SlideShare

SlideShare just might work for me! I've got digitization on the brain at the moment, so I searched for Slideshows on that topic. Found one from which I learned some stuff. I marked it as a favorite, added 2 tags, & also left a comment. I tried to embed it in my Blog post, via the little icon below that slideshow's thumbnail. I didn't think it worked, so I eventually went back & followed the instructions included in Thing #15. Long story, short is that I finished my blog & posted it. Then when I viewed my blog, I had 2 of those slideshows!! And one of them was covering up half the text of my blog! Sigh............. Was hoping I could just click on it & delete it, but no, it couldn't be that easy! So I saw where I could edit my blog post. I was feeling pretty smug! But......I still couldn't figure out how to edit that second slideshow out of there! So as a last resort, I figured out how to delete the entire blog posting. And that's what I did. So what you're reading is my second attempt at blogging about SlideShare.

Ok, here's the slideshow I'm embedding. (This had better work.)

Gettingstartedwithdigitalcollectionsweb[1]

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own.

It took me awhile to figure out how to add "nebraskaccess" as a contact. When I'd do a search for "nebraskaccess", I'd be taken to all slideshows with that tag. I can't really remember how I finally got it, but I stumbled across it somehow. Yay! (Story of my life! - - stumbling across things, that is.)

My SlideShare account can be found at:
http://www.slideshare.net/rockinreference

And I also uploaded one of my own PPT slideshows to my account. Hopefully I can embed it!

Libray\'s electronic resources

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: databases electronic)

Delicious

Now THIS looks useful! I quickly found a link to "20 Great Online Image Editors" that was cool. So I experienced success right out of the chute! I do like all the tagging that people have done. It makes it easy to search for relevant websites. This particular Online Image Editors link was bookmarked by 560 users who left 22 comments & had 2 main tags.

For the NebraskAccess site I would probably assign these tags: databases, nebraskaccess, resources, articles, reference

I really liked how Holdrege Public Library put a Delicious tagroll on their website! Pretty cool! Our library's website is just one part of our entire city's website. In order to keep uniformity amongst all the city departments, we are very structured in what we can & cannot add to our webpages. So putting a tagroll on our website probably won't happen. But I can certainly see myself, personally & professionally, using Delicious.

And now I think I'm going to try creating a Delicious account. Wish me luck!

Twitter

I read the twitter articles to familiarize myself with what twitter was, before I dove in & created an account. I figured out how to tweet a few times, how to follow 3 tweeters, and how to get my photo downloaded into my Profile. But I tried on 2 different days to use the "Search" feature to search for a particular person and also to search for mentions of my library. Both days, I was greeted by a screen saying that that feature was temporarily disabled. So no luck there!

I'm not a fan of twitter just yet. I always try to think of something positive about each new technology, but I have to agree with another classmate's comment that I just don't see the need to share random thoughts with people. I'm sure they have better things to do with their time than to follow a miscellaneous tidbit from me. Anyway, I guess I feel that I have better things to do with my precious, limited time than to follow someone's random thoughts. But I kind of liked the NLC Reference one. Those are real questions that need answering. So I could maybe see twitter being used as a reference service in my library. But on a personal level--- it probably isn't going to happen.

P.S. HOW did some of you overachievers change the look of your blog background to be something personal? All I saw were ready-made templates to choose from?

LibraryThing

I created a LibraryThing account & added about a dozen titles. The most fun was to see immediately just how many other people out there had read & "cataloged" the very same titles! I confess that none of the recommended titles grabbed my attention right away. But maybe I just need to spend a bit more time seeing what they're about. Maybe I should add titles to my LibraryThing that I still WANT to read & see how many people have read & cataloged those! I'm not the most creative person, so I'm having a hard time coming up with how I'd use LibraryThing in a public library - - beyond just my personal use.

Here's the link to my LibraryThing catalog:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/referencerocks

Thing #11

Technology. Kind of like a husband - - Can't live with it, can't live without it (at times)! Seriously, I think technology weighs heavier on the pro side than the con side. Our lives have become dependent upon technology. I've recently spent some time in various doctors' offices, enough to witness that technology is imbedded in every part of our lives. Medical records without technology? Kind of scary!

Our library is automated, has 8 OPACs, & provides about 27 computers for the public to use. And they are busy almost constantly! People are applying for jobs, checking their email, sending photos to relatives, doing research, checking out MySpace & FaceBook, goofing off, playing games, composing their Christmas letters, etc. If our library decided to no longer provide technology, we wouldn't know how to function. We wouldn't know how to look up titles, how to tell patrons what they have checked out, or when it's due. How would we renew their items?

Our library also subscribes to a fair amount of electronic databases. These are fabulous! I've used them to locate names & addresses of "missing" persons, to locate books, to research authors & their works, to find articles on varioius topics, to help patrons take practice exams, etc. I wouldn't know how to help our patrons without these electronic resources.

Not to say technology is all peachy-keen. It is when it works as it's supposed to. But when it doesn't, productivity comes to a screeching halt. Our library has invested a fair amount of money in digitizing many years of our local newspapers. A third-party vendor is hosting the site for us. When it works, people from all over the world use the resource to research any number of things. But the site also goes "down" all too often. That's frustrating, cuz you just can't get at the information until it gets fixed. Grrr!

Another item on the con side, is that sometimes I think technology has removed the human interaction that I think is vital. We text, email, blog, etc., but there's no face-to-face or no human voice. Sad. But again, I think the pros outweigh the cons (most days)!

Image Gens 2

Here are more of my photo experiments using various image generators.

Image Gens

Wow! I played around with a lot of Image Generators! Some were fun & kind of cool & others left me wondering what the point was. I will try to upload all the photos/stuff I created. But first, some commentary on the applications.

In The Generator Blog, I created stuff using: Videotape Generator, Photo Notes, Flying Flag, Glowtxt, Stickynotes, and Transfer of Luck. Whenever I could figure out how to do it, I tried to save my creation, so that I could upload it to my blog. With a few of the applications, I couldn't figure out how to save it.

MagMy Pic - I was unsuccessful. Twice I tried to download an image from my thumb drive to create the magazine cover, but nothing ever happened.

FD's Flickr Toys - I created stuff using: Badge Maker, Framer, Magazine, & Bead Art. I had fun doing it!

Mini-READ poster - I created a READ poster using my son's college graduation photo. Fun!

With Custom Receipt Maker, Comicbook Speech Bubbler, Custom Computer Keyboard, & Dynamic Einstein Picture, all I could think of when I was experimenting with each of them, was, "What's the point?"

I liked Dumpr. I created a Rubik's Cube, a Reflection, and Amazing Circles.

P.S. All my photos didn't upload into this single blog entry, so I'll post another blog entry & hopefully include the rest of my photo experiments.

Flickr Fun

I discovered that there are a LOT of very creative people out there with WAY too much time on their hands. Lots of fun stuff, but with some of the apps, I just went, "Huh?"

1. Flickr Color Pickr was just plain fun. I spent way too much time playing
2. Montagr was OK, but it didn't grab me like Color Pickr
3. Color Fields Color Pickr lost my interest
4. An Interesting 2005 also didn't hold my attention very long
5. Bubblr made me think that one might create one's Christmas letter using photos & adding conversation bubbles.
6. Clockr was so-so. But useful? I don't think so.
7. Cover Flow Slideshow - ditto #6
8. I used Dumpr.net to put the Polaroid Spread on my photo of the library's wall mural. Maybe I'll try to upload it, if I'm feeling brave.
9. Favcol was worthless
10. I used FD's Flickr Toys to add a Museum Mat to my photo of the library's landscape. Again, maybe I'll try uploading it. We'll see.
11. Findr might be helpful if you're looking for images of particular things. I would've loved setting some of the images of fall leaves as my computer's desktop, but apparently that's not allowed. Or I just couldn't figure out how to do it.
12. Flappr. Huh?

At this point, I'd had all the "Fun with Flickr" that I could handle.