Sites for students

I'm writing this on Zoho Writer!  We'll see how it goes ...

The resources in this lesson look a lot more practical than something like Twitter.  (Although playing in Twitter helped me understand what the people in that Alli commercial are doing.)  The organizing and notetaking possibilities for students blow my mind -- I'll bet when the current generation grows up we really will be able to get closer to a paperless society.

I enjoy organizing things, so first I tried to look at Stikkit, but when I clicked on the screencast links I got blank screens.  I'll check some other day, because I really want to see how that works.

Jobster was interesting.  I learned I could make a lot more money as a GS-12 cataloger at Library of Congress, if I wanted to live in Washington, DC, rather than Washington State.  I think not, though.  Their cost of living is much higher, and their climate is appalling. 

The welcome screen for Zoho writer said that with Zoho you could use tags as folders.  What a wonderful idea!!!  I can't always remember which folder my document is in.  How can we convince Microsoft to do this?

Changing type fonts.  Hmm, this one is a little small.  Changing the point size.  The older I get, the larger the type font I enjoy.   Nice assortment of emoticons!

1234567890-=qwertyuiop[]\asdfghjkl;'zxcvbnm,./ (WingDings. Cute, aren't they?)

ISBN	Title
9781406542608	Bardelys the magnificent
9781594482731	Teahouse

Tables work well.

I like Zoho writer and now that I have an account with them I'll investigate their other applications.  Free word processing, free spreadsheets, free lots of things that are good for students and for people at home who don't want to pay for Microsoft products.

Twitter

Hmm. I created my Twitter account (I'm Cataloger), started following Udweller, Jeannie, and the library, and I've put a couple of tweets out there. Underground Dweller was kind enough to do a tweet so I could see if I'd done everything correctly. :-)

I looked at five library accounts and found that they're using Twitter for short announcements-- classes, building hours, computer downtime, additions to the catalog, etc. I can see that this is an easy way to get such information out to people, but I noticed that none of the libraries has many followers, so I'm not sure how useful this could be. Stillwater free library has eight followers. Houston Library has only 58 followers, and that must be a big library. When we add new formats to the collection (CDs, DVDs, etc.) we wait until a large number of people have the equipment and start asking for them. We probably should do the same with a lot of the krl2pt0 technology-- see what lots of people are actually using, and focus on that. Blogs before Twitter, for instance.

Facebook

I think the three most important points in Meredith Farkas' post about libraries on Facebook and MySpace are that libraries should put themselves where their customers are, that the library's presence should be more than just a picture of the building and a profile, and that libraries could educate young people and their parents about privacy issues. Brooklyn College Library and Hennepin County Library have presences on Facebook that are useful, and it would be nice if we could do something similar. I doubt that IT has the time to do this-- would this be a good, ongoing project for volunteers?

After saying all of that, though, I have to admit that I don't understand the appeal of sites like this. A face to face visit is best, then a phone call, then a nice, long letter that you can read and think about and then re-read. I just don't think that something like "hi, cute picture!" is real social networking.

Wiki, week two

Jeannie showed me how to create a link by linking my TS tour page to the sidebar (thank you, Jeannie). I also copied and pasted another TS document into wiki and created its link on my own. This is the "Why doesn't the author's name on the spine label match the name on the book" explanation about transliteration tables. I get this question every few months, and I posted the explanation on the web page, and now it's in the wiki as well. It really was easy, and it is immediately visible to anyone using the wiki, unlike posting it on the web page which may have to wait several weeks until someone in IT has time to post it.

I really would like KRL's wiki to become the one place to put any information that more than one person needs, and I will start by getting all of Technical Services' information in there. I'll also talk to Paulette about putting circulation procedures on the wiki, because that's what I have the hardest time finding.

Wiki, week one

The Stevens County wiki has not just a lot of library info on it, but also a lot of community info that could draw in non-library users. I especially liked the reading lists-- the Princess booklist is an excellent readers advisory tool, for instance. I also looked at Booklust and made a list of some of the titles in her "I love a mystery" section-- I'm always looking for new reading material!

I think Wiki could be the most useful thing we've looked at so far, used as a tool for pulling together all the documents, procedures, and forms that we have spread out over the web page, the transfer file, bulletin boards, notebooks, etc., as long as we can keep it organized. Wouldn't it be nice to have just one place to go to find things? I think we need to add functional areas to the wiki home page, in addition to the branches and departments. I know that I would like to be able to see system-wide procedures such as how to handle snags. I'll talk to Paulette about this.

I created a new page listing TS staff and how a book moves through the department by copying and pasting. That was as easy as pie, but linking it to the home page ...

YouTube

Okay, YouTube could be seriously addictive! I started by watching the first suggestion from krl2pt0, "Evolution of dance", and enjoyed it very much. That led to an animated hippo singing "In the jungle" which led to the horrifyingly hilarious "der arme Kerl" which led to "Road kill bird" which led to ... Well, anyway, I had to force myself to quit watching!

There are a lot of very professional-looking videos on YouTube, but also some very amateurish-looking ones, and unfortunately most of the library videos I watched were amateurish. I did like"Perry the Penguin discovers the Dewey Decimal System".

"March of the librarians" was fun, and I watched it very carefully to see if I could spot anyone I knew.

I found the KRL video, and enjoyed seeing staff on it. I thought the music was a little over the top, though-- it's not a shark, guys!

Library Thing

As you can see from My Library on the left, I like fantasy! Our imaginations are wonderful things, and we can create marvelous places with them.

The Mercedes Lackey books are set the The Five Hundred Kingdoms, and have fairy godmothers, dragons, wicked sorcerers, and some really spunky princesses. Terry Pratchett has a whole series of hilarious books set on the planet Discworld. Going postal and Making money feature former con artist Moist von Lipwick (pronounced Lipvig). Poor Moist, the tyrant of Ankh-Morpork has caught him and is using his skills to revive the post office and the royal bank. Both series are funny and charming.

Looking backward and Walden two are more serious works that lay out new ways of living that their authors thought would create utopian communities. Edward Bellamy was a social reformer who believed that nationalizing industry would eliminate poverty. His book was written in the late 1800s, and it's kind of depressing to realize that the problems he was railing against are still here-- the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. B.F. Skinner was a psychologist who was developing a science that would train people to be good members of society.

Library Thing's Very Short Introduction was very easy to follow, and I was able to set up my account and catalog seven books in very little time. I had to have Dweller Underground's help to get the widget into my blog, though.

I like Library Thing's reviews much better than Amazon's-- Library Thing's members seem to be literate, and you can't always say that about Amazon's contributors. The recommendations are also good-- I've already started a list of additional books to read.

Here is the link to my library (I hope): http://www.librarything.com/catalog/Cataloger60