Thing #23 - Thank You!

Well, Thing #23 had been an online survey for the folks who provided 23 Things, to see what people thought of the program... since they're not doing that anymore, that only leaves me with saying thank you!  Both to anyone who has been reading this blog, as well as to the folks who came up with the original 23 Things.  I know they weren't done all that long ago, but technology is changing so fast, they'll be ready for updates and even replacements soon, if not already.  Ways that 23 Things can go in the future?  I don't know that much about cloud-computing, or if you can turn it into a "Thing".... but, it seems big and is getting bigger, so that could be something to look at.  That's really the only idea I have off the top of my head, but I'm sure there are plenty of other people already hatching plans for the way the internet is going to go in the future! 

Thing #15 - Rollyo

Rollyo is one of those great ideas that seems to have flown under the radar: when you sign up and make your own account, you can make custom searchrolls.  It works by letting you create a list of URLs, and then you can run searches within that congregated set of sites, rather than running tedious single-site searches or slogging through a general web search.  There are millions of different searchrolls that people have created, for everything from helping with homework to getting video game cheats.  The entire Rollyo site seems to be in beta phase yet, and it shows a bit: it can be kind-of difficult to navigate around the site, if you have a specific purpose in mind.  For example, I made a quick Internet Games Rollyo, and then had to find a way to isolate the link to that particular searchroll so I could add it as a hyperlink.  It took me several minutes to figure out, and had to be done very roundaboutly... so, even though Rollyo has plenty of searchrolls, its searching-for-searchrolls feature could use some work yet.

This whole site, though, could be endlessly useful for a library.  Libraries could make (or use already-available) searchrolls for job help or job listings sites, ones that link to a bunch of different health or genealogy pages for easy metasearching, or juts do something fun like I did for games or activities.  Promoting specific searchrolls could be a lot like promoting specific blogs or wikis: it can help users get easier access to large amounts of information, while still limiting it to specific, relevant, and useful results.  Otherwise, libraries could just promote Rollyo as a whole, letting patrons choose their own searchrolls and run them as they please.  In this regard, Rollyo stands out, since it lets you see which sites you're going to be searching for any given searchroll.  Either way, it's definitely something to keep in mind as a good source of help for patrons.

Thing #22 - Staying Current

I've really learned a lot more than I thought I would through this blog.  Granted, some of the things (Facebook, Youtube) I already knew and used daily, and others... let's face it, there are some things that just didn't grab my attention.  Maybe I'll find them more interesting and useful in the future, but for the time being, I'm not likely to switch from trawling news sites to trawling RSS feeds, and Flickr just isn't my thing.  The third category, though - things I'd never known about, and now find incredibly useful - takes up the majority of the list, so I would consider that a success.  Picasa, especially, has become one of my favorite programs (I know it has nothing to do with libraries, but still!), but I've found lots of other interesting sites and features as well.  

I'm not sure that I'll really go on using this blog very much once I've finished this class - I'm still not really interested in blogging, and I don't feel like I would ever really post any updates or anything - but this, and the 23 Things list, are definitely good resources to refer back to.  And, who knows, maybe in the future I'll have a great idea and start a blog, or will find a new-and-improved 23 Things list to work through.  Though, I suppose I'm not technically done with this one yet... I still have to do Things 15 and 23... I guess they're up next!

Thing #21 - Student 2.0

This seems to be one of the smaller "Things" on the list, but I think it's also a hidden gem that has flown under the radar.  By "Student 2.0", it means programs that help students plan and coordinate their schoolwork, especially undergrad students working on specific assignments.  There are two resources for this: the Research Project Calculator and the Assignment Calculator.  I've never heard of either of these, but there are a lot of undergrads out there who could benefit from using something like this.  You just enter your assignment and get out an itinerary of which steps should be done by when, including specific walkthrough tips to better explain each step.  The Assignment Calculator uses a 12-step program, and assembles the timeline from a start date, end date, and subject area for the assignment.  The RPC, on the other hand, uses a more general 5-step program, with more specific instructions and tips for each step, and lets you choose the type of assignment (research paper, presentation, or video).  The RPC also has support material for teachers and librarians to help them explain the research process to their students. 

While all of this is novel and helpful, I think it has to be used in the right time and place.  This kind of thing is something that you have to get undergrad students using right away when they start college; otherwise, a lot of them will just fall into bad patterns and never work their way out.  I've always been meticulously, if not obsessively, organized about my assignments, and even though I never laid out schedules on paper, I've always had a clock ticking in my head, counting down to when the assignments are due, and I've known whether I've been on track or not.  At the same time, I know most of the rest of the world isn't naturally that way, and getting into the habit of researching, writing, and re-writing early, or at the very least sticking to a schedule, can save a lot of time and stress, both for the students themselves, and for the teachers and librarians that they turn to at the last minute, trying to scrape together an assignment. 

Thing #20 - Books 2.0

Reading and literacy certainly have changed since the advent of the internet, and even more since e-Books like Kindle and Nook have been developed.  I have to admit, I've never had a smartphone or an e-reader, so I don't really know what it's like to read off of such a tiny screen, but seeing as computers in general are going more and more mobile, and books are becoming more and more closely tied to computers, it stands to reason that the wave of the future is portable, electronic books. 

Reading through the recommended articles, I came across some conflicting information.  "Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading?" argues that kids are reading less and less books, and the debate grows as to whether this is increasing their adaptability for living in a digital world, or is merely destroying their attention spans and understanding of literature.  On the other hand, "Fiction Reading Increases for Adults" claims that reading levels have increased pretty much across the board, especially for the 18 to 24 year old group, so I don't really know what to think.  I don't own a whole lot of books, but I always have an assortment of books to read for fun, either from friends or the library, and I don't really enjoy flipping around in online books, which I've had to do for some classes.  I know search features and readability are improving, but I find it much easier to locate information that I know I saw a ways back in a physical book than in an electronic one.  


As for the wide variety of suggested tools, I looked at a few.  DailyLit looks like fun (if you have a phone that can download RSS feeds), since you can choose which book to receive installments of, the times and days you want the installments (like, if you read on your way to work), and how large of chunks you want to get at a time.  It's a good way to read books for people who feel like they don't actually have time to read, and lots of the books are free.  What Should I Read Next? was fun, also, and gave rather good results for me; searching any given one of my favorite books usually brought up a slew of other books that I'd read and enjoyed, but a few searches also gave me a bunch of authors I've never heard of before, so I'll have to do more cross-checking and look into them.  For "Online Book Communities," Book Glutton was interesting in that many of the recommended books seemed to be manuals, especially computer-programming manuals, while Overbooked was rather difficult to navigate... I mean, what's the difference between "Genre" and "Nonfiction" and "Lit Styles"?  It seems like the kind of thing where any given book or subject could fall under a multitude of headings, and you really have to guess as to where it is.  LitLovers seemed like a very good place to go if you're trying to put together book groups or discussions; it has discussion guides for tons of popular books, as well as advice for how to put together and run a club and even offers short online courses for self-study.  LibriVox uses volunteers to read and record books as audiobooks, which they then post free online; I've never been an audiobook fan, but I know they can come in handy, especially for long trips, and this seems like a good project.  BookBrowse offers book reviews and excerpts from just about everywhere for just about everything - a lot of the other recommended book review sites didn't have a lot of obscure titles that I checked for, but BookBrowse seemed to have nearly all of them.  They have good Find-A-Book features, Author searches, and Readalike categories, so it's a very well-rounded site.


What does this all mean for libraries?  I'm really not sure... except that there are a lot more options available than regular print books.  I think it's important for librarians, especially public librarians, to look more into these kinds of sites, pick out some favorites, learn how to use them, and start promoting them.  If the world is going digital, librarians can try to keep up.  And, just because someone prefers looking online through Readers Advisory sites rather than talking to librarians in hopes of coming up with a good book doesn't mean that they won't still wind up at the library looking to actually find and read it in the end. 

Thing #19 - Other Social Networking Sites

Well, I always thought Facebook was enough for me, but then I started browsing lists of other networking sites, and I came across BakeSpace (http://www.bakespace.com/).  It sounds like the kind of thing I'd go for, so I signed right up.  I'm really not sure how many users it has, but it has over 45,000 recipes, is very well done and is easy to navigate.  It also starts off with zero information about you (all you need is an e-mail address and a username, and you're signed up) so you can pick and choose what you fill in.  Right when I signed up, I was a little disconcerted to find I already had a "friend" on my wall... until I clicked on her profile and it explained she was the founder of BakeSpace and is automatically added to all new members' profiles.  It's easy to add and remove people as friends, though.

Recipe swapping is super-easy, too.  Whenever you come across a recipe you like, there's a button to add it to your "Recipe Box", and then it goes into your profile, along with any tags you choose to add to it.  You can also upload any recipes you may have, which then become searchable and usable by other members.  I came across recipes that I liked really quickly, and started tossing things into my Recipe Box.  Now, of course, I want to go back through the family cookbooks and start adding recipes of my own, as well, which will take quite a while!  But, it looks like a really fun site, a good way to organize recipes (for which I've been searching for a long time) and an easy way to find, rate, and comment on other recipes.  I have to say, I'm not very far into it, but I'd have to recommend it.

Thing #18 - Facebook & MySpace

This is hardly anything revolutionary for me, since I joined Facebook several years ago.  I actually really didn't want to, at the time, but with all of my cousins splitting up and heading off to college around the same time as me, I got pressured into it.  I know a lot of people use it obsessively, but I really don't see the appeal.  I mean, it's useful, and fun, and I like seeing the things that other people link to their accounts, including the innumerable pictures of cute kittens.  It could be the fact that I've steered far clear of Farmville that I can say that, but I think it's better to not have to run to your Facebook account every few hours.  I feel bad enough having to run to check my e-mail several times a day!

I know there's been a big hullabaloo recently about Facebook and privacy issues, and I understand that it's a very real concern.... but, at the same time, I've tried friending people who have their security set to the absolute maximum.  Let me tell you, they become hard to track down, much less friend.  In one case, I actually had to contact my friend in person and ask her to add me, because her account wouldn't let people solicit friend requests.  I prefer to have middle-of-the-road security settings: there are some things (especially e-mail addresses) that shouldn't necessarily be given away on the open internet, but at the same time, you should leave up enough information so that people trying to find you can ascertain that you are, indeed, the one they're looking for. 

Many of the Facebook groups suggested by the 23 Things guide hadn't even occurred to me, so I quickly hopped onto FB and added myself to the American Library Association Members list and Library 2.0 Interest Group, and "liked" the Wisconsin Library Association page (still very small - I suspect it was created by members, and not the WLA itself) and the Jail Library Group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (I'm a member of JLG, and I remember there being discussions about choosing a name for a Facebook page, but I don't remember a decision having been made!).  

As for libraries... it's definitely a good thing to have a page.  While people may not check it constantly, if people just "join" or "like" it, they'll get the updates for new posts on their wall, so it's a free and automated way to get the word out about programs, updates, and general library news.  It's also a good way to display general information, including library contact information and photos and/or video of the library, its resources, some of its latest programs, etc.  It costs nothing, doesn't take much time, and has a virtually limitless potential audience: what's not to like?

Thing #17 - Podcasts

I have to admit, I was never into the whole "podcasting" thing.  I don't own an iPod, so I've never downloaded anything from the iTunes store, which is where a lot of people get their podcasts, I know.  Nor do I have a smartphone, or even a laptop, so I'm hardly able to access podcasts on the go... but, considering how short, sweet, and succinct they can be, it may be interesting to keep a few around, anyway.

I went to podcast.com to learn more about podcasting.  I had to register to access their content, but after some browsing around, I stumbled across Discovery News podcasts.  I've always liked Discovery, as well as Discovery News, and their short and sweet podcasts are really cute.  The most recent one is an (animated) history of Halloween, but they also have specials on breakthroughs in robots and engineering, a longer (3-minute) segment on a pumpkin farmer and aficionado, and a short video on climate change and tigers, to name a few of the videos from the past week.  After subscribing via RSS to MyYahoo! (Bloglines and Google are also options), I should get regular updates from Discovery News on their most recent posts; I have to say, I'm looking forward to it.  Here's a link for the Discovery News podcasts page: http://podcast.com/show/95955/Discovery-News-%28Video%29/. 

Podcasting could definitely be a good thing for a library, too.  If you can get patrons to subscribe via RSS, you can get news out about events, programs, new materials, and just general library tips and info very quickly and easily.  On the other hand, if a library created a podcasting account, they could subscribe to podcasts from various other sources that the librarians considered useful, helpful, or particularly interesting, so that librarians could share favorite podcasts among themselves and encourage each other to get into watching, listening to, and possibly creating podcasts more, as well. 

Thing #16 - YouTube

I, like lots of people, have been watching things from YouTube for years.  I've never uploaded a video to it, but I keep a long list of favorites under my account so I can easily re-find anything that I thought was interesting or funny.  I've seen the old Conan the Librarian video before, as well as the Introducing the Book one.  Here's one more bookish/librariany video that came up during one of my classes last year:




The whole point of using Disney for this is that they're one of the most rabid supporters of copyright law; in fact, the Disney company is pretty much single-handedly responsible for the ridiculous copyright laws we have today.  Every time Mickey Mouse comes close to losing his copyright protection, Disney starts lobbying like mad to get copyright extended another few decades; so far, they've already succeeded.  I mean, seriously: how many years has Walt Disney been dead, and nothing he ever made is in the public domain yet?  I can see protecting works and ideas during the creator's lifetime, and perhaps even for a short length of time after their death, but it's gotten to the point where it's the people who inherit the copyright from the deceased creator that are just capitalizing off of it for all it's worth, and it's a highly destructive cycle.  Anyway, long story short, this is a clever video that uses such short and varied snippets that they still fall under fair use. 

Thing #14 - Productivity Tools

Well, this heading seemed awfully broad, but once I logged into My Yahoo! and started editing things, I can see how it stands alone as its own "thing."  I also looked at iGoogle a bit, but although it had some widgets that I would prefer and that My Yahoo! doesn't have (like Humor/Comics, Recipes/Cooking, and the ability to link to Youtube), I like the layout of My Yahoo! better, and use my Yahoo! account more than my Google one, most of the time.

What really struck me was the immediate and in-depth customization options for the pages.  You choose or create themes, layouts, add the content types that you want on the page, drag and drop to put them in the right place, and it still contains all the Quicklinks found on the lefthand side of Yahoo.com, so you can still quickly navigate around the Yahoo! universe.  What I really liked was how my e-mail account was integrated right into the page - not as a fully-fledged e-mail account (I can't move or delete e-mails), but I can read them simply by hovering over the e-mail title and a popup will display the email body, plus I can write and reply e-mails from right there.  Next, I added a movie widget - not because I go see movies very much, which I (unfortunately) don't, but because, without television, I've found myself not even hearing about a movie until it's in theaters, and I like to at least keep abreast of what's out there, even if I can't go see it.  So, I thought that was super-cool, since I rarely remember to go browsing for movies, anyway.  I added a few extra news feeds that sounded interesting, removed a few things (like Horoscopes) that are complete wastes of space for me, and shuffled everything around a bit.  Overall, it has a lot of potential to take everything I may be interested in and condense it so I can browse it at a glance.

I was never a fan of online calendar programs, preferring to tack a calendar to my wall and scribble my most important things to remember on it, but since coming to the UW, I've been forced to adopt the MyCalendar widget integrated into every student's UW account.  It never really came in much handy until this past week; my adviser is super-busy this semester, and has more distance students than normal to advise about class registration, so she decided we could all pick our own schedule times by syncing our calendar with hers and picking an available date/time.  Granted, I plan to remember to go to registry advising due to the note scribbled on my wall calendar, but I wouldn't have been able to make an appointment at all if I hadn't had MyCalendar loaded up like I did, so they can definitely come in handy, too.

Thing #13 - LibraryThing

Well, I've heard a lot about LibraryThing for Libraries, but I actually didn't even know that they had a personal version.  It looks like something that can be a lot of fun... not to mention useful for someone who has a ton of books, and may or may not even remember which ones they own or not!  That's one of the best features of it, though: besides creating your own categories, you can add books into a bunch of different categories, including Your Library, Currently Reading, Read but not Owned, and more.  You can import records from a bunch of different places (searching Amazon is the default, since they DO have most books available there), and then sort, tag, and share them as you see fit.  You can link your account to almost any other kind of account you have (blogs, IM services, eBay, del.icio.us, etc.) and add as much or as little personal information as you like.  I also really like their "Local" tab, as well, which shows you, not only which companies/groups/libraries in your area have pages, but book events going on nearby. 

While plenty of libraries have their own pages (including most of the different UW libraries around Madison), personal pages could be useful for librarians as well; in fact, libraries could even feature them, if the librarians could all put up links to their different "Recommended" or "Reading Now" lists where patrons can find them, updating them periodically.  Otherwise, of course, libraries can use a page for the entire institution to do something similar, especially if they have a "New Materials" area, where they could put all their new titles up.  I don't know that it would be feasible for a library to upload its entire holdings onto LibraryThing (I'm not sure if records can be imported from catalogs, or if there's a space limit or anything, plus searching could get a bit cumbersome), but for selected collections, it can certainly offer some good highlights.

Thing #12 - Wikis

I've only been using a wiki for about 8 months, but I know just how handy they can be.  Since I'm with the Jail Library Group, and a bunch of different people running on very different schedules, all have to coordinate who is going into the jail library, and when, most of the collaboration is done through the wiki.  That way, we can separate all of the different systems, leave contact information and notices such as dates for new-book-processing parties, and make notes for the date and time that people are going in, or if they would like anyone to accompany them.  A blog or forum couldn't really lay anything out that effectively, and a proper website would require administrative access and know-how, among other complications, so a wiki is by far the best way to manage something like that.

Of course, the JLG wiki is only a single page, so it doesn't have any of the searching or browsing features that characterize most other wikis.  When you take things like that into account, though, I can see how a library could have a lot of use for a wiki, to organize things either for patrons or for staff (though, I have to admit, letting any patrons put anything onto or delete anything they wanted from a wiki could cause some trouble).  I especially liked the St. Joseph County Public Library wiki, which includes a lot more than just subject guides.  It's a great resource for patrons, and seems to essentially function as the library website, though a wiki is much easier to edit and update than an HTML-coded site.  As such, in that regard, it works pretty much as a What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get HTML editor, the main differences being 1) WYSIWYG editors give you a little more customization of layout, and 2) anyone who has ever browsed Wikipedia will be immediately familiar with the layout, and probably immediately comfortable using the wiki.  Pros and cons aside, I took an Information Architecture class last summer, where the final website could either be HTML hand-coded or created with a WYSIWYG editor; wikis weren't allowed for the project, but considering how well-done some of these library wikis are, I think they make perfectly legitimate websites. 

Thing #11 - Social Media Sites

The suggested list includes Digg, Reddit, Mixx, and Newsvine, all of which I had a look at.  Digg, Reddit, and, for the most part, Mixx all seem to focus heavily on popular media and topics, rather than news or reporting.  For instance, the article at the top of the page for Digg was a funny picture of a goat; for Reddit, a post arguing whether dates should be written MM/DD/YYYY or DD/MM/YYYY; for Mixx, about Google cars driving themselves; and for Newsvine, a news report on a car bomb in Los Angeles.  While all of these sites could be good for keeping up with popular trends on the internet, I get the feeling that only Newsvine would provide that much information for trends and occurrences in the real world, as well. 

Besides that, the sites seem to go about posting content in quite different ways.  Digg's article titles link directly to the off-site locations of the information, which can help the user judge for themselves more easily how credible the article is.  Reddit, on the other hand, seems to work more as a forum, where anyone can start a topic thread, and anyone else can comment/add to it.  Mixx lets you view a short abstract of the article, as well as user comments, before providing an off-site link to the original content.  Newsvine incorporates articles and content into its own site, instead of offering off-site links, to which users can add comments as they see fit.  Considering that they do all have their own styles, and all cover different and somewhat random content, it could definitely be a good idea for a library to browse these every day to see what comes up, or offer them as recommendations to patrons, to see a random sampling of what's out there. 

Thing #10 - Del.icio.us

Ok, I have to admit, I totally missed that you can click on each of the 23 things and get a great walkthrough of how to go about exploring that "thing".  That having been said, I think my previous posts really weren't too far off the mark (mostly), but it will be a lot easier to follow a more guided approach to exploring the different topics from now on.  Whew.

About del.icio.us - I actually used it not too long ago for the first time to transfer over all my bookmarks from my old computer to my new one.  I imported them from my browsers to del.icio.us, where they were automatically sorted by the folders I had them in, then booted up del.icio.us on my new computer and imported back the bookmarks that I thought were useful enough for me to have access to immediately.  While I can see how it can be useful to have inter-computer and inter-browser access to all of your bookmarks (often when I go home for vacations, I don't bring my clunky desktop along, and end up forgetting about certain bookmarks I'm supposed to check), at the same time, I'd rather be able to manage my bookmarks in a browser's dropdown menu.  I find it's a lot easier to keep the bulk and useless junk down, a lot faster to access, and I like the layout better.  Del.icio.us can be sorted by tags, but I'm more inclined to spatial than sorted arrangements - put something in its designated place, and it will always be there.  So, I prefer bookmark menus, where you can choose where, exactly, on the list you want a specific thing to be.  That's just personal, though; libraries would do better to keep a del.icio.us account or two, for patrons and staff, so everyone has quick access to the same standard links.  I know College Library, where I'm doing my practicum, has a del.icio.us account for the reference desk, so the many students and librarians that work there can all find the exact same sites.

Thing #9 - Implement Said Web 2.0

Well, to be honest, a lot of the stuff I listed in Thing #8 doesn't work too well for my blog here (I guess I really wasn't thinking ahead).  BUT, as far as blog technology for sharing slides and photos, I'm going to fall back on good old Picasa, which already implements well into Blogger as an add-on (as does Flickr and several other photo-sharing sites).  So, I posted a slideshow on the right sidebar with my pics from Nijo Castle in Kyoto, Japan.  It was surprisingly fun and easy, even though this is more of an integrated than outside technology for the blog.

For sharing slides/slideshows, I also recommend Prezi: http://www.prezi.com.  It's not a slideshow, more like one big slide with a revolving/rotating camera angle.  Despite that overly-simplistic description, it doesn't seem to cause motion sickness, and it's really interesting and engaging (much more so than normal Powerpoint slideshows, in my opinion!).  I've only used it a few times, and it takes a bit of tinkering with, but I know a lot of fans with Macs who don't run normal Microsoft Office and prefer it to, say, Google Docs or Open Office.  For regular photos, I have to say, I still recommend Picasa.  I've been using it less than a week, but I'm extremely pleased with it, and have to admit, I will probably discontinue my (also short-lived) use of Flickr in favor of it.  For videos, there's always Youtube, but I also recommend Jing: http://www.techsmith.com/jing/.  It allows you to take videos or screenshots of your monitor's display, then upload them to Screencast.com, to be shared or searched however you set limits on it.  I've had a lot of fun with it in the past year or so, and it's great for posting and sharing tutorials, in particular.

Thing #8 - Web 2.0 In the Library

There are lots of ways for libraries to take advantage of Web 2.0.  Plenty of libraries already do some kind of chat or IM-reference, including the library where I'm doing my practicum.  While this might be a bit less of a priority for something like a public library or a research institution, the main undergraduate library for a large academic institution (such as where my practicum is at) gets bombarded with questions every evening by students who have trouble finding something, but don't want to have to pack up all their stuff, give up their seat (which, most nights, will fill immediately and they won't be able to reclaim it) and march down to the reference desk.  Libraries are also getting big into blogs, since most blog editing programs (such as this one!) allow for easy, what-you-see-is-what-you-get website creation, which can then be edited by anyone on library staff regardless of web-programming knowledge, making such sites much more likely to be kept up-to-date. 

On the Library 2.0 end of things (which I've already gone into a bit more detail about below), libraries are really getting into OPACs and programs that allow for more patron input into the library catalog, with things like tagging and related-item searching.  LibraryThing is by far the most successful and most cited resource for this, and can add a great deal to a library's catalog, if they feel ready to implement it.  The tag cloud takes a while to build up, but once it is, it can be very helpful for browsing patrons looking for a quick search.  Implementing things like links to the Amazon site, for reviews and other recommendations, could be a thought as well (the new WorldCat interface does this, and the MadCat catalog used at UW-Madison links automatically into WorldCat... it's somewhat roundabout, but can be useful and fun).  Regardless, Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 are already inveigling themselves into many libraries' everyday functions. 

Thing #7 - Image Generators

I really had no idea what this meant, until I managed to find BigHugeLabs.com, and promptly wasted an entire afternoon.  Being a huge nerd, I first went for their Trading Card creator and Motivational Poster customizer, but I also had a look at their Color Palette generator, the Badge Maker, a Calendar generator, and LoLCat generator.  This can be a great way for someone to do fun things with their own photos, but it could also be really useful for libraries, especially libraries on a budget, to come up with fun, quick, and easy ways to put together interesting creations with their pictures.  I could easily see a library making fun calendars for a sale or giveaway, or using posters, trading-cards, or one of the other image generators, especially for something like a kids' summer reading program.  Here's a few of the things I came up with from my last trip to Japan:

Thing #6 - More Image Mashups

Of course, right after posting my month's quota of images on Flickr, I find a program that lets me give my photos some badly-needed touching-up.  Perhaps next month I'll be able to put a few of those up for display on Flickr, then.

The program I'm talking about is Picasa (or, to be more precise, Picasa 3).  I've used Photoshop extensively at work, so I have GIMP on my home computer (since GIMP sells itself as an Open-Source Photoshop alternative), but it really didn't do what I needed it to as far as correcting my bad camera lighting for my photos.  Picasa, though, touched them up exactly as I wanted it to, and then re-saved them to my desktop.  The downside of being able to do this is that it's not an online program, but a downloadable one, which you have to put onto your computer to use, and can't access from anywhere.  The other downside I've found so far is that it can only edit certain file types =\  namely, it can't even open PNG files, so I had to convert all of mine to JPG first in order to edit them.  Regardless, I'm very happy with the results it's gotten on my photos, which tend to be way too bright if taken outside, and way too dark if taken inside.  I really love the "Auto-Contrast" feature (I do in every photo-editing program I've used) as far as brightening up colors and picking out details go.  Despite my deep and growing mistrust of Google, I have to admit, they're conquering the world for a reason: they've got good products, and they usually offer them for free.

Thing #5 - Fun with Flickr

My plethora of e-mail accounts are now coming in handy with so many company conglomerations.  I'd never been to Flickr before, but logged in just fine with my Yahoo! e-mail account, and promptly started uploading pictures from my various trips overseas.  Unfortunately, because there's a monthly limit to free uploads, it will probably take me about 5 months just to get my last trip completely uploaded, much less the three before that!  Like any for-profit company, though, they'll only give you so much for free.  In the meantime, I just browsed through other photos.

The tagging feature is great, and makes things a lot easier to find.  However, it can cause problems too - my search for "morning glory" (though perhaps I should have pluralized it) brought up only 3 flower images on the first page, and only 2 of those were actually morning glories.  I really like all the features that show up on the right-hand side of the screen, actually, including the date and place that the picture was taken, as well as the set that it appears in (at least in the case of the ones I was looking at).  It also seems like a disproportionate amount of the pictures on Flickr are professional or semi-professional quality.  Not that that's a bad thing - it makes my own photos seem a bit inadequate in comparison, but I just never really thought that there were so many photography enthusiasts out there before.

Thing #4 - Subscribe to RSS

This was really quite easy for me.  In some ways, I've had access to RSS for quite a while, regardless of whether I used it or not.  Since I generally use Firefox, it automatically updates its RSS feed list under its "Bookmarks" tab constantly with news headlines from around the world.  For my own part, I've had several blogs bookmarked for a while, but never bothered to set up an RSS feed (even though, with a Google account, I've always had access to Google Reader!).  So, now, I consolidated everything, putting my bookmarked blogs into my Google Reader account, instead.

There didn't seem to be any very good way to link my Google Reader account up to my blog account, though.  Maybe I just haven't fiddled with it enough, but for now I settled for adding two of my favorite blogs (Booklicious, a book blog, and Eating in Madison A to Z, a food blog) to their own little compartments in the right-hand column.  In the meantime, I'm enjoying Google Reader, because it can suggest new blogs for me that I may want to subscribe to.  It seems to show some degree of intelligence with it, too - librarian blogs, obviously, came up, but so did Wisconsin, and especially Madison, blogs, even though I didn't have any subscriptions to Madison/Wisconsin blogs, which makes me wonder how it knows where I am... but, since I didn't have to sign up for a new account (using my Google/Gmail account) and since it seems to have some smart suggestions, I think I'll enjoy Google Reader. 

Thing #3 - Learn about Blog Search Tools

This had never really occurred to me, not being much of a blogger myself, but with so many blogs on so many topics, it must be very useful to be able to search specifically blogs for certain topic threads and content.  My first quick search brought me to a very good website:

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/blog-search-engines-the-complete-overview/7856/

This looks at four different blog search engines: Google Blog Search, Technorati, Blog Pulse, and Blog Lines, comparing and contrasting their different search techniques.  Unfortunately, Blog Lines is shutting down as of October 1, 2010.  I've never looked at it while it was fully functional, but it looks to be very professional, offering lots of options.  It was also the first blog search engine created, dating way back to 2003.

Of the remaining three contenders, I have to admit, I like Google Blog Search the least.  It's very Googley, in that you get a plain screen with a bunch of results, list-style.  Compared to BlogPulse and Technorati, though, it feels awfully stripped-down, since they're both teeming with options, menus, and advanced content, like BlogPulse's Top Links/Videos/Phrases along with Top Blogs, and Technorati's tag clouds and incorporation of other Web 2.0 content.  Technorati is, so far, my favorite.  I find it easy to both search and browse (I'm really into browsing, which is part of why Google Blog Search was so disappointing), and the vast array of menu options let you narrow down your topic before you even begin searching in earnest.  BlogPulse has a lot of that, as well, but it's spread out more, and involves more page-scanning to pick out all the available options.  While I can see how this could be overwhelming for people who want a straightforward search, I like menus and options and alternate content, so in the future I'll probably rely on Technorati, and possibly BlogPulse, for my blog-searching needs.

Thing #2 - Learn about Web 2.0 & Library 2.0

Ok, I've actually already done both of these things, since I've been taking the more technology-oriented courses from SLIS.  The main point that most of the Web 2.0 and especially Library 2.0 discussions I've had in class have boiled down to is that many libraries are still trying to cope with Web/Library 1.0.  The trouble is that, even though many patrons and libraries would welcome a chance to move on to higher technology, many patrons and librarians struggle to accept and use the current technology level effectively.

That aside, there are plenty of Library 2.0 options that don't make drastic changes, and the changes they do make are easily and effectively used.  My real interest with Library 2.0 has been next-generation OPACs, especially open-source next-generation OPACs.  They've been around for quite a while already (Koha, the first one, was released in 1999) and offer a lot more options than standard, contracted OPACs.  For one thing, purchased OPACs tend to be based off of the (archaic) card catalog model, and don't have too much flexibility beyond that.  They're also made by non-library companies, whose goal is to make a salable product that librarians can be convinced to buy.  Open-source OPACs, on the other hand, are usually created by or with librarians who want a better product and realize that, with nothing on the market, they need to make one themselves.  They're free (being open-source), usually very flexible for whatever type of network or operating system they need to be installed on, and are often compatible with other software programs that increase their functionality even further (such as SOPAC's Locus and Insurge, programs that allow it to link with any ILS and create "social data" [such as user tags], or how Evergreen works as an OPAC and ILS combined). 

The real downside to open-source next-generation OPACs is that there is no tech support.  To install and use it, someone in the library has to be willing to work with it, to customize it to their library's needs and work out the kinks.  There are discussion and help boards created by other people who have used it, but you do need to be a bit tech-savvy to make a lot of them work.  And, like anything, it takes time to get functional and set up, and then once it's implemented, both librarians and patrons have to get used to it.  After the learning curve, though, next-generation OPACs begin to more than pay for themselves, involving users in tagging and searching books and increasing overall functionality.  For more information, here's some of the more popular open-source OPACs available:

Evergreen: http://www.evergreen-ils.org/
Koha: http://koha-community.org/
Scriblio: http://about.scriblio.net/
SOPAC: http://thesocialopac.net/
VuFind: http://vufind.org/

Thing #1 - Create a Blog!

I'm working through the 23 Things that every good reference librarian should do at some point, starting with Thing 1: Create a Blog.  This is a part of my LIS 635 class, but I do hope to learn a few things for my own personal (and professional) gain along the way =D