Thing 2 and 8

Hi, I got a comment that I missed thing 2 and 8, I didn't miss them, I just didn't write about them-sorry. Thing 2 was the 7 1/2 habits, I found the information interesting. As for the learning vs. training. I love to learn- hay I am 52 years old and I am in graduate school and I already am looking a OCC for classes to take when I graduate. To continue to learn new things makes life fun!!!

As for thing 8- I opened an account on blogline and I have RSS feeds to ten news websites. I have always wondered what RSS Feed was- now I know. I like this and will continue to use it even after the 23 things is done.

Thing 13

I opened a del.icious.us account, and I found this site to be very interesting. I can see where someone might love this site, It is a great way to keep organized. The problem is I see where this website will consume time-more than save it.

Thing 12

Hey, this Netlibrary is another cool thing. I looked up a book called Bill Gates, the Computer King I liked how I could read from page to page by clicking on NEXT, but I also liked that I could click on different section like his childhood or his house.

As for Worldcat I am very familiar with this website, I have used it for classes. I like it very much,and I think that it is very useful for ILL's.

Thing 11

The Library Thing is awesome. I will be using this toy even when OCL's 23things is over. These are the books I have read this year.

Thing 10

For this blog I am supposed to express myself about some aspect of technology. I happen to be a grad student and for one of my classes I have to do summaries of journal articles on some aspect of library technology, so here is one that I did.


This weeks article is from the journal American Libraries titled “Your Stuff, Their Space” by Meredith Franks. The author wonders if a library has great technology and nobody uses it-is it really great? Libraries public, private and academic have spend a lot of money purchasing online databases that are not getting anywhere near the usage that they should. Part of the reason is the Internet and search options like Google and Yahoo!, students and the general public no longer think that they need a library. Even after a failed Internet search, few people are aware of the many subscription databases and other services that are available at their public or school library.

Many libraries list their research tools on their own websites, but if a potential user never logs on to the home page of the library’s website in the first place, then they will never know all of the wonderful information that is available. So Ms. Franks has proposes some unique marketing ideas such as using automation that is already in place “…we must start looking beyond these [library] sites and toward putting our content where our users are.” (Franks, 2007).

One of her ideas is using websites like Facebook (facebook.com), and MySpace (mySpace.com), after writing an article about this idea “… Facebook has opened up its platform to software developers, enabling people to create applications that will either pull content from places like Facebook or to search content already in Facebook.” (Franks, 2007). She goes on explaining that many libraries have used this type of website so people “…can add these tools to their profiles for easy access.” (Frank, 2007). The photo-sharing website Flicker (flicker.com) has been utilized by libraries like the North Carolina State University. The college has added historical and old photos of their collection on flicker, so that when a user finds these photos they can click over to the university library’s website and view other items in their collection.
Another cleaver use of technology comes from the library at the University of Washington. They have created links to their university library on specific Wikipedia articles that are about subjects that the library has relevant information on, “These links make the collections much more accessible to people who might never think to use a university library for research.” (Franks, 2007).

Ms. Frank’s point is libraries have to market themselves, and instead of tiring to bring people in to the library, the library must bring itself to the people. And the best way to so is to utilize technology to get their stuff on popular website spaces that people are using everyday.

Work Cited
Franks, Meredith. (2007). Your Stuff, Their Space. American Libraries, Vol. 38, Issue 11. Retrieved Feb. 1, 2008, from EBSCOhost MasterFile Premier.

RSS Feeds

I did my RSS feeds today, and I like the whole concept. It was fun to find news websites that I look at all of the time anyway and now I have them all in one place. Cool.
Traci

Thing Seven

I scanned the cover of the book East of Eden by John Steinbeck. This is my favorite book.

Traci

Thing 6 1/2

I looked at some pictures on Flickr, and although I enjoy looking a pictures of my family, I found that looking at pictures of strangers boring. I did like viewing nature scenes. I liked the picture called Img_0344_JPG by someone named rbarenblat. It shows some cherry trees just starting to bloom, they are very pretty.

Flickr thing 5

Here are my photos for webthings5. I know, I know. Don't forget my day job. They are taged olcwebthings.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25499837@N07/

First Post

Hi, I have watched the 7 1/2 minutes video. This is my first post.