Be a true Renaissance person. Gain a true liberal arts education, experiment, try something new. By the way, this is what makes a good reference librarian.
Habit # 6: Use technology to your advantage. What can I say, my geek daughter says that I (we) are old folks behind the times because blogging, MySpace, etc. are old news. Besides learning old technologies, we need to look to new emerging technologies. Check out PC Magazine or ask a geek.
Habit # 7: Teach. As a Reference Librarian, I do this every day when working with patrons. I also share what I learn from my TLC classes with my fellow employees.
Habit # 7 ½ : Play. I do that on my own time. I only play with work related technology such as databases on work time.