Thing 7: Online Image Generators

I created this trading card using big huge labs trading card maker at http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/deck.php


The image I used is a map of the internet from January 2005 available at http://www.opte.org/maps/.

I think using someone else’s work especially work from a television show is not something libraries should be doing without permission. Television networks and producers are very protective of their materials and they have the money and legal resources to support a long court battle. I recently looked for Doctor Who knitting patterns on ravelry and many of them had been removed because the BBC threatened legal action.

Some of these could be used to create handouts and promotional materials using images available through creative commons.

Thing 6: Flickr Mashups

I looked at Clockr. At first I had problems because it took a few minutes for the download something button came up. When it did work, I thought it was a fun way to look at a clock. I may even download the screensaver at home.


I also tried Flickr Color Pickr. This is very similar to the color browse option in the arts and craft seller website, http://www.etsy.com/. I had some trouble opening some of the pictures because I think they were not shared pictures.


I did find this beautiful picture of a red wall with vines over it taken by Baboon™ in Tel Aviv.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/baboon/5877184/

I also found this frozen spider web taken by Davesag in Amsterdam.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/davesag/4375721/

I used the speller to spell my cat’s name.

And made a few altered pictures of him. Here they are:

Warholizer

Lolcat Generator

Some of the mashups would be fun ways to show photos from programs or of displays.

If the Spell with Flickr images are free to use, they would be fun for a promotional poster.

I still don't think I would want my personal photos shared with the world on the internet. But again, it all goes back to my need for privacy. I do send links to my photos to friends and family.

Thing 5: Flickr

Cardiff Temporary Library by Ben Bore or Rhys Wynne (as he signs his blog)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/benbore/243751546/page2/

I have never really used flickr before this. When my yahoo photos account was closed because yahoo wanted the users to move to flickr, I switched all my photos to picasa. I use picasa for my personal photos and I love the map feature and ability to send links to friends and family. I don’t think I would want to share my personal photographs with the entire world but I think this falls back to my desire to keep my private life off the internet.

In my former library, flickr was used as a place to post old program posters, which seemed a little odd since the posters only had month and day and not the year so people might show up expecting a program that occurred years earlier. Clemens and Alcuin libraries of the College of St. Benedict and St. John's University bookcase with links to the catalog for availability is a great way for browsers to find available books without having to go to the library. Flickr would also be a great place to showcase past programs with photos of the event. It is also a good source for ideas for future programming by looking at what other libraries have done. The Library of Congress collection of historic photographs is a really great resource for old pictures. I enjoyed looking at the old photos of Coney Island.

I took the magical tour of flickr. It seems like most other photo sharing/storage sites as it is easy to upload photos through the web, a batch uploader, etc. One feature that would be nice if I took a lot of pictures with my cell phone is the upload by e-mailing to flickr. The interestingness browser is a good place to start finding a picture to blog about. I’m just not so sure about the whole interestingness of all the photos shown for each month. But I guess everyone has different ideas of what is an interesting photo. One photo I found in the interestingness was of a wind farm. I decided to follow the windfarm tag and see where it took me. I saw a lot of interesting photos. And a lot of not so interesting photos. I tried the sort by most interesting but I’m not entirely sure how it sorts by most interesting because the ones I saw were not the most interesting. Perhaps, they really sort by most popular or most comments or something like that.

I decided to search for library signs on flickr. And there were some great signs. The picture I found that I am going to put in my blog is of the temporary library in Cardiff, Wales. [I attempted to add the picture but I can't tell if it is actually in the post or not because it doesn't show up in the preview. It didn't show up so I am going to try to add the copy of the picture I saved.] It’s not a sign but what a great idea for a library exterior. Ben Bore or Rhys Wynne as he signs his blog, the photographer, had a link to his blog post that pointed out the lack of Welsh authors and titles in the mural. I had noticed that the authors were popular ones in this country like Patricia Cornwell, Dan Brown, David Baldacci, etc… The lack of Welsh books didn't register until I read the blog post.

Wow, I guess I had more to say about flickr than I thought I did.

Thing 4: RSS and Newsreaders

RSS and newsfeeds are useful because they put updated information for frequently used websites in one place. Unfortunately, too many RSS subscriptions could very easily lead to information overload.

I used google reader since I already had an account. One of the features of google reader is to automatically subscribe to blogs followed in the linked blogger account.
I remember seeing the RSS subscription icon on different websites but I never really paid much attention to it. I guess I have used the RSS feed that comes automatically with gmail to look at 101 cookbooks so I have used RSS without knowing it.

I think it may be a little too easy to subscribe to different feeds and then have to spend all day trying to follow the feeds. On a fun note, I discovered I could subscribe to one of my favorite comics, Pearls Before Swine, through RSS. The comic from 01/15/09 is even library related.

Libraries could use RSS to promote events at the library with something like a What's Happening At My Library type feed. Books and other items could be promoted through a feed of recommendations by staff.

I only added feeds by searching in google reader. When I tried to add a feed from a website like the NY Times, it said it was going to add something to the internet explorer on the computer I was using. Since we use shared computers here, I didn't think that was a good idea so I searched google reader and subscribed through it.

Library related feeds I subscribed to was YALSA at http://yalsa.ala.org/blog/, NY Times book section, NY Times book review, NY Times bestsellers, and Powell's Books Review a Day.

Thing 3: Blog Search Tools

I searched “teen library programming” in technorati and google blog search. The technorati results seemed to be less relevant to the search. Some of the results were from Yalsa and other library related blogs but at least 5 seemed completely unrelated to libraries. The google results seemed more relevant with some results from library systems. Google seemed a lot easier to use but that could be because I use google to search the web. The main google results page has options to limit by date published. The date limiting seems to be missing in technorati (or at least I didn’t see it in the advanced search or on the results page.) The technorati search results page allows filtering by language, authority, posts and tags among others. Both blog searches have their useful and not so useful features and since there didn’t seem to be a lot of overlap in the results, it would be good to use both to find blogs.

Thing 2: What is Web 2.0?

I will probably work on the 23 things a little everyday so I won’t feel overwhelmed. I don’t think I will have finding some time off desk to work on professional development activities.

I am participating in the 23 things to get familiar with some of the web tools a lot of the patrons are using. I am a very private person and don’t see myself putting a lot of personal information on the internet. I probably wouldn’t use most of the Web 2.0 things, like the social networking and photo sharing, without this encouragement.

I use del.icio.us to keep track of my bookmarks at work. I have also watched some videos on YouTube and listened to some podcasts. I really enjoyed listening to Rosemary goes to the Mall, the story of a woman overcoming a fear of shopping by visiting all the stores at the Mall of America as part of an art installation project.

I am looking forward to working with the different web 2.0 tools and learning how to use them to connect with and help patrons.

Thing 1 continued

I have been changing how the blog looks. I tried a lot of templates until I found one that was ok. I also added a picture under the title at the top of the blog. I think that I could spend a lot of time playing with the different templates. I think it is possible to change parts of the template, which I may try. I am going to look over the blogger information on altering templates and see if I can figure it out.
I also added a list of books I have read recently with links to amazon. In adding the list, I found that basic knowledge about writing html is helpful in order to make the titles underlined.

Thing 1: Set Up a Blog and Register

I guess I am now a member of the blogosphere.
Setting up the blog was very easy but actually writing it will be more difficult.