#7 RSS Feeds

Well this was easy since I already had my google reader set up. I added unshelved for my daily dose of levity. I already had a Star-Telegram RSS feed and a few others set up. Hopefully, this will save time. As the little Common Craft video advises: watch out, they can be addictive. I mean you can't add everything. When will I find time to sleep? I also liked the analogy of Netflix vs. the video store. With Netflix the video store comes to you. Same thing with the RSS feeds. Netflix way wins every time.

#5 Image Generators

Here is my first image generator attempt. And it works. This is going MUCH more smoothly than the Flickr mashups did and I am relieved. I had several options of how to post this. I'm not sure sometimes which option to pick. For instance, in image chef, after creating the image I clicked on the orange blogger icon and it asked for my blogger user name and password. I didn't feel comfortable with that (and it didn't seem like it would save time) so I just tried another cut and paste of the coding which worked the first time this go 'round.


Another try

#4 Flickr mashups

Here is my, oh, what seems like 50th try with this. It should be so simple. I tried the spell with Flickr. I dutifully put my word in and voila it came out fine on the page. However, when I copied and pasted the code into this ye olde blog I kept getting error messages that the html coding was off somehow. I tried much shorter spellings, ending up with only my initials but to no avail. I finally tried one more time and finally it went through without any html error messages. Still have no idea why it would not work when I cut and paste it the other numerous times. I absolutely was copying and pasting the code correctly from the box 'o code on the Flickr spell page. Why the 10th time worked and none of the others -- who knows? I did not enjoy this thing at all.

I tried some of the other mashup sites but could not figure out how to import the images. I really could have used some guidance on this. I am doing this from my home computer so it is not a case of a work computer blocking anything. I just can't get the others to work.

#21 Podcasts

I listened to several podcasts. I think this is a great idea. I found the Medline plus podcasts very informative and just the right length. Some of the podcasts were puzzling. I can't figure out why some were on the websites. They didn't seem of interest to most. One was an almost 30 minute commentary from a person who was leaving the community taped at a farewell party. It was not library related at all and seemed an odd choice to be featured on that library website.

I noticed a significant number were podcasts that simply read children's books. The quality was sketchy on the three different library websites I listened to. I wonder if they track how many people listen. I'm not sure young kids would be able to listen that long with nothing but a picture of the front of the book to view.

I think this is a idea worth pursuing. But like many things at my Library, I just don't know how much we can do to the web page. It is very tied to the city's web page and we have have almost 0 flexibility and control over it. It does seem to be of of the simpler items we could incorporate and I will try to find out more.

#20 YouTube

I have previously watched hundreds of things on YouTube. I can see it as a useful tool for libraries. I didn't know that user submissions had to be 10 minutes or less. So, I learned something new!

I watched several bookcart drill team entries. The video was fairly terrible on all. One (an Austin Library group) did use my new favorite song -- "I want to be a librarian". When I went to the song's official video it was well worth the viewing. I cannot recommend it highly enough. It is by "Haunted Love"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne_WXP7lUWM

I noticed that several library-related YouTube videos have very low hits and 0 comments in many cases. Maybe it was just the ones I tried. But it does make me wonder how successful this is if few are viewing what you are putting out there in YouTube Libraryland.

I also enjoyed an open access occupational film about the library profession shot in 1947. The purpose, sayeth the film, is bringing people and books together. Today, I suppose it is bringing people and computers together.

I also don't know how people actually post something on YouTube. Is is fairly simple to do?

#6 Blog Readers

Well, I pretty much enjoy all things google so I'm sure this will prove to be helpful as well. I can see the advantage of all the sites in one place. This will personally save some time. Or waste it as I am constantly distracted by new things to the sites I have subscribed to from this time forward. I can't see this as much of a boon to my library but I will probably find it useful in my spare time.

#19 Google docs

I can see the advantages of google docs. I have never used it before. The ability to upload, edit from anywhere, store files securely and share changes in real time would be helpful. However, I never really work collaboratively on any documents. If this was an activity I engage in frequently I would find google docs helpful. It is certainly very easy to use. It is clear, clean and uncluttered.

I'm not sure of the advantages of using google docs to publish a web page. I do see how group presentations would be facilitated by utilizing google docs. Like everything else, the google bloggers really show how to increase the value of this free service.