A few of my favorite things

In the spirit of embedding images (and playing with image generators), I thought I'd show you all a few of my favorite things.

Wikis and add-ons and plug-ins....oh my!

This week relatively easy for me. I've created wikis before for collaborative projects while I was in grad school. Using them was so much easier than having to email documents and presentations back and forth. We also have a youth services wiki at my library where people can post booklists, programming ideas and calls for help. Unfortunately, it's not updated very frequently. It could be such a handy tool (especially for new librarians like me!), but I don't think there has been much push for more consistent use of it.

The wiki I created for this week is on WetPaint. You can view it here: D's Reads. I've used WetPaint and PBwiki in the past and see positives and negatives with each. I think WetPaint is super easy to use and that the navigation is easier to use. However, the free version contains a lot of advertising on the page, which can make it look cluttered. PBwiki is also relatively easy to use, but I don't like the navigation structure and find adding pages to be a little bit more difficult.

As for the plug-ins and add-ons...they're neat, but I don't know that I have much use for them right now. I did customize my Firefox browser at home and wish I had found Zotero while I was still in college and had tons of resources that needed organizing and citing. However, uber-customization just doesn't matter that much to me. All of our library computers use Internet Explorer anyway, so I wouldn't really benefit from any of those things professionally anyway.

Things 4, 5, & 6

I'm starting to feel like I'm in the middle of a Dr. Seuss poem. As you can see, I've been fiddling with the design of my blog. I didn't realize there were more background options! I want to make it even fancier but don't have time at the moment to figure out how.

So, onto the reason why we're here. This week was relatively easy for me, since I already have a Google Reader and Delicious account. Google Reader has quickly become one of my favorite things. When I was first introduced to blogs, I found it quite cumbersome to visit each distinct site to stay updated. Then a friend showed me how to set up an RSS feed and voila! All of my news is there for me in one place. Sometimes it starts to get out of hand though. Yes, all of my feeds are coming to one place, but when you sign in and see you have 50-100 new posts to read, it can be pretty overwhelming. When I start to feel bogged down I will re-examine my subscriptions. Are there blogs I'm just scrolling through without reading? Has the tone of the blog changed so that I don't find it interesting anymore? Once I've answered those questions, I'll go through and delete some subscriptions.

Before yesterday, I hadn't signed into my Delicious account in awhile. It was neat to go through and see the sites I'd bookmarked about a year ago. Although I haven't used it recently, I actually really love this tool and see such great potential for it in libraries. At my library, we often get emails from staffers sharing a cool website they've found. But who wants to have keep all of those emails? If they added it to a Delicious account, not only would all of that information be in one place, but it would be searchable. Searchabilty is key because what good is awesome information if you can't find it??

And finally, Google Alerts, Social Mention and Addictomatic. I think all of these are useful tools, but my favorite was Addictomatic. I loved the set up and how information was aggregated from many different sources on one page. I tried to add a Social Mention widget to my page (see below), but I'm not sure it's correct. It doesn't seem to be displaying my search terms. If anyone has insight, please share!

I'm not sure how much these last 3 tools fit into my daily routine since my library has a separate PR department that handles 99% of our marketing. I think they would benefit immensely from them, though.

Off to add some more blogs to my Reader!

Technology makes me tired.

I'll admit that when I start thinking about myriad ways to gather information today, I just want to close my eyes and take a nap. Have you read the latest Tweet? FB post? Blog? Created a YouTube video? A Glog? A podcast? AHHHHHHHHH! It's odd, because I am part of the generation who grew up with a computer in the house, but I also remember a time when technology didn't take over every aspect of my life. We didn't play video or computer games when I was little, but we played. We didn't read e-books on e-readers, but we read. The dependence on technology was definitely much lower.

But when I stop and take a breath, I have to acknowledge that technology plays such an integral part of my life. I have a cell phone, a Facebook page, participate in posting my book reviews on Shelfari, have created a wiki, and (now) a blog, subscribe to various blogs I read regularly on Google Reader and basically expect to be able to find whatever information I need at the drop of a hat. And when I really stop and think, I wouldn't have my MLIS right now if it weren't for technology (I took all of my courses online). So while I sometimes feel overwhelmed by the prospect of keeping up with everything, I am also grateful (most of the time) that all of these new ways to connect are available.

We do see these changes in libraries as many, if not most, now have a virtual presence. Databases are available online 24/7, you can log into your account and look for books, place holds, and renew items, and you can sign up for events, all without talking to one human being! Are librarians being replaced? Of course not. But we are doing more to meet our patrons where they're at.

Because I'm not hip the technology vibe, I looked at some of Jill's "favorite" things and was really interested in ScreenToaster. This is a screen capture, video-making tool, similar to Camtasia. From what I understand, Camtasia is a program you have to purchase and may take a little training to use. But Screentoaster is free and seems simple enough that even the tech-phobes like me can handle. I think it would be an excellent tool for librarians. Think of the "how-to" videos we can post online to help our patrons! How-to look for books, how-to use the databases, how-to sign up for a library card.....you get my drift. :)

Let the journey begin!

You would think that after 25 straight years of being a student, I'd just want to give it a rest. But not 6 months after graduating with my MLIS, I'm already taking more classes! I signed up for the 21 Things for 21st Century KidLibs because I am a brand new children's librarian (barely 3 weeks in) and wanted to gain a better understanding of how to utilize new technology in order to better serve my patrons. I'm familiar with a lot of Web 2.0 technologies but realize that there is always more I can learn.

I'm especially interested in the idea of creating a behind-the-scenes blog for staff. As a new librarian, I'm beginning to understand that my colleagues are invaluable sources of information about everything from programming and reader's advisory to how to handle customer service issues. It can be quite a shock to discover how great the chasm is between theory and practice. I've often thought that if there was just one central place where staff could share this kind of information it would be incredibly helpful for newbies like me to gain a foothold.

I'll admit that I have a bit of first day jitters-you know, that feeling you get when the professor hands you the syllabus and you have absolutely no idea how you're going to get all that work done. But it's feeling like this now that makes the success of accomplishment even sweeter.