Thing 23: The End?

I have enjoyed going through "23 Things" and reading other people's blogs.

Of the 23 Things I found the following to be the most useful:

Wikis--I never thought of using a Wiki to create a policy manual,and I think it would be a good idea to create a policy manual in this way, rather than as a static word document.

Google Docs--Because I rarely use G-Mail to access my VCCS e-mail, I had never really explored the document sharing that can be done on Google Docs, nor had I been aware of the fact that you can create surveys on Google Docs.

Jing--I had heard about Jing, but hadn't looked at it before 23 Things. I can see how Jing can be used for bibliographic instruction. You can only do presentations of 5 minutes, but I'm thinking of using it to demonstrate how to search on various databases.

Creative Commons--with it's flexible copyright permissions, and its open courseware, Creative Commons is valuable for both librarians and faculty.

Delicious and Tagging--This is a wonderful way to get control of your bookmarks and sort your selected web sites in an organized way. It's also nice to not have your bookmarks tied to just one computer.

Social Cataloging--I enjoyed looking at Library Thing and creating an account on it. This is something I plan to access for my own personal use.

Thanks to everyone who shared their thoughts on their blogs!

Thing 22: Podcasts

I listened to the Annandale Library at NOVA's podcast on banned books. I rarely listen to the radio, but since so many people have told me how much they enjoy listening to NPR, I checked out some of NPR's podcasts dealing with "It's All Politics" and NPR's "Around the Nation." I didn't see that any of these podcasts could be added to the RSS feed on my Google Reader.

Thing 21: Mashups

One of my favorite mashups was part of a mashup called DC Pedestrian, which is for people who like to walk around Washington, DC. The mashup has a section devoted to safety which includes a map of recent crimes. You click on each "thumbtack" and are given the address, date, and type of crime that occurred at that specific location.

One of the most eye-catching mashups that I looked at is the Wheel of Lunch. You enter your zip code and the type of lunch you want to eat, and the names of restaurants and fast food places which serve that type of food appear on the wheel.

I also enjoyed the Timb Tube and Montagr, which presents a photo mosaic of photos found on Flickr.

Thing 20: Tagging and Social Bookmarking

Right now I have a long list of Favorites on my computer which are completely unorganized, so using a social bookmarking manager like Delicious would be a way to organize and sort my bookmarks and gain some control over my unwieldy list of web pages. Not having my bookmarks tied to just one computer and being able to access the bookmarks from any computer would also be a big help.

I've looked at the vccslibraries bookmark collection on Delicious before. I read some of the comments on various bookmarks, but I don't usually spend much time looking at comments--I just don't find them to be that useful.

I can definitely see the potential of Delicious for research assistance. Has the vccslibraries on Delicious replaced the old VCCS Web Guides to different subjects? I've wanted to add some information on APA style to our website, and I found a number of bookmarks which Tara has placed on Delicious which I think will be very useful. My library doesn't have a social bookmark collection at this time, but I'd like to discuss creating one with my LRC Director.

Thing Nineteen:Multimedia

YouTube is like everything else on the Internet--there is a tremendous amount of useful information on it, but there is also a tremendous amount of fluff. Before doing this exercise for 23 Things, I had never really looked at YouTube as a valuable educational resource. A library co-worker who also is an adjunct instructor at my college pointed out that YouTube contains a wealth of tutorials on all different subjects. Because I hadn't really looked at YouTube closely before, I just viewed it as a site where people shared their videos, many of them silly or outrageous.

The video that I added to my blog is a tour of the Montana State University Library. The video tells people about the library's resources and services and takes you on a tour of the library that takes a little more than 5 minutes. Placing a video of your library on YouTube is a good way to introduce people to your library and its resources.

Thing Eighteen: Audiobooks

When the VCCS first acquired Overdrive, I downloaded some audiobooks just to learn how Overdrive worked. For the past few years I've made a point of telling students about Overdrive when I conduct orientations to the library for SDV 100 classes, but I haven't seen a great deal of interest in Overdrive in my library. A few times a year students may ask about it, and we've had community borrowers who have been disappointed when they learn they don't have access to Overdrive audiobooks. The article by Beth Farrell starts out with her writing about a public library patron who drove 150 miles round-trip to access audiobooks! I just haven't seen that level of interest here!
I was interested in learning the statistics on Overdrive use, so I looked it up and saw that for this year the monthly number of Overdrive items checked out ranges from 167 to 268. One of the questions for this week is what we think of the user rating option. From what I could see, many of the items on Overdrive haven't been rated by students ( I assume a green star means an item has been rated).
I looked at LibriVox, which I had never heard of before. It is apparently to audiobooks what Project Gutenberg is to e-books. All of the audiobooks are recorded by volunteers, and I listened to "Twas the Night Before Christmas," which was spoken alternately by a child and an adult. If you listen to audiobooks, it is a wonderful free resource for works in the public domain.
I didn't know anything about the cost of audiobooks, so I was surprised by the information on cost in Farrell's article. She indicates that "Downloadable audiobook prices themselves vary wildly: an individual title can cost anywhere from $25 to $100, depending on its length and publisher, while unlimited-access title sets can range in cost from hundreds to thousands of dollars."
I had never heard of Ingram Digital, which currently has a little over 8,000 audiobook titles, as compared to Overdrive's 38,000 titles. I didn't realize Overdrive was so far ahead of its competitors.

Thing Seventeen: Social Cataloging

I created an account for LibraryThing. Since I read a great deal of historical fiction, I added a number of titles dealing with British and French historical fiction to my personal library. I spent most of my time on LibraryThing reading reviews and looking at the ratings which other readers had given to the books I added to my library. The statistics on LibraryThing's "Zeitgeist" section were impressive--over 1 million members and over 54 million books cataloged!

One difference which I did notice among LibraryThing, goodreads, and shelfari, is the "cost of service." While both goodreads and shelfari are free, on LibraryThing adding the first 200 books is free; after you reach that amount you have to pay.

I enjoyed trying to answer some trivia questions on goodreads and also took some of goodreads' quizzes. Can't say I did too well on the quizzes!

The link to my personal catalog is
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/Grether