#23 I am crossing the finish line!!

I can not believe I finally made it to the finish line! It was not easy for me to make the fist step, but at the end, I only have positive comments about this project. I found that I am not as computer illiterate as I thought I was.

I discovered a few useful tools I never would have the chance to use if it is not for this project. After getting over the anxiety and frustration, I do enjoy the excitement of learning new tools and I plan to continue to use these new tools.

Very likely I will participate in other similar project in the future; however, it will definitely work out better for me if it goes a slower pace.

Finally, I want to thank you, QL L2.0 team: your continuous support and encouragement made the learning process smooth and fun. Thank you.

#17 Playing with Wiki

Wiki is the last exercise I am doing before I cross the finish line #23, brcause I want to spend more time to check out Wiki sites and learn how to edit or create a page. Library Success is very impressive and I would like to work on the site in the future since I have already signed up an account there. It is a great idea for librarians to share ideas and sucess stories in an informal way, and this is a right place to contribute. Today, I did my exercise on a different site, just to see how the process works. http://www.wikihow.com/Sandbox/How-to-Grill-Tri-Tip

QL Digital Media

Although I have known QL offers a good digital media collection, I never really take the time to go and check that out before I start this exercise. Follow the steps to search through the collection, I ended checking out three titles in my ditigal cart, one OverDrive video, one OverDrive Audio Book and one Adobe e-book. It took a long time for me to finally download OverDrive Media Console and update the security code. 900+ titles seems a big collection, but I find the collection is too limited. And I don't think QL has enough publicity of this service to reach out to the community.

Podcast

I explored Podcast.net where there is an ocean of various podcasts. By entering the keyword "library or librarian", I was directed to some interesting podcasts. That is "Check It Out - Produced by the Sausalito Public Library - Show #101: Es Cuba with author Lea Aschkenas Podcast Date: Jul 6, 2006 14:20:28". It is an interesting interview with author Ms. Aschkenas who spent three years to write Es Cuba and half year to edit it. She talked a lot her experience of Cuba. I think if we can add this format to our book discussion group, I bet it will add a lot more fun. Our customers love to hear author talks.

I want to point it out that I did have to download QuickTime Player before I was able to listen the podcast. It also took some time for me to figure it out how to add this podcast to my RSS feed in my Blogline account. But I did it. And that accounts.

You Tube

You have to be dead not to know what You Tube is about. I have tried a couple of times in the past exploring the site, but it is just too much for me and I got discouraged. Unless you are uploading your video or you know what you are looking for, you could spend hours not geting much out of it. This time I did watch a few interesting videos, but still it is too time consuming and I am not into visual stuff. I also come across porno videos that don't belong there. I wish the site can be better controlled. Here is one of the video I watched.

Web 2.0 Tools

Craigslist is one of the familiar websites for me. I was told it first started in California, then spread over to many other locations. It is amazing that so much information can be posted on the site and shared by millions of online users. I like the site because it is easy to use and it is a great tool to get yourself familiar with a community, look for an apartment or a house, to sell or buy anything or everything. My husband and I sold a few things posted there. One thing you have to be very careful is that there are plenty of scams there. As for library, this is not a choice.

Google Docs is a life saver.

Google Doc is so straight forward and the only thing I can say at this point is that I wish I discover this tool early. I can think of many times in the past when my life could be much less hectic if I used Google Doc. Now if I work on a document at home, I can easily to see or edit it in the library or vice versa, so I don't have to carry around my flash drive all the times. I also like the sharing idea. That means different librarians can share spreadsheets of book orders to speed up our selection process. Who says Learning 2.0 is a waste of time! I think I actually start enjoying the exercises!

Top ten Facebook app for librarians

Although I have not signed up an account in facebbok, I do have some knowledge of this popular social network site through my teenage son. It is also a surprise to find out how much your employer can monitor your activities on Facebook. Apparently this is a much better choice of social network then MySpace as I was told.

Among the top ten Facebook app for librarians, I will definitely vote for del.icio.us and Book iRead. As a librarian, I will want to recommend Book iRead to my customers.

Wiki

A Wiki allows a group of people to collaboratively develop a website without any knowledge of HTML. How simple and convenient could that be?I have used many wiki sites for various purposes in the past and always find they are user friendly and very informative. My recent trip to east European countries relied on very much a travel website that posts articles, comments and tips contributed by travelers who shared their experiences. Some of them are not normally you would read from a travel book.
I enjoyed reading Library Success Wiki site very much. These are talks about what we do everyday. Some of the programming ideas are imformative. Unfortunately I did not see much under the catagory of gaming. Gaming is new at my library but already attracted a steady group of youngsters. And I think we can do more.

What does Library 2.0 mean to me?

According to "Library 2.0 Theory: Web 2.0 and Its Implications for Libraries" by Jack M. Mannes, "Web 2.0, essentially, is not a web of textual publication, but a web of multi-sensory communication. It is a matrix of dialogues, not a collection of monologues. It is a user-centered Web in ways it has not been thus far." Library 2.0 is defined as “the application of interactive, collaborative, and multi-media web-based technologies to web-based library services and collections,”. Library 2.0 is "user-centered, provides a multimedia experience, it is socially rich and commonly innovative." To my understanding, Web 2.0 has been penetrating into almost everybody's life no matter how much you are aware of it. And the fact is Library 2.0 has entered into the library community no matter how much we want to ignore it. Library 2.0 is a user-centered virtual community. The tranditional ways of providing public services have to be collaborated by the next generation of electronic library. What do all these mean to me? It means I need to keep updating my knowledge and skills in order to continue serving the community.

Experience in Technorati

I am confused about keyword searching Learning 2.0 in tags and in blog directory, although I managed to read so many blogposts about learning 2.0. I also had great fun wondering around and exploring popular blog, searches and tags. I find tons of blogs on learning 2.0 and realize that so many people are in the same boat as I am, such as "anxiety over the frustraing excitement of learning new things". In her video, Helene mentions the purpose of learning 2.0 is for us to learn new tools to serve the customers better, because the tranditional ways of providing public service is just not enough any more. That is the reason I am still trying to finish the tasks. I do say I am inspired by other peoples blogs and thoughts and I have to move forward, not to be left behind.

Learning about tagging

http://del.icio.us/ (a social bookmarking)appears to be most useful tool so far. However, when I first log in the website before going through resources, I was completely lost. Going back to the resource, I found that the short video from Otter group is easy to understand and follow; while Us.ef.ul. A beginners guide to Del.icio.us is so confusing. The article at http://krl2pt0,%20while%20wordpress.com/2007/09/23/setting-up-a-delicious-account/ is actually what I can follow to sign up my account, install buttons...
In QLL2.0 account, I was able to read some blogs posted by other participants. "Stream of Consciousness 23-1/2 things" says just what I am thinking. Of course, I posted my comments...
I plan to use del.icio.us in the future to help organize my searches on various topics.

Image generators: Letter James Excise

Here is a picture from letter James.
http://http://www.letterjames.com/start.php?Olpd00v9Cd9Tr5b51Bah88PYI22KXe

Rollyo

Rollyo exercise does not appear to be difficult, however, finding time to complete this simple task is not that easy. I follow the steps: create a acount first and start a searchroll. I think I have to find other time to really benefit from using Rollyo... here is my link to Julia"s Rollyo: http://rollyo.com/editroll.html?sid=334881

LibraryThing

So far, I have to say that Libraything is the easiest task since I started queenslibrarylearning 2.0. The fun part is that after I created my catalog, I was directly linked to the people who read the same books and some of the reviews are also interesting to browse through. I think this is one of the sites I will continue to use from now on. http://www.librarything.com/catalog/jhua

Bloglines

After signing up an account at www.bloglines.com, I started to subscribe different feeds that interest me, including BBC News and National Weather Channel that I regularly use. Going through some of the most popular feeds also became a good experience. “The Shifted Librarian” immediately drew my attention. The articles about gaming in public library are just what I am interested in reading. And I realized that I can share the following with my co-workers: “At last month’s Internet Librarian conference, we learned that among other services for seniors, the Old Bridge Public Library in New Jersey was planning to hold a Wii tournament for older adults. Why on earth would a library do this?” Computer games have become more and more popular among seniors for obvious reasons. Why don’t we try it at QBPL?

Thoughts on Technology

Years ago when I was in library school, I remember my professor once said in class "Information means power!", "People who hold information are the most powerful". Twenty years later, the fact is TECHNOLOGY MEANS POWER! Nothing has been developed more rapidly than technology specially in the past decade. All 23 1/2 things in Learning 2.0 have been developed in recent years and all have played an more and more important part in everybody's life. I am glad I have the opportunity of participating in this project and I know I will go through with it no matter how time comsuming it is for me.

The #5 and #6 tasks turned out to be an easy and fun job. I was able to post a picture I took before and upload some pictures in Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/freshmeadows/1640625668/ . I also created a trading card with one of my photos using FD Toys' Trading Card Maker http://www.flickr.com/photos/freshmeadows/1676377286/. I consider myself to be on the right track with QL Learning 2.0.

This is an inside picture of the ground floor for Shanghai Library, in Shanghai, China. The huge open space with the skylight shown in the picture is very impressive. I felt I was walking in a hotel lobby when I was there. On this floor behind those posts in the pictures are OPAC area, circulation desk, a bookstore/gift shop and circulating material reading room.

7 1/2 habits of lifelong learning

100 words to write about your thoughts...
A learning process is a proces of learning new skills, acquire new knowledge, develope a new intertest or start a new position. For work, it is easy to set up immedicate goals for myself or for my subordinates to learn new procedures or implement new policies, however, it is not that easy to learn anything new in your life. Most people never want to change their life styles, not to say to take any responsibility for your own learning. Some people like to change and learn, but can hardly follow through. I found myself also fall into this group. I like to learn new things, but I am afraid of not beinjg able to reach my goal, therefore hesitate to take steps and make any commitment. I have just started to participate in Learning 2.0 project, I am hoping this will give me a push in learning more tech skills.

First step for Learning 2.0

I am always in favor of lifelong learning and naturally it is great to learn that QL is actually offering this opportunity for all staff, to learn new skills to help us be able to keep up with our customers. So, I am jumping on it as soon as I can. However, I realize that it takes a lot more than a few minutes a week to follow the weekly tasks. For me, I could not find the time to do it at work and I have to spend my day off sitting at home to creat my first gmail account and writing my first blog. But it is fun and I knwo I will like it. It appears that not as many people as I thought who are signing for this project in the community libraries so far. I think if the team offers more support to help walk through some of the steps, we will see more participants.