I'd really like to thank......

............FRIENDS OF THE LIBRARY and Learn & Play!! I won the laptop for completing Learn & Play! How awesome is that? Not only was this a really great experience just to complete, but I got the best prize ever! And me, of all people...I never win anything!!

I'm going to be able to put this laptop to good use too...besides just downloading tons of music...lol. I've got a bunch of history classes coming up...which of course amounts to TONS of papers to write. So with my new laptop and my newfound knowledge of GoogleDocs I'll be ready to rock.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The End?!

Whoa, Learn and Play is done?!?!? I think this was a really great project for us all to participate in. I've learned alot about many different things. Some which I never even thought I would use, such as Bloglines, more about things I use everyday...like YouTube, and others that I am so super glad I now know of, GoogleDocs...hello! :) It was also a great way for colleagues to work together and learn more about each other. :) Especially reading those that you might not see everyday.

And, I did already assist a customer with a problem he was having from what I learned from Learn & Play. He explained to me that he had created a document on Microsoft Publisher and sent it to everyone on his email. When he didn't get many responses from his flyer, one of his friends said that "Many people don't use Microsoft Publisher" so they couldn't view the material he had sent. I then told him about options of using a Wiki or GoogleDocs. That way everything is online. He was really excited to learn about these new things as well.

Learn and Play rocked! I hope that we continue take these types of initiatives in the future. It would have been ver ineffective to have had so many separate classes and trainings for these types of things and it enabled EVERYONE to participate and learn at their own pace. :)

Ewwwww, it's moldy...

Yeah, what an acronym....MOLDI. lol. I've seen this EVERYWHERE, but never did check it out, maybe my subconscious was preventing me from gandering.

Anyways, to the point...this is pretty cool. I was excited to see that you will be able to download onto iPods coming up here shortly. I recently have been toying with audio books. (If you read my previous post about podcasting, I'm not a big fan of someone just yacking on and on.) But, my yard takes 4 hours to cut on a riding mower, so Chris and I have been looking for ways to help pass the time. So instead of me listening to the droning sound of the mower, counting butterflies and stopping every 5 seconds to prevent the death of a honeybee I'm trying audio books. :)

It would be great to be able to just download a title, there were quite a few that looked interesting, I thought there would be like lame-o stuff, but there are new titles as well! The teens here have of course been after me to read Twilight, which was on there too! One thing I did find odd though....why is it that there is a waiting list? Although 65 for Twilight is nothing compared to the waiting list we have right now for the book. I just assumed that it's there, listen and done. Also, you are unable to download Twilight, but could download Acorna for example. Just my wondering.

So MOLDI, even with your weirdo name, you're okay in my e-book. :)

Podcasting

In my search for podcasts I used one of the reccommended listings, podcastalley. I searched for gaming (surprise, surprise) and found The Playstation Show! First off, nothing against podcasting, I think it's a good tool for those who use this. I personally can't stand talk radio, morning shows, or any other non-music broadcasts (with the exception of NASCAR). I play a CD on my way to work each morning so I don't have to listen to the chatter. Sooooooooo, I'm not so YAY on this. But, it was fairly interesting, I did like that I could fast forward through their opening and go to what I was actually wanting to hear. I also liked that I could view what each topic was about before I listened. :)

Minus my personal views, many people do use this regularly and I think it would definitely benefit the library by streaming upcoming events (especially those geared toward teens.) I'm also thinking back to "Dial-A-Story" when I was a kid and I LOVED it! Wouldn't it be great to have stories on podcasts? Kids/Parents could subscribe to listen to a story and we could reach worldwide!! :)

Who you callin' a Tube?

I've been a fan of YouTube for quite some time. My finance' and I look for hilarious videos, scary videos, UFC fights, Rock Band images you name it, all the time. I love YouTube because not only does it give everyone the ability to be a star (which sometimes can be not so good....lol) but also you can find things that you had seen years ago. I love that you can share something you find, it's nice to be able to send videos to family and friends throughout the country and overseas. :) It's a great way to keep in touch, but with even newer things like Skype and oovoo, technology is just getting better and better!

One of my favorite YouTube stars is this guy. Chris and I are "Rock$tar$" in our own, tackling Rock Band and Rock Band 2.....but nothing/no one can hang with this guy. Plus his video abilities are unmatched. :) I wanna grow up to be like this guy.

I have the POWER!

K, so I checked out the Power Tools page. First, I'm so creating a Gmail account for myself....but I played around with StumbleUpon. Um, hello, LOVE THIS! I typed in "funny" and "stumbled" across many different amusing things. Who doesn't need a good laugh? Why else do I love this? I didn't need to create an account to play around on it!! :) Don't get me wrong, I love all the things we are trying, but my lists of email/passwords is growing. :)

Anyways, ha ha, check out this llama I found on there!! :)

And the award goes to...............

So I checked out the first place winner for the "search" catagory considering I was "searching" for something to explore. The winnder was "Tweetscan", I didn't realize this was in cahoots with Twitter. How fun! I found it interesting to search for a topic (I did gaming of course) in Tweetscan and you can see what the buzz is going on about what you've searched. It's cool to see so many different people's points of view on a subject, and almost at right that moment, I think the top one said "posted less than 5 seconds ago." I'm still trying to use Twitter itself on a more frequent basis, to keep in touch with those that I don't see often and now I'm seeing it in an even better light. :) I'm changing my tune a bit about Twitter, it's nice to just pop in a note every now and then instead of a long drawn out blog or email if you want to say something on your mind really quick. And better than texting, cause well, I will soon develop "text thumb" if I'm not careful. lol

Doc-umentary

OMG! Google Docs does Rock! I am so excited that Google has these applications! Friends have told me about online word processors and so forth, but I had yet to find one. This is extremely helpful to me as a college student. Previously, I was forced, yes I mean FORCED, into doing a "team" project with another student in a class I was taking. It just turned out to be a nightmare with trying to coordinate a presentation with someone that lived over an hour away from me. Long story short.....it was back and forth with emails, the correct presentation was overwritten, and my partner was calling me at like 11:30 the night before wanting me to meet up with her. If I would have had Google Docs at the time, life would have been much simpler.

I think this could help the library immensely! Last year I attended a conference with another staff member and this would have been a great way to take a look at the presentation instead of just emailing it back and forth with updates and changes and having to save drafts and blah blah, we all know the song. It was a great presentation, but the beginning work could have been a lot simpler with the help of Google Docs.

Rock on Google Docs, Rock on.

My head's out of the sand.

So the PBWiki wasn't a scary as I thought! I surprised myself by finding it so easy to navigate, edit and post! I really think that this is more of a "one stop shop" to find everyone's blogs and interests. I checked out the Favorite Restaurants as well....sad to say I haven't been to many of everyone's favorites, I'm usually pretty reluctant with food. If I know something's good, I stick with it. But, by seeing what friend's and co-workers have enjoyed, might help me to take the adventure. :) Or maybe not, chicken wings just kick butt. :) Yum-O!

Mix Master Mike Whatcha got to say? Wiki Wiki Wow!

K, had to give props to the Beastie Boys there. :)





Wikis are Sah-weet! :) The Common Craft video on the Learn & Play blog really did help me better understand what they were exactly. I've always just used Wikipedia for classes (but, unfortunately couldn't use that as my "direct" source for my papers...but got me the sources I need!) I think this is a much better way to communicate information as opposed to email and even working groups.

Wikis are way important for libraries, I'd actually like to see us use it a bit more, maybe get rid of the groups we have on CMLsi. I think that it would actually work more smoothly. Maybe. Really, I'd like to do something where'd I'd have to use a wiki. Maybe I'll go camping. :)

Web 2.Oh!

"When you have a program that is exceeding expectations, you have the foundation for success. Empowering the patrons will empower your library." stated George Bishop from Ovid-Elsie Schools, a small rural school library. I read a few articles on Web 2.0, but this one was close to my heart. Advocacy: A Ripple Effect, written by Mr. Bishop, discussed how his small school library has grown and made a significant impact in his community. I too reside in a small town, not even reaching Ovid-Elsie's population of 900. We have a small library, which I have yet to explore, due to its weird hours. It is part of the Newark system, but is barely the size of our back workroom here at New Albany. I feel so priviledged to be able to work at CML and even more so to be able to use the wonderful resources that we have. I would love to see other libraries succeed like CML. Libraries really are the key to not only information, but community, like George Bishop's small library.
Libraries are ever evolving entities, not just a box of books. Just in the 6 years that I've been with CML I've seen changes from self-checkout, to teen gaming, to even online fine payments and now Learn & Play! All of these changes have impacted our system for the better. I still remember as a child being able to check out stuffed animals...and that too changed. I'm looking forward to being a part of this systems growth and continued excellence. :)

Delicious.....YUM

I'm digging delicious! What a great site! I've always bookmarked at home in my "favorites" on the computer and instead of emailing friends saying "Hey check out this site" now I can just share on delicious!" It's kind of a one stop shop. Plus, it's so organized! I too, along with Learn & Play, am a fan of icanhascheezburger.com. :) Here's one I thought you might enjoy!

more animals

LOL! That site's just great. (My secret for finding it was Carrie for sharing it with me a few years ago!)

This is definitely something that I'm glad we were introduced to, and something I'm most definitely going to use. :)

Library Thing

Hmmmmm.....Library Thing. I like the name, but I'm not so sold on the site. Although, I liked putting in my favs and creating a profile, it seems way too indepth for myself. I know alot of my friends and co-workers use it regularly, I guess if I read a bizillion books and needed to keep track of what I've read it would be better. Yes, I do read and I have a small library of my own at home. But really, I don't purchase books too often since I work in a library. I feel it's better for the environment, and my own organizational sanity to just check them out!

Twitter Twatter

I jumped ahead on Learn and Play a little bit so I could check out Twitter. So many people have been talking about it before this started and I always wondered what it was. To me it's a mix of IM and blogging. While I think that this would be a great tool for someone in front of the computer ALL day, I don't think that it's something that would benefit me much. Although, in previous jobs, it would have a been a great help. Ugh, at one time I had my tiny little cubicle in my tiny little corner. Have I ever expressed how much I LOVE MY JOB AND THE LIBRARY!! :)

Sooooooooooooo, twitter....way cool....just not so much for me. :)

LOL! Image Generators

Ha ha ha ha ha! I LOVED this exercise. I chose to create subtitles for a Martial Arts film using fykz.com's Chinese Movie Creator. It's...well....just plain fun. For what I did in a few minutes, I thought was hysterical! What I'd really like to do is learn how these are created, so I can make my own "homegrown". I've used "gangsta name" generators and sites like failblog.org (you should so check this out if you haven't) as generators for fun. This could be great for things like the images created on the Learn and Play site too, a co-worker made a funny picture for me with a computer keyboard key saying "Smine"...kind of an inside joke, but made my day!

Check out my version of a kick "butt" martial arts clip.
http://www.fykz.com/subtitles/display.php?id=3343

So I'm done numbering the "Things" - More Feeding

Ha ha, so that's just plain funny.

On a more serious note, I found a sweet "Library Link of Day" on Bloglines. It has articles ranging from the New York Times to a University of (dare I say) Michigan publication. I read a few articles: "The Road to Wikipedia" and a CNN article about a judge blocked "Harry Potter Lexicon" from being published. I thought that this feed was great for this exercise in "Learn and Play" since I didn't have a particular topic to search for and it was really easy to just browse. This is another "not so pretty" site, but really just a gateway to get you where you want to go. :)

It's pretty easy to find the feeds you need. I think that searching bloglines is the best way and if you happen to stumble across a site that has the feed you can just pop the URL right in your bloglines account, and you'll never lose it!

Thing #8? Feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeds

Firstly, I think I'm kinda off on my "Thing" numbers a bit??

Anyways, I've checked out Bloglines. Not too shabby. The site itself is pretty basic, but as with books, you can't judge by the cover. What a wealth of information! I searched for gaming feeds, and libraries, of course! I found a funny title for a PC gaming forum titled "Rock, Paper, Shotgun!" lol I'm not a PC gamer, but the title drew me in for a gander. Pretty interesting....but while I did find quite few things that suited my needs, one in particular is pure perfection. I found a PS3 forum! Yay for me! And I found some really pertinant information! I usually use my Game Informer magazine as my go to source for upcoming games (I love my PS3, but they sure are slow to come out with games for it!). In the forum though, I found out that a title that I have been DYING (okay, maybe just impatient) to play isn't coming out until January 09 instead of it's original release of September (um, yeah, shoulda been now!)



Bah! So yay for info, phooey on waiting! I guess I would have had to wait until October to be dissapointed if I hadn't checked out Bloglines! :)

Thing #...continued...other Flickr fun!

So I checked out krazydad.com (Flickr third party site) for some different images. This was pretty sweet. My favorite color is blue....but sometimes I go with green...depending on my mood. But anyways, this site was pretty sweet! I played around on the color wheel and depending on the shade different images popped up for that shade. Very beautiful images and of course, in my favorite color! There wasn't any way for me to embed the images from there onto my Blogger....but check it out if you get the chance. Flippin' sweet!

So, where's my flying car!?!?!?

So I'm really getting to thinking about technology and whatnot since we've started this new endeavor here at the library. I guess I've kinda always taken technology for granted since I've grown up along with it. I remember my first game system....ah....my Texas Instruments with it's bulking interface, horrible graphics and a keyboard nonetheless, playing my heart out at GOAL! lol. Now I'm curled up on my couch playing my PS3 with it's lifelike graphics and wireless controllers, trying my hardest to understand Madden 09, but I think I need to grasp football in general. (Chris is such a trooper.) :) I think I've owned or at least played a majority of game systems ever created, and they just keep getting better and better.
But it's not just game systems.....everything around us is "the future". Cell phones are the communicators that Kirk used to get Scotty to "Beam me up"...c'mon Nextel's chirp even sounds similar. Plus, any car made today could totally outdo KIT from Knight Rider...seriously, I don't think KIT could get you to the nearest Starbucks! Go TomTom!

So with all these advancements....internet, cars, phones, games, photos, on and on and on.....don't you think it's time for our flying cars already? I'm ready to scoot around like the Jetsons! (Although, I'm not big on the tube elevator thing they had...they can keep that!) :)

Thing #5: Flickr fun!

I'm usually pretty faithful to Photobucket, but in the name of learning I've checked out Flickr!

So, I found this awesome picture on Flickr of a lion in Munich, Germany. I visited Germany in 2006, my grandmother was born there (my grandfather and her met during WWII and she served as an interpreter for the Allies.) ICH LIEBE DEUTSCHLAND!!!

I of course took BUNCHES of pictures of these lions which are strewn throughout Munich, but none reach this level of maximum coolness! Of course my fav is the drunken lion outside of the historic Hofbrauhaus, but these camera tricks are awesomeness. :)

Pet Peeve or OCD??

Okay, so I'm noticing that I'm rather obsessed with something.

I can't stand default "High Scores" on games. Whether it be "Bejeweled" on my cell phone or Guitar Hero, basically whatever....I just have to get those default scores out of there.....and I won't stop until it's done! I finally knocked out the lingering "Bob" and "Chrissy" (who are these people anyway?)....and well, now I want nothing to do with the game.

learn and play

How great is this? We get to "learn and play"....literally! I'm really excited about our library's move towards educating staff more and more with new and exciting technologies. Just in the past few years we have made so many technological advances, self checkouts, automated sign-up, paying fines online and the list goes on and on...and number one in my mind was bringing gaming into all of our branches! And now this!

I've always thought of myself as pretty techie...but I never did I blog....I always thought....well who would read it? But then again, I read others' blogs, so why not? So if you are reading this, Thanks! You proved me wrong. So welcome to my first blog! Hope to see you again!