Saturday, November 22, 2008

Ten Random Things About Me

This is "bonus" Learn and Play. Some of you may already know these things:

1)My favorite color is blue. Ireally don't like pink that much (it was my sister's favorite color)

2)I was a valedictorian at Watterson High, but never got any public credit for it.

3) I took 4 years of Latin, and traveled to Greece and Italy with my teacher, and some classmates.

4)I have also been to Russia, with the Columbus Children's choir. We took a "cruise" down the Volga river, stopping at towns to sing along the way. I got carbon monoxide poisoning on a bus in Moscow.

5) My favorite place in America is the Adirondaks in New York. I have completed a 30 mile backpack trip, a 50 mile canoe trip, and a 50 mile backpack trip (with mountains). These were all planned by my grandfather, who continued to summer there well into his 80's and was a certified scout guide there.

6)I sang, but never learned to read music or play an instrument beyond basic recorder.

7)I have played djembe at a live show in a Columbus bar.

8)I originally wanted to be an architect. I took a tour of the in-construction OSU Horseshoe and have "blueprints" from the trip.

9)I invented the "magna broom" to pick up magnetic objects for a scince fair. I never patented it, and now they can be found at many hardware stores. I missed out!

10)I taught myself to balance and roll on a barrel. I could roll forwards, backwards, and turn the barrel. I can also do a headstand with my legs bent in the lotus position so i look like a seal.

Learn and play at an end?

This is my last official post for learn and play. I will cover some Q and A, and then leave any final thoughts. I hope to keep up a blog about various things, and i will have time to actually reflect on my personal life now that I will be done with school in a few weeks.

What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?
I discovered a lot through this program. There is a Web 2.0 app for almost everything out there. I can't wait to compile sites for Delicious, explore and upload pictures on Flickr, and read many more way too amusing blogs through my RSS aggregator.

How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals? I will continue to peruse the Internet for more handy sites. I just learned about some reader's advisory sites that are like Pandora only for books (and one for movies) that i want to try on my own time. My computer sites will be more organized, and hopefully so am I. I also want to look into starting an online business, so knowing what is out there, or how to look for it will be a big help.

Were there any take-aways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?
I was unaware of the variety and creativity of the free programs available on the web. i never really read blogs before, but now i have found some with great information or inspiration. The computer has become an even more important tool for me now.

What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?
There seemed like a lot of stuff to go over and some of it was redundant. Some things we wrote multiple blogs about (like wikis), but there was not much more to say about them: it should have been one "thing". i appreciated the extra time as being a 20 hour staffer, I barely had time to get this done with my other duties too. Blogging about everything seemed like a bit much too. If you contributed to the library's wiki site, than that should have counted for the "thing", instead of having to blog about it as well. Overall though a very good and helpful program.

If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you again chose to participate? I would love to participate again. i think some of these things should be mandatory to know, especially for staff who work in reference or tech. If you can not navigate MOLDI, then that is not good customer service. I think these programs enhance the person and their skills to help others, become more efficient etc. i always look for ways to improve myself, so i would do this again.

Our branch has started its own wiki with important info, and fun stuff too. I think we have gotten to know each other better, which contributes to better team work and relationships within the branch, and throughout CML. I think this will continue and congratulate CML for hosting such a successful program. i hope other's that did not complete the program now, still explore some of these things [ I am happy to help :)], to see how technology can help them. Kudos.

Not MOLDI at All!

I have looked at our digital collection before, but mostly for the movies. There are a few interesting ones, but they are not current films, so may have less of an interest to the general public. I am pretty impressed with the audiobooks though. I looked up "Twilight", a popular teen book (and now movie), and MOLDI did have the 3 books in the series on their site. There is quite a waiting list, which means that it is being used, but also there might not be enough copies. I also saw that it checked out for 14 days, which means you would want to listen to it right away. Downloading only one at a time would be the best way to go. I only occasionally listen to audiobooks, since I don't drive much, and the bus is often too loud to hear them well. I think it is a great program though, and sure to grow. Many cars manufactured now have an AV jack that allows you to plug your MP3 player directly into the stereo. This makes listening to downloaded books in your car very easy. Maybe I could listen to them while exercising? Anyway, I'm glad that we are leading the way on providing our customers with these types of products.

Monday, November 17, 2008

I'm a library Geek

I can't help it. i love the library. I find myself saying (almost) every day: "You should get that at the library", or "I picked that up from the library". I heard someone talking about how she love the library and was going to spend her birthday there, and she was not being sarcastic at all. It made me smile. So when I was encouraged to find a library related podcast, I just had to pick Library Geeks as my podcast to follow. I have not really had time to give it a thorough look over, but i am geeky about libraries, so it must be up my alley. Speaking of, i used Podcast Alley to find this podcast. I like the browse feature, and how the listings expand to give a brief explanation about the cast. Then you can click to add it and get more info before you commit. Many of the library casts seem very specific to their system, which is fine, but not necessarily interesting to me. It makes sense to have a podcast on upcoming events, new items, and upcoming technology that your patrons would be interested in. I will have to explore more to see if i can get into pod casts. I usually prefer to read. Imagine that!

Saturday, November 15, 2008

You tube fun



I have been using You Tube for a long time now. Usually what happens is a friend says "have you seen..." and I just have to see it. So I go on and search, and there it is: The funny, crazy, insane video that everyone in America has seen except you until now. TV show snippets are fun, especially news show gaffs and interviews gone awry. I know some people who made short comedy films and posted them for all to see. I think it is a great creative outlet. The library could have intro videos to different parts of the website. A "how to" for using Aquabrowser could be linked to the catalogue for first time users. There is a lot of potential for video sharing, but a lot of fun there too.

Power tools

When the library first came out with their Power Tools page, I immediately looked at it. I loved the idea of LibraryThing and StumbleUpon. I have used the catalogue plug in too, and have found it to be convenient and helpful when there is something I want to quickly look up. I think this site is a great resource for patrons who want to get their web 2.0 feet wet, but are not ready to dive. It has a lot of helpful information for everything as basic as Gmail, to advanced as twitter. I will use this page in the future for its handy links, and direct others to it too.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

More 2.0

I want to do some more browsing myself on these sites, because I could see some great apps for personal use. This site has logos which you can scroll over to get more info on each program. You can search for a term or browse in their common tags. I saw an interesting planning site, and a place to sell your own goods.

I went to another place that ranks apps and gives rewards to the top ones. They probably cannot visit every single one out there, but the ones they have chosen are sure to work easily. I checked out the list of winners and picked Yelp from the “reviews” section. From the Columbus page, a reference librarian can easily help someone find a computer repair store, copy center, or good place to eat. If you search for CML, you will find 3 reviews! The database is not comprehensive, but anyone can add a review and pictures. Check it out and add your favorite place to go in Columbus.