Lovin' Books & Libraries

Thing 17: LibWorm

July 9, 2009

What a time saver! LibWorm seems like it is THE place for the most current LIS news, reports, and information. Certainly because many of the resources are personal blog pages, so there is a certain amount of bias to consider, but still a great place to start when looking around in the LIS world.

I looked up my school's library with no returns. Hmmm...I figured I would get at least a few hits. I also looked around the "Challenged Books" sites. Very interesting! I also looked up "Web 2.0" and found some great info on e-books and climate consideration I had not even thought of.

I'm adding LibWorm to my Delicious account for sure. It'll be a great tool for me in the future.

PS....I just figured out how to fix a problem I was having with my blog. I went into the code and fixed it! Thanks Blogger Help Group!

Thing 16: Library Thing

July 8, 2009

If someone wants to buy me a present, buy me a lifetime membership to LibraryThing.com! I love it! I have checked this site out before, and I still really love searching through it. This time, I set up an account and added a few books, but it would be great to get my whole library recorded here. I really like how it directs you to others with similar book tastes. Great conversation starter! When I do have it updated with the books I own, it would be a great tool to share with my students. They could go to my catalog and see what books I have and decide what they want to check out next! I do have to say that I'm tempted to buy the CueCat so I can easily scan in my books. That little gizmo is just cool! I wandered around in the "Groups" tab for quite a while, finding all different groups I'd love to join. There are some great conversations going about books...a beautiful thing!

Can you not tell I love this site!?

Technology Addict?

June 26, 2009

So, I have had a revelation of sorts about technology and the complete control it has over my life. I was stupid enough to leave my phone next to a glass of tea I was enjoying yesterday. This is not something smart to do when you have a 10-month old puppy running around because as soon as I turned around, the drink was spilling all over my beautiful Blackberry Storm. My bad, but still erked at my dog. As most everyone knows, cell phones and liquid do not mix so I was off to the Verizon store, gimpy cellphone in tow. Thankfully, my husband and I have phone insurance, one thing that helped us make the ultimate decision, "Iphone or Blackberry?" $50 later, I was being shipped a new phone. All was well...but then I had to wait...and wait...and wait...until about 30 minutes ago when my pretty shiny BB arrived! Of course, I'll be making another trip to the Verizon store in a bit to finish up what my goober-of-a-dog started, but for the past 24 hours, I have been cellphoneless.

This did not simply mean no one could call me. It also meant the end of my text messaging and mobile Facebook and Twitter updates. A sad day people...a sad day. So, the message in all this? Well, I can't believe how dependent I have become on my friggin' phone! Seriously Alicia! I used to roam around without a cellphone without a problem. When I finally did have a phone, no one texted me because it did not exist. Now that phones do so much, I rely heavily on this silly piece of plastic and fancy touch screen. It's crazy! Am I now encouraged to give it all up and go back to a life without a cell phone? Well, no. I will just take a moment to revel in my new-found insight. Sheesh...now excuse me. Have to get back to charging my Berry...

Old Blackberry...sad Alicia...

New Blackberry...Happy again!

Thing 15: Digg

June 25, 2009

I think it will take me a while to get used to Digg.com. I did check out the news site, but did not make myself an account. It is a very cool idea, to have people vote on top news stories and share news from different places, but it felt disorganized to me. I won't give up on Digg totally though. I think I'll check back to the site occasionally and see how it has changed and see what news reports have surfaced. I will certainly be able to see news reports I would have otherwise missed out on. I'm so glad that I was able to learn about the "naked thief who stole french fries from Wendy's." :) My life is better for it.

Thing 14: Delicious

June 25, 2009

Love Delicious!! I was first introduced to Delicious at a technology training a couple of years ago. The lady referred to her Delicious page where we could find some great links for classroom use. Well, I had no clue what she was talking about! Once I figured out what it was, and used her links because they were great, I didn't do much else with it. Finally, this school year, I broke down and created my own account. I wanted to have access to great sites at school that I found while I was at home.

This year, I'm going to encourage my colleagues to create Delicious accounts so we can all take advantage of the social side of the site. I didn't consider Delicious to be a social network, but after watching the Common Craft video, I understand it. I am hopeful that by using each other's resources, as good teachers and librarians do, it will be easy for us to all benefit.

I think Delicious will continue to be a great asset when I am a school librarian. As I find sites my teachers would use, I can tag them by subject and grade level. My teachers can access the Delicious site and use anything they find helpful! What a great way to use technology for the benefit of students!

Thing 13: Tagging

June 23, 2009

I have used tagging through my Delicious page, but have not yet seen it being used in libraries. I can certainly see where that would be useful though. We all know there are rules that govern how libraries are organized, but if patrons were able to do it, wouldn't it make sense that it would be a better system? After all, they are the ones that are using the tags and organization. The only problem of course is that the way I would tag an item may not be the way you would. And now we have chaos.

Maybe I'm a little "old school" but I think there needs to be a standard way to organize a library. Books belong on the shelf in an order in my opinion. Maybe the OPAC could allow for tagging to help users find the materials in the database, but then point them in the direction of the book where it is always shelved. If the OPAC had a place where patrons could tag books they have checked out, and users could search by subject and tag, it would help patrons find what they are searching for.

Thing 12: Twitter

June 16, 2009

Tweet Tweet! I am a fairly new user of Twitter, but I love it too! (I think I just love fun techy things really because so far, I'm a fan of all 23 Things!)

Twitter is great for those that do not want to keep up with all the things Facebook has to offer. Its simple format is great and easy-to-understand. Not as many of my friends use Twitter, but slowly more people are beginning to use it. I am proud of my principal who created an account this summer for our campus. She is using it to keep everyone updated with important info. It's also been a great way to "nudge" her staff to branch out and use something new. It's a personal choice, but I haven't chosen to completely block my account to others. For some reason, I feel a bit better about having my account accessible because I don't have as much on my Twitter account as I do on Facebook.

Besides using Twitter, the last time I heard about it was in an article about Twitter. I am trying to access my Twitter post where I shared the article with others, but Twitter is down right now. I will post the link later. It focused on how Twitter is changing the world really. Very interesting idea. It also explained some of the history of Twitter. When the idea of only having 140 characters with which to share ideas and thoughts was presented, many thought it was a crazy idea. Since then, there have been full out discussions and debates involving many people through Twitter. And of course there was the whole Ashton Kutcher-Twitter race. He was the first person to have 1 million Twitter friends. I think I have 23 so he had better watch out!