Thing 23

Well, I'm finally at the end of the roadtrip! My favorite part of this exercise was blogging, surprisingly enough! I will probably create another blog fairly soon. It's a good way to express oneself without talking everyone's ear off when you have discovered something really BIG and EXCITING for the day!

This learning program provided me with the opportunity to look at some websites that I might not have discovered on my own (like Rollyo) or I might not ever use but at the very least I know what they are. It was a little tough sometimes to find time to work on a project such as this, but on the other hand, it was a welcome change in routine on some days. It is very likely that I would participate in another discovery program should it be offered.

About Netlibrary

I set up an account and then explored the titles in the eAudiobooks. I thought that I would try to find a non-fiction title to download for a change. There aren't as many non-fiction titles as fiction, but I found one that sounded interesting: WILD TREES, A STORY OF PASSION AND DARING, by Richard Preston.

Podcasts

I checked out Podcast.net and Yahoo Podcasts: both were loaded with informational podcasts. I did like Podcast.net best because the sound was clearer and a lot of the podcasts had music intros. I spent time listening to a couple of podcasts that looked interesting called "Dances With Woofs Dog Training," which had to do with hand-signal training. There were technical problems with some of the podcasts, either not displaying photos properly with the audio or the audio content was gone from the podcast. Problems aside, I can see that this is the way of the future when it comes to providing quick training on a subject.

Gizmo and YouTube

Here is one of my favorite YouTube videos of a cat with OCD:



Looking at YouTube was probably one of the "23 Things" that I liked the best because there were lots of really creative videos that people have done and a lot of humorous ones. But I was also aware that this site also provides an opportunity for some groups to get their particular agendas viewed by lots of people. So, you have to evaluate what you're looking at like you would any other website.

Some Thoughts on the Web 2.0 Awards

I chose "Travel" from the "Award Categories" list to explore in depth (although I also looked at "Music" and "Real Estate.") Of the three winners, I selected Real Travel (http://realtravel.com/) because it had a blog feature, where people could talk about their experiences in a particular travel destination. Of course, I chose Amelia Island as my first destination ... The blogs focused on the hotels/resorts that people stayed at and I didn't really learn anything new except that staying at the Ritz Carlton and Amelia Plantation required a really large amount of tipping (and that it might be a good idea to save up for that aspect of the trip!) There are links to several other sites, including Travelocity, which was specifically the tool for booking hotels. The only hotels that came up were the two mentioned above and the rest were in the "Jacksonville Area." Having been there, I knew that there were a lot more places to stay on Amelia Island. My conclusion after some more searching was that a website is only as useful as the quality of it's content, even if it is well-designed. Real Travel had some really cool features and it was designed well but the tools/links that it utilizes could use some improvement. (I found the same to be true for a real estate Web 2.0 winning site that I looked at: good ideas, good design but uneven results when it came to content.) Really great potential but not yet ready for practical application in a library setting!

Zoho Writer

I set up a Zoho account today. This Web-based tool seems useful, especially the ability to import Word docs and then posting them to your blog. (I imported but didn't post because I wasn't sure that I wanted to post my test docs without working on them a bit longer.) The downside for the new Zoho explorer (who is in a hurry) is that the instructions for the neewbie are not in a obvious place.

PB Wiki

I liked PB Wiki a lot (especially the "Edit" feature) and need to spend more time there once this "23 Things" is over with. I noticed that a lot of the blogsites under "Favorites" don't work for some reason. (I tested a number of them before I added my own.)

An aside that is in keeping with my "roadfood" theme: I went to Brewer's Alley in Frederick, MD the other day. The food is great (especially their version of a Tuna Cheese Melt, which must be a new thing because it is not on the menu on the website.) http://www.brewers-alley.com/

Wikis

I'm a big fan of wikis, especially Wikipedia. I know that some people don't think that it's a reliable source of information: the articles do vary in quality and authority but it is a good starting point, and many of the better entries have many citations to follow up on. A couple of years ago, I was researching Amelia Island as a possible place for a vacation home. I had never been there but it sounded great. I had started my research by searching Florida hurricane statistics, county by county, to see which place had had the fewest hurricanes in the past hundred years, and one of the places that came up was Nassau County. I found a lot of nice pictures and quite a bit of information about the area on the Internet and in magazine articles. I finally went there for a long weekend and it was everything that I had read and seen in photos, but what none of the websites or articles had mentioned was that that there is a pulp mill right outside of town, and there is no getting away from it (especially in Fernandina Beach!) If I had gone to Wikipedia at the beginning, I would have found that out right away! Oh well, the search goes on ... !



Other wiki stuff: I used the "Library Success : a best practices wiki" recently to find out more about IM Reference and Meebo, in particular. It was very helpful, since we just started using Meebo here at LCPL. I also like "Subject Guides" such as the ones that can be found on the "SJCPL Subject Guides" site. ( SJCPL Subject Guides ) The "Cooking" and "Antiques" guides are especially fun. Also, these guides serve as online pathfinders and can be very useful in a library setting.

Web 2.0 and Library 2.0

I read all of the articles in the list. "Web 2.0: where will the next generation Web take libraries?" took me down memory lane to when I was using a university mainframe: searching on the computer meant Gophers, (Archie, Veronica) and FTP-ing and Usenet-ing all over the place (remember looking at bboards?) And email: I actually used to program in my formatting for my email messages or my lines wouldn't wrap but would just go and on! Wow, how quickly things have changed, and for the better. It makes sense that things will keep changing and becoming more interconnected.

By the way, I liked Wikipedia's definition of Library 2.0: it provided a clearer explanation than any of the articles.

Technorati Travels

Well, I claimed my blog in Technorati. I used lots of tags, including "L2LCPL." I get how it can be a useful way to find and manage blogs. However, when I tried to search "L2LCPL" and several other tags today, the system froze up and I got the following message: "Doh! The Technorati Monster escaped again.
We're scouring the blogosphere attempting to find it. Back in a flash!" (Maybe...) I'll try again later.

Del.icio.us and Us

I've been looking at the L2LCPL account links and found some very useful and timely information: under "Online Reference-Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki," I found a section called "Libraries Using MeeboMe for Embedded Chat." The UC Berkeley link has a tutorial for using Meebo which is nice because we will be using Meebo for IM at the Ref. Desk soon.

On a lighter (not calorie-wise) note, I like Del.icio.us better than Rollyo for organizing theme-based links like "food" and "travel" (and, of course, "pets") because it's a little more sophisticated, but both are useful depending on what you want to do.

Rollyo and Restaurants

I discovered Rollyo yesterday and it has some real potential for replacing little bits of paper with URL's written on them. In keeping with my theme ("road food" with detours) I selected a partial list of my favorite restaurants on both coasts for my searchroll. Here it is: http://rollyo.com/meerkatshouse/meerkats_road_food/

One drawback is that some of my favorite restaurants, especially in northern New Jersey (like China Paradise, Pompton Queen Diner and Don Pepe's don't have websites!) Another weak point is that the links in the searchroll don't seem to be live: you have to cut and paste them one at a time into the searchbox (unless I missed something!)

Library Thing Around the World

I checked out "Library Thing" today. I selected several random libraries around the globe to see who would have books on Boston Terriers: University of California had 2 (only 2?), LIBRIS in Sweden had 2, National Library of Scotland had 1, but University College in Cork did not have any. None had any "other members," which is understandable since these are not likely titles that promote discussion in any way. (I will look for different titles to add, maybe on the subject of "Bitter Cinema.")

Random Kitten Generators and Such

This is from www.randomkittengenerator.com. (Hmmm, I'm noticing a trend here! )








On a less serious note (i.e., no photos of relatives ...) here is another good image generator: it is called "Random Movie Generator" (found at http://generatorblog.blogspot.com/)
For me, it created "Apocalyptic Werewolf." Very scary! I also discovered a related link for a blogsite called "Bitter Cinema." (at www.bittercinema.com) Both are very compelling, especially for movie buffs who like to travel.

Many Feeds

I went to some of my favorite newspapers' sites, such as the San Francisco Chronicle, South Florida Sun Sentinel, LA Times, among others, and found that they all have the RSS symbol somewhere on their page. The types of feeds that you can subscribe to pretty much coincide with my interests, like "Travel," Food," "Pets," and "Strangest News Stories of the Day." I also checked out Feedster, Topix, etc. I liked Topix the best because local news displayed at the top of the page and then various interesting topics are displayed across the bottom under "people reading, talking, editing." I told my friends about it and they were very enthusiastic about the feeds, and feeding in general. But then, they got tired and wanted to take a nap (as you can see.)

Welcome to RSS World

I found more RSS feeds than I could possibly read on a daily basis. I selected a bunch having to do with animals and the environment (I must find some about restaurants next ...) The very first "animal" feed that I read had a title that immediately caught my attention: "Disguised Moths Confused Jumping Spiders." (Think about that for a while.) http://animals.about.com/b/a/256984.htm

By the way, the news feeds were very addictive.

Food-Fueled Technology

Before this meerkat hits the road, she checks out restaurants in strange cities. Technology makes this much easier. You can find restaurant menus by Googling the restaurant and then going to their site. Ted's Montana Grill is one of my favorites: http://www.tedsmontanagrill.com/menu_burgers.html

Urban Decay

As part of Thing 6, I looked at Flickr Experimental Colr Pickr and discovered that "Urban Decay" is a color! I usually try to avoid this in real life but as a color choice it is intriguing.

meerkat

meerkat
Originally uploaded by harrymoon.

"In Meerkat World, you should always poke your nose into other people's business." When working on Web 2.0, curiosity is a good quality to posess.