Thing 13; or, you've got to be kidding me.

After an extended hiatus of a self-created two week Spring Break, I return to blog with a vengeance. Either I'm really excited about getting back into the swing of things, or I'm extraordinarily bored at work and want to provide some lackluster entertainment for Danielle (who is also bored to tears at work). You decide. Bring on the Thing! (that's what she said)

Ahem. Thing 13 leads the traveler of this pointless journey of 2.0 learning to the highly beloved del.icio.us social bookmarking. We're going to do this a little differently today. First, we're going to make assumptions about what they would want us to do, and then we're going to see what it is they actually want us to do. Sound good? Wonderful.

Assumptions
Well, I anticipate that it is School Library Learning 2.0's greatest desire to instruct us how to create a del.icio.us account. Not only that, but we should then explore the web and let the tagging rumpus start. Then, we'll take one of the blogs that we've been reading and tag it with a very distinct tag so we can all find it later and become great friends and have a gay ole time chatting about using del.icio.us in the future.

Bitter, cold reality
They want me to do what?! Oh, that's right. Nothing. First things first: a video tutorial. ENH--wrong answer. After I'm done, not watching this tutorial I'm to explore someone else's account. Well, all right. That's not so bad, but only because it would be helpful when I get pigeonholed into working in a school, as all the public library jobs will cease to exist once city budgeters get their way. So: SJLibraryLearning2. Now comes the hard part. Do you think you can handle it? I am only bravely venturing there because you expect so much from me and I wouldn't dream of letting you down in this great time of need. ::Holds breath::

Explore the site options and try clicking on a bookmark that has also been bookmarked by a lot of other users. Can you see the comments they added about this bookmark or the tags they used to catgorize this reference?

OMGOMGOMGOMG I don't know if I can do it. Rather, I don't know if I want to do it. Next! ... So the last bulleted instruction does NOT include creating a del.icio.us account. I've created an avatar, which will most certainly not help me in the library field, but it's only optional to create a del.icio.us account? What the? No, the last instruction is a touchy-feely sobfest about how this tool can be useful in libraries. Ready for it? Here I go:

The one website that would actually be beneficial to librarians, they only made it optional to create an account. This is utter nonsense. Yes, I can see the potential of this for research assistance! Can't you? Clearly not, otherwise there would be a fifth instruction to create one. But I digress.

I get weekly updates from the Librarian's Internet Index with a slew of websites that might be helpful. Without del.icio.us I would never be able to access those in the rare case someone comes to the reference desk looking for information on endangered frogs. Since del.icio.us does exist, I can help that patron in the .0001% chance they come to me. Also, instead of making pathfinders no one uses, librarians can update their library's del.icio.us account. It brings the information to the patron's domain instead of waiting for the patron to come to us. Plus, we can study the language and words people use to tag items and then apply it to materials in the library to aid findability.

Reasons why this Thing didn't waste all of my time
Libraries that del.icio.us
The aforementioned SJLibraryLearning2

There is no way Fruit-by-the-Foot is three feet long; or, Thing 12

I have a long day ahead of me, I'm quite sick and I have to get up earlish for work tomorrow. So clearly I need to do one of these inane things that probably don't relate to libraries, despite being part of a library continuing education bullcrap website. Today's chosen 2.0 tool? Rollyo! [cue parade, or at least the effing confetti]

Itinerary:

1. Create an account. Check.
2. Create a searchroll. Topic? Degrassi: The Next Generation
   
3. Blah blah blah--it was easy to make an account. As for being useful in libraries, sure, I can see it. The librarian has to be dedicated enough to search through the sites selected to make sure they aren't too broad. For example, I included the Degrassi Wikipedia page, thinking that it would only use the Degrassi page. Enh! Wrong answer. It uses all of Wikipedia, so if I wanted to search "Jimmy and shot" I would be there for a while. One neat thing about this, however, is you can limit the search by specific webpages in the collective group picked out by the Rollyo account holder.
   

Library Usability Scale: I'd give this a 5 out of 5, pending on the searchroll creator.

Thing 11; or, Widgets are the newest best friend of Xanga ANAs

I keep hearing all sorts of folks talking up widgets. I personally keep my blog to the preselected "page elements" that Blogger lays out, but that's just 'cuz I'm old fashioned like that. Anyway, Thing 11 wanted me to experiment with a whole range of web 2.0 award winners, and let me tell you, I'm glad I did. How else would I figure out how to let everyone know my BMI, BMR and waist to hip ratio?!?


School Library 2.0 Learning led me to Widget*Mart (better known as yourminis). Thinking that a helpful place to start for a librarian-to-be's blog would be the information widget section, I set about with a plucky false hope only to be appalled by this:


Last time I saw one of these bad boys on someone's blog was during my those sad early mornings my sophomore year of undergrad where reading poor ana/mia blogs was the only way to cure my insomnia (I have no idea how it worked, but it did. Yes, I'm weird). Now, call me crazy, but this seems like it's destined to end up on a site like that, no? Not only could I put a BMI widget up, but I could also showcase my WHR and BPR. The BPR one is especially disgusting, as it calculates exactly how many calories I would have to ingest in order to loose one pound a day without exercise (for the record, it's 1200--excuse me? Is that healthy?). And here I thought we were trying to make it harder for pro-ana sites to flourish. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to have some Ellio's.

Back-up Images

Tonight I feel pretty cruddy and gross, so I thought I'd catch up on some 23 Things. Here we are, everybody, twerkin' with the image generators of Thing 10. Word.

All right, Image Chef--show me what you've got:

• Visual Poetry (emo style)
  
• Symbols
  
  

Cutting the Fat--Thing 9

No more whining about how I've done this crap already. Who the hell wants to read that? Not I. Already, I digress from cutting the fat--what can I say, I'm a lazy diet/exercise kind of person.

Blah, blah, blah, find some school library blogs and play around with blog searchers. Got it.

• Technorati
  So, everyone and their mom is talking about Technorati. Now I get to play around! Word. Basically, you pop in some search terms and BAM! you get some blogs.
  
  Now on to the real thing I discovered using Technorati. I found out that my blog ended up on a blogroll! Eep! Now, you can't use these fancy things to decipher whether or not other people read your blog, but hey--a blogroll is pretty good. Especially since it's Minh Le of Bottom Shelf Books and his book reviews tend to make me laugh obnoxiously loud. Especially this one on Frog and Toad. I think I've sent that post out to at least five people before posting it to all of you invisible readers out there. It is worth being late to work in order to read (unless you read blogs at work--because then you should read it and read it again).
  
  
• Google Blog Search
  As for this bad boy, I'm not too impressed and here's why: I tried to use it to find the above Frog and Toad post and could not find it! No matter what search terms I put it. Frog and Toad and Bottom Shelf only brought up his most recent post about Stick (which, incidentally, is also a rather good one). I had to scour his blog to find it, and fortunately, his tags are quite straightforward and led me straight to it. This service gets minus points--about 6 and a half minus points. On a sidebar, can you talk crap about a Google service on another Google service? Looks like I just did.
  

EDIT: This is actually thing 14 and I'm too stupid to know how to count, apparently. Or read.

Let the Wild Worship Start!

Why you should fall to your knees and worship a librarian.

Now here's something that should be taught in the 23 Things: How to cite something a friend posted on Facebook. I have no clue. So, that being said, I'm going to do it wrong (woot!) and just say that my classmate Lynnette (who may or may not want her last name out there, so I shan't give it, just in case) put this up.

Thing 8---is it 23 yet?

Man. Bloglines? Shouldn't I have realized that at the age of 22, I'm on the border of being a digital native and shouldn't have to do this course? Well, now I'm slugging through it, there's no stopping me now--but Bloglines? It's thanks to Bloglines' technical difficulties that I have the visual image of Mr. Blog. So, in case you were wondering, when I go crazy and start talking to my blog as if it were some 1950s school girl diary and had an actual personality instead of being a receptacle for my thoughts, this is what Mr. Blog looks like:And back to Chip in the regular section of this post that actually relates to Bloglines...

The people in charge of the Things wanted me to focus on the following bold questions while making this entry. So, for sport, let's pretend I just set up my RSS feed, instead of many moons ago. Great.

• What do you like about RSS and newsreaders?
  Oh man, oh man! RSS sure is swell. You know, minus the fact that the default setting makes it so that you have to open each post individually if you wish to read more than a paragraph or two.
  
• How do you think you might be able to use this technology in your school or personal life?
  Well, I can cut the crap like Vector scissors can cut a penny into a bottle opener (incidentally, if you have never seen this action, it might very well be worth the three hours of your life required to go to a Vector pyramid scam job interview to watch that. I'm not kidding. Do it. NOW!). If I want to get the best of the web and the blogosphere without wasting my effort for nothing and coming up with crappy posts I don't want to read, then I'll stop using Bloglines. But, if I did want to be able to look at the first paragraph of my favorite blogs and decide that today they blogged about crap I don't need, I can utilize Bloglines to the maximum and how.
  
• How can libraries use RSS or take advantage of this new technology?
  The first thing that pops into mind is having the programs and new releases and other public library items circulate in a blog that patrons can easily subscribe to and look at (or not) in their Bloglines.
  
• Optional: If you're up to the challenge, you can provide the URL address to your public bloglines account
  So, Thing 8 lied brutally to me. Either that, or this just goes to show how something involving web 2.0 can be dated within months. Depends on if you want to be nice about it. Whichever description you fancy, the screen shots and directions they listed on this public URL nonsense is not true anymore. If you have been following my 23 Things journey with eager anticipation, doing the lessons alongside me silently (like a stalking butler), then I will tell you what. I'll tell you where it really is. If you scroll down to the very bottom of your feeds, you will see a link that says Share. It's that simple. For real, see look: here's mine.
  

Thing Seven--Technology Update

Man, these 23 things are starting to get annoying. I feel as if I should have looked in advance to see if there were a few things I didn't already know about. Alas, I must finish what I start; that's just how I roll. This thing is really an assignment is to take some sort of technological advance and blog about it. Since I've already blogged about flickr a few times, I'm gonna go ahead and ignore that suggestion. How about Danbury Library's catalog? Widgets and tagging and blogging, oh my!

I am totally pumped for this new system--you have no idea. Somehow, since coming to SCILS, I've become all about folksonomies and user-driven tags. I eat, sleep and breathe metadata. In fact, i feel bad for Danielle if she's reading this, since this website was actually brought up in our cataloging class (which I am totally digging). Anyway, she can just stop reading now, if she likes.

As for this new take on the public library catalog, it's simply awesome. I highly recommend going into the catalog and searching for a book. Any book. I looked up Harry Potter, being obsessed with everything about him and his universe, and found all sorts of tags that users applied to open an entirely new way of surfing the library catalog. Instead of dealing only with LC's subject headings (because really, some of them just don't make sense. see also: anime being classified as "Animation (Cinematography) Japan"), users can search for material on their own terms. This is a great usage of new 2.0 technology and a great step for libraries everywhere. I can't wait to use something like this in my school library's automation--you know, when I get a school library and can convince the school board that it's a great idea. So... maybe never, but we'll see.

Thing Six

A further experiment with flickr and mashup applications. I like how this entire project just leads me to play around and not do homework. Now that's what I call a great learning experience! Here you will see a trading card created for the dreaded emo version of Magick cards. I posed for this one, back in early 2007 when I was pretending to be emo for a week. I was so convincing that they needed to have me for their cards. See the dedication with the hair and the skull? I'm even doubting that I'm not emo looking at this.

Thing Five--Flickr

Last one for today, I promise! Okay, thing 4 didn't apply to me, so I skipped right into Flickr. I'm surprised I didn't already have an account, but it is what it is. I do now. On to the challenges, noble blog-steed!*

The first challenge was to look around people's accounts for pictures that I would like to blog about. Well, since I'm still pissed they didn't have an option to give yourself a pug dog as a pet on Yahoo!'s Avatar, I clearly searched for pugs. This led to the discovery of my hobby in five years from now when I own pug dogs: having online photo albums dedicated to my pug dog. Anyway, here is my usage of Blogger's image upload ( because I've never done that. Ever. I swear).

The second challenge was to create your very own flickr account and upload some pictures. Strictly speaking, I am being a rebel all over the place, because thing five wanted me to upload some school library shots and use one of their tags so they knew I did it. Well. About not having a school library of my own... yeah... So I uploaded Some Lives that are Aquatic from my trip to the zoo in 06.



*Mr. Blog would like it noted that he does not appreciate being treated like an animal, even if that animal is a noble steed. Silly Mr. Blog. Fine then, live without honor and see how that pays the bills. Hmph.

Also: Thank you to angiemckaig and Evan Agee for having such adorable pug dogs and for sharing them on flickr.

Thing Three--Blogging and Avatars

Again, I think I have "create a blog" down pat. Next thing. "Make an avatar and post it to your blog." They wanted me to include it in the page element section, but frankly, I don't want it there. I do, however, know how to use page elements--so that lesson is learned. As for my avatar, check out the hotness:



Look at me, chilling out at Bust Mecca (Mount Rushmore) wishing I had the bust of Thomas Jefferson with me. Or maybe the rest of my minions from my bust collection. Oh, and observe how, even though there is a polar bear RIGHT THERE under my nose, I am nonchalant and not thinking about polar bears. That's just how I roll.

23 Things

In preparation for February's RASL meeting, I finally read through the free School Library Media Activities Monthly I got back at NJASL in November. The very last article mentioned the School Library Learning 2.0 blog, which seemed very interesting. As it turns out, there is a 9-week challenge of 23 things that you can do to familiarize yourself with Web 2.0 and the impact it can have on your school library.

Why the hell not? It sure beats doing my actual online class. The first week is kind of boring, with an introduction to the concept of 2.0. I think I've got this concept down pat. So instead of paying attention to the lady on the 14 minute powerpoint presentation of the 7.5 Habits of Lifelong Learners, I kept wondering if proper diction should be required for podcasting. Every time her southern drawl spat out some word ending in -ing, I could barely contain myself. Learnen and offen and all those other fun words that should have consonants in them were the only reason I kept listening. Er.. listenen.

As for the 23 things, I'm probably going to skip some things (such as create a blog. I think I can manage that one. Would you like me to revert back to my livejournal/xanga days or keep going with my "professional" blogger account?). But to show my serious dedication (despite being sarcastic about podcasting ladies), I shall pledge my "lifelong learning contract" to better exhibit the 7.5 Habits of Lifelong Learners...or something.

1. Begin with the end in mind
2. Accept responsibility for your own learnen
3. View problems as challenges
4. Have confidence in yourself as a competent, effective learner
5. Create your own learnen toolbox
6. Use technology to your advantage
   
7. Teach and mentor others
   
   And don't forget that there habit 7.5, Playen.