Task #23

My favorite part about Webolution 3.0 has been learning about blogging and figuring out all the nuts and bolts of it. I've learned a lot just about how to maintain my blog, and I've enjoyed making it my own. I also enjoyed exploring picnik.com some more. There are a lot of neat functions it offers.

Webolution 3.0 has been great. Thanks Nancy and Cari!

Task #22

Wow, Nancy, that TasteSpotting site is making me hungry! The desserts look fantastic, and there several options for vegetarians - very cool. I'm not much of a cook, but this site might actually turn me into one. I think I'll try to make Hearty Vegetarian Chili - sounds good for this time of the year.

Neal showed me poemhunter.com which is a site that I use frequently. You can look up poems by title or poet, which I find very helpful. There is also a "Poem of the Day" and links to poetry contests. If you like poetry or are looking of a particular poem, check it out.

Task #21

Shanna showed me Picnik a few months ago, and I've been using it a lot. It's a great photo editor. I used it on a PowerPoint presentation a couple of months ago, and I recently used it to help me create my CAL poster board presentation on the last Summer Library Program. Today, I used the sketch function on my employee picture. I think it looks pretty cool.

Task #20

On the Mesa County Government website, I looked up where I live. I also browsed some of the articles that are posted on the site, which I have never looked at before. I noticed too, that there are links about H1N1 and taxes - both links that I'm sure are looked at a lot.

On the State of Colorado site, I looked up a change of address form for voter registration. I also explored the tourism link, looking at the events and activities I could get involved in.

Lastly, I spent some time in the Ben's Guide to the Government. I thought if was a useful site for kids and parents to use as they learn more about the government. I like that a person can print out games and activities and that it gives links to government sites as well - very helpful site to remember.

Task #19

I got a 100% on the wiki quiz. It seemed much easier than the website quiz, but I did discover the FAQs, Promo Materials, and Branch Open Procedures links because of the quiz, so I did learn a few things.

Task #18

Here are some Gandhi quotes that I found. Enjoy.
tinyurl.com/yjbojus


I'm really impressed by Tiny URL. What a great shortcut, and I think it's good that they have the preview link option, just in case the recipient is suspicious of the links credibility.

With Zamzar I tried my hand at converting a youtube video into an mpg file. It worked just fine. Actually, the most difficult part of the conversion was finding the video after I downloaded it...But the search was successful, so here is "Soul Meets Body" by Death Cab for Cutie:

Task #17

The first site I checked out was ResourceShelf. I browsed the latest newsletter and then read these articles: one about the U.S. Government Printing Office recently printing the Federal register on 100% recycled paper, one about the UK public libraries witnessing a spike in their check outs once they started offering ebooks, and one that described the new Microsoft Research database. I think the newsletters could be very helpful resource to keep up on the latest library and research information.

I also checked out a site called Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki. The premise of the wiki is that libraries from all over can share programs and practices that they find particularly successful. The hope of the wiki-creators is that it can be a one-stop link, a collection of innovative practices. I looked at the Youth Services link and the Display page. There weren't many entries, but I think this could be a good resource as more libraries use it. It seems fairly new.

Task #16

I downloaded OpenOffice to my staff computer. The layouts seem very similar to Microsoft Office, which is good because it follows the standards that most of us are used to. I'm not sure I see myself employing it much though; I mean if I didn't already have Microsoft, then I definitely would. However, if there is something that I'm trying to create on a Microsoft program and I just can't quite make it work, I'll check out OpenOffice and see if one of its programs will do the trick.

I'm really impressed that OpenOffice is totally free and available to everyone. I'll spread the word to patrons who mention that they don't have the Microsoft package. (I wish I had known about it a few years ago when I bought my laptop and Microsoft Office. I could have saved myself some dough.)

Task #15

I was able to upload the software for Clipmarked, but when I made clips and tried to post it onto my blog, I couldn't find them. I tried twice, with no trace of my efforts. Carol and Marian said they ran into the same difficulties, which makes me relieved that the problems weren't just with me. I guess I'll stay posted and see if anyone else is able to get their clippings to work.

Task #14

I downloaded the NetLibrary media center to my staff computer. I decided to explore all the children's literature and was surprised to see how limited NetLibrary's selection is, especially the classics. I chose to download Peter Pan, thinking that it would be fun to listen to on my breaks. The downloading went fine. I wanted to burn Peter Pan onto a CD because of the limited space on my MP3 player, but found out on the troubleshooting page that NetLibrary doesn't allow you to burn an audiobook onto a CD. Bummer.

Task #13

Using SoundSnap, I downloaded a snippet of ocean water hitting rocks on the Mexican coast. It's a little over a minute, and very soothing. Makes me want to go back to Mexico and sit on the beach.

There are a couple of great ways that Youth Services could use SoundSnap. I bet Shanna will show it to the teens creating their book trailers. I also thought about using it for sounds needed in the puppet show recordings and even during story times. The library as a whole could use it for sound effects on the website, different sounds for different icons. There are a number of cool possibilities.

I also looked at ccMixter and found an artist named _ghost. I was attracted by their name. I've never seen a musician use an underscore in their name. The _ghost song I listened to is called "Ice and Chilli." (It sounds like a poem title to me.) Anyway, the song is an awesome mixture of sound effects and instrumentals. There is a beautiful piano solo at one point and the ending's cool.

Task #12

I've used Novelist a little bit, so I'm glad this was one of our tasks. I learned a number of helpful tools. I will definitely be using the 'Author Read-Alikes' function for my own personal reading. Unfortunately, it appears they do not have this tool on Novelist K-8, which is really too bad because there are many parents and kids who ask about similar authors. However, the 'Recommended Reads' is a helpful resource that I have shown patrons when asked about similar reads, and I plan on using it even more. Also, I was really pleased to be told about the 'Series Title' search. This search seems easier than the KDL's What's Next search. And lastly, I played with the 'Describe a Plot' search. This may come in handy in the future too. I'll have to compare it to All Readers plot search. (I haven't had much success with All Readers.)

Task #11

The Book Report Network is a wonderful resource. I was so impressed by it that I bookmarked it on my computer. I checked out kidsreads.com. There, I clicked on to the link called "Cool and New" and saw all the latest and popular children's books. Kidsreads.com will be a very helpful tool for me as I do reader's advisory and find books for our own collection. I also explored authoryellowpages.com. I looked up some information on Neil Gaiman. His page reminded me that I wanted to read his comic books about the Sandman and his novel American Gods. (I will record them on my goodreads account, as books I would like to read.)

Using the Biography Reference Center, I decided to continue looking up more information on Neil Gaiman. I found out that he first read Alice in Wonderland when he was five, and read the book continuously for the next seven years. He was in a punk band when he was sixteen. As a teen he told his career counselor that he wanted to write American comics and the counselor, dumbfounded, could simply suggest looking at a career as an accountant. Could you imagine if he went into acccounting?! What a loss that would have been! Another interesting tidbit was that he started his writing career as a journalist and wrote his first book about Duran Duran called Duran Duran: The First Four Years of the Fab Five. Not only has Gaiman written comics, plays, children's books for all ages, adult fiction and non-fiction, but he has even written an episode for Babylon 5 - talk about versatile and gifted! Gaiman never ceases to amaze me.

Task #10

I'm glad that I watched the EBSCO search tutorial. I didn't know that we could search for images through EBSCO host. EBSCO image search can be one more resource for those of us in Youth Services, as we create story time kits. I also discovered the notetaking function and the link to the dictionary - both very useful tools. I like that Webolution makes us look at sites more closely. There are numerous gems just waiting to be found.

For my Consumer Reports search, I looked up articles on iPods. In the process I also found some information on iPhones. There is a lot of information on both, and the articles are pretty up-to-date. I found several written in the past two months.

I used the Biography Reference Center to look up information on one of my favorite poets, Billy Collins. I found five articles on him. This surprised me because he is pretty popular, at least for a contemporary poet. One cool fact that I learned about Collins is that that he started publishing later in life, when he was 47 years old. He has been pretty prolific, considering his more recent start in the publishing world. (Of course, he started practicing his craft at twelve and had aspirations to be at least a writer in his tween years.)

Task #9

I made a website with Weebly. At first I found the format a bit clunky and foreign, but with Shanna's help and some tinkering, I was able to upload a picture from jamendo.com and a youtube video. My website is fairly basic right now, but it's a good start.

I decided to incorporate some of my favorite pieces of art. My on-going project will be to start with one of my favorite poems and then find a painting and song that connect with the piece.

Check out my website and the project I did on red poppies at http://dialectsfaves.weebly.com/.

Task #8

I thought Creative Commons was a cool site! I looked up some Dali and Picasso paintings on flickr and found some great Celtic music by an artist named Adragante (he's actually French) on jamendo. I can definitely see myself using flickr and jamendo in the future, for example, when I make a website for Task #9. I think patrons would benefit from CC, when they create websites, upload images onto their Facebook, remix their own music (I'm thinking about Josh now), and produce video (Gail). (Shanna mentioned that she will have the teens use CC when they create their own booktrailers in a couple of weeks.) I love the possibilities that CC has made available.

Task #7

I chose to sign up with goodreads.com. Shanna had already told me about this site and I was planning on exploring it anyways. I like the fact that I can keep track of the books I've read, rate them, and generate a list of the books that I'm intending to read. It's a helpful way to organize all of my personal reading info. Plus, as I read children's literature, I can write up reviews and have a handy place to keep track of all my reader's advisory info. Very cool. I also like the fact that I could find other people who work in children's libraries. They could be a good resource for me.

When I looked at the Boulder Library Good Reads account, I noticed that not many patrons or staff have been using it. Maybe it's a new program, but as far as creating a Good Reads account for our website, I'm not completely convinced that it would get much use. It could be a really cool resource, but we would definitely have to publicize, and publicize it some more, it to get patron response.

Task #6

I like that the Ohio Library mission page points out that every patron maintains a personal meaning of what a library is. My favorite one that they mentioned is that a library, for some, is a place with bad parking. I think that's funny because parking never enters my mind - unless I can't find any. I usually think of the resources inside of a library - shelves of books, helpful librarians, computer labs, study areas, etc. The discussion about individual perceptions regarding libraries is important, because if we know the prevailing opinions of our library, we can either try to modify them or create new ones. We can serve individuals better if we know how they feel about their library experiences.

I also found the Houston Library Customer Service 123 link helpful. I took the Attitude Quotient Test on the Staff Role page and scored high. I guess I like what I'm doing - there's a shock! But seriously, the page brings up an important issue - the staff, the environment we create by our attitudes is what patrons respond to. It doesn't matter how high-tech we are or how many new books and DVDs we have, if no one wants to be around the staff! The library is a community center and it is important to communicate the kinds of behaviors that create a sense of community.

Task #5

I have used the first method many times to place multiple holds. This method is okay. It works, but I was really pleased to learn about the second method. It seems to go faster and I think it is much more user-friendly than the first. I like the fact that you just stay in the catalog until the very end. I think that patrons would prefer it over the first, and I know that, from now on, I will be using the second method at work, and at home.

Task #4

I tried to create a FaceBook account and was unsuccessful. There was a pop up about not accepting my name. I'm not sure what that's all about.

Anyway, I created a MySpace account instead. I entered some profile info and uploaded my picture, but I didn't get fancy and in-depth with it. I figure it could be an on-going project if I get really in to it. Right now I have mixed feelings about MySpace. It seems cumbersome to use. Perhaps I need to just tinker with it some more...

Task #3

I missed two. Boo. Oh well. I learned that the sitemap is very helpful. I also learned that our catalog page has several links on it that I had never noticed before - Suggest a Purchase, Interlibrary Loan form, and the Events. I'm glad I took the quiz. There is so much information on our website!

Task #2

I already had an account with Pandora but I haven't used it much, so I thought I would explore Pandora some more. I made two new radio stations - The White Stripes and The Red Hot Chili Peppers. I like the thumbs up and down function, which I have never used before. Also, I learned that when you click on a song, you can pull up the full lyrics - very cool. I like reading lyrics.

One thing that I don't like about Pandora is that it only lets you skip about seven songs per hour. Dang licensing! I also don't like that I got a pop up for an advertisement while plugging in some profile info. Did you know that you can play Scrabble and win at Subway?!

Task #1

The hardest part about this task was deciding what to call my blog. I went with something generic for now. I'll change it once I think of something more creative.

8/14/09
What do you think of the new name? I thought it was a little more clever than "Di's Page" (and apparently, less offensive!)