23 things #12

Rollyo - hmmm - interesting concept. I can see the application for a number of reference related activities such as homework, government info, genealogy, etc. I see less use for it on the personal interests level. Sites come and go and if you only limit yourself to what you've found already, you may miss a lot of stuff. I don't see myself using this tool too often.

Nonetheless, I created an account and added a search roll for some of the places we like to take the kids in and around Baltimore, Harford County, and Pennsylvania. Here's the link:

http://www.rollyo.com/lpm0502/jzn_favorite_places/

23 things #11

I'm just getting back to my 23 things after a week or so of being occupied with other stuff. I looked at the LibraryThing info a couple of days ago and just had a chance to create an account. I thought I'd start off adding titles from my collection of signed books. I'm not sure I'd ever have the time or desire to add everything and maintain it, but it is a little fun to see them all lined up. Now if I could keep them all lined up perfectly like that in real life - the majority of them are children's books, so I'm constantly reordering them after my childrens' little hands have been into them. That's okay, though. That's what books are for, right? To be enjoyed.

Here's the link to my collection:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/lpm0502

23 things #10

I've spent some time exploring a variety of image generators and all I can say is wow! You can go just about anything with them. I liked the YourGen text genrator (www.yourgen.com). It generates all sorts of unique fonts. I used it to change the font on my blog title. I also created an avitar on Meez (www.meez.com). I posted it at the top of my blog. Now if only I could superimpose 3 kids hanging on to my legs, it would be perfect. I'm sure there's an image generator that would do it, but my fiction collection is calling my name.

23 things #9

I explored the Merlin site and added the feed to my bloglines account. My account has just been activated, so I haven't yet logged in.

I also looked at the a number of the search tools. Technorati was easy to use and brought back tons of information. I did a search on Reader's Advisory and found the blog I just created (about 2 hours ago) for a personal project. Wow, that's fast! I'm sure that you can find something on just about anything out there. I searched for "underwater basket weaving" - a term from maybe middle school when a teacher used that expressison (his own, I think) whenever someone wasn't paying attention or was doing something wrong. Technorati retrieved 2 blogs with those words.

I don't have much more to say today, so I'll be back after I finish the next thing.

23 things #8

I created my bloglines account and subscribed to a number of feeds. I think that I'll reserve judgement on usefullness of this one, for me personally, for the time being. There really isn't any site that I feel like I have to check regularly. It's more like I check them if I have a moment and if I miss something it isn't devastating. So now, I will be checking a bloglines account and due to the nature of some of the sites I subscribed to, there will be numerous updates. So will I be spending more time scrolling through them? Only time will tell.

I love the idea of being able to subscribe to a specific blog. I subscribed to the system's Innovation Blog. That is one that I keep meaning to check but never seem to. So now I'll know if something new has been added!

Well, I seem to have gotten through thing 8, and if that's the hardest one, I guess I'm doing better that I thought.

23 things #7

I saw 2 articles in my professional reading this week that I felt were very applicable to this 23 things project. I copied the articles and am routing them to my staff.

1. Meredith Farkas, "The Evolving Library: Ten timeless tech tips," American Libraries, (June/July 2007): 50. I thought that several of the tips were extremely relevant to this library system and to the 23 things project in general: Tip 1. Develop a risk-tolerant environment - with our emphasis on innovation over the past year + we've already come a long way in tasking risks and accepting possible failure. Tip 2. Avoid technolust - It is always so easy to be caught up in the latest and greatest phase. We should always remember to critically look at the new technologies and determine which ones actually fill a need in our service. Tip 5. Play with technology - That's what this 23 things project is all about - exposing us to the new technologies so that we know what they are, can hopefully assist our customers with their needs (instead of having no ideas what they're talking about), and helping us be better equipped to do evaluate and incorporate the new technologies into out work (see tip 2 above).
2. David Lee King and Michael Porter, "Thirty-seven Sites in Two Thousand Words or Less," Public Libraries, (May/June 2007): 30 - 33. I loved this article. I was very fun to read and very non-threatening. They list (and give a short description of) many of the sites that we will be exploring during this 23 things project and many more that we can use to continue or 2.0 journey (if desired).

In addition to my professional reading, one other technological thing struck me this week. My daughter is taking swimming lessons and in packing her back pack (which is a new one - received at school for sucessful completon of a project) I noticed a rubbery hole on the side of the bag. Upon closer inspection, I saw that it was basically an AV jack. I'm assuming that the cord of the MP3 player is inside the bag and the cord for the headphones goes through the hole. It was just a reminder to me of how fast technology advances and how young (my daughter just finished kindergarten) children are learning about it. I won't totally date myself here, but I didn't use a computer until high school. She started using computers in her 4 year old class and has to show her grandmother how to work the DVD player when she comes to our house. I'm sure as soon as she sees my MP3 player (that I'll receive for completing this project), she'll want one for herself. And in no time she'll probably be showing me all the cool little things I can do to enhance my blog.

23 things #6

I've been playing with some Flickr mashups and have found some interesting ones:

• Bubblr (http://www.pimpampum.net/bubblr/) - This application allows you to add a word "bubble" to your photos to create a comic strip or to simply add a caption. I though this would be great fun to use at home with photos of the family and kids. I always add captions to my photos and this would be a unique and creative twist to the way I usually do it (a sticker on the photo). I'm late to the world of digital photos (and am way backed up in my filing of the tons and tons of photos I have), so this would be perfect for those pic still in my camera. I'm a scrapbooker wannabe (want to do it, have lots of supplies, and lots of ideas, but no time to actually do anything) and with this I could just caption, print, and stick it in the book!


• Waholizer (http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/warholizer.php#) - This one is just for fun. It turns your photos into an Andy Warhol-like print (inspired by the Marilyn Monroe painting). I tried a bunch of pictures, but none really looked great. At the beginning of this post, is a Warholized photo of the branch. Not identifiable at all - it kind of looks like a southwestern landscape to me. But if you could find the right picture, it would really be cool (and a nice addition to that "one day I'll actually get to it" scrapbook of mine).