My perspective…

Change happens.  Constantly.  New technologies, both online and off, are bound to have an impact on the world.

Libraries and the Web are both just a part of the change.  The terms “library 2.0″ and “web 2.0″ are just tags used to try to describe the current status and the potential for future change (using the concept of versions brought about by  technological upgrades and enhancements).  People use the terms to try to quickly and clearly define a set of changes or tools…but change and time rarely have clear beginnings or ends.  The changes don’t come to us in handy “service packs” such as we get for software…they are a constant stream.

I’m excited.  The direction we are headed seems very customer service oriented and I really like helping people.  The new tools seem to give us more ways to help more people more often and in more places.  Most of this technology is about giving people more options and more ability to participate.  It is making us teams rather than the user/used, parent/child, boss/subordinate roles that have dominated in the past. 

playing with flickr images

picnik_thing#6,
originally uploaded by breichenbach.

So I used the last image I posted and played with it in an online photo editor called picnik.com. I don’t think this counts as a mashup, but I wasn’t finding any mashups I felt like playing with and you can get some nice effects with picnik. I’m fond of playing with images (can you tell?) so they look like a color pencil drawing.

I hope others enjoy it, too.

Picture from my wedding

Beth & Rick’s wedding 071,
originally uploaded by breichenbach.

Well…i’ve been slacking on my homework and now I’m playing catch-up…but I have a good reason…

I got married on August 9, 2008. D I’m still blissful.

Favorite pods casted

It isn’t free anymore…but I loved “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-along-blog” which was released for one week as basically podcasts.  Wonderful, campy, fun.

I’ve been sucked into “Happy Tree friends” which is available free on iTunes.

I know I’ve enjoyed most of the “Commoncraft” podcasts that I’ve seen…they do such an excellent job of quickly and simply explaining technology (and how to fight Zombies).

wiki wiki = fast fast is right!

What I liked from the list:

• The Blogging Libraries Wiki was an impressive project that will come in helpful if I get my library to take on setting up a plan for creating and maintaining a library blog.  It will serve as a resource for ideas and a way to show that there are a lot of library blogs out there in the big wide world.
• The Albystaff wiki was another that impressed me.  Talk about making things transparent for the customers!  And it serves as a training manual for new employees and a refresher for those that are current employees but not accustomed to helping customers with a particular aspect of the library’s processes.  I’m definately going to put that on my radar for my library.

This was the first time that I helped edit a wiki that was I was not a part of creating.  It was really rather remarkable to notice a typo, think “I wish I could fix that…it is really bugging me…”  and THEN realize that I COULD go fix it…so I did.  I helped.  I like helping…it gives me a happy.

My library site is using a wiki to help us collaborate–gather and give input to each others projects…and plan openly amongst ourselves.  We didn’t open it to the public, though…it is more of a messy collective brainstorming session that a editable procedures manual.

I’m rather inspired by Albystaff’s wiki…I want to create one for my library that the staff can freely edit…but I want to go a step further and offer the opportunity to customers to leave comments about what they like/dislike about the policies.  I wonder what it would take to get my coworkers on board…hmmm….

Catching Casted Pods…

I want my library to use podcasts to simply enhance our website…there is a way to create podcasts using accessibility software that will read the text, but it may be better to just have one of us read the text on the screen so that it sounds less robotic.  Hopefully those with disabilities have the software that will read the words on the screen for them…but those that just prefer to hear the words spoken as they read may not fork over the cash and we could provide our pages as audio.

I also want us to create “How to” videos…but I’m getting into wish-listing now instead of dissecting my experience with this lesson.

I didn’t care for podcast.com because I had to subscribe and then I couldn’t add the podcast feeds to my Google Reader page…though it looks like I could add a subscription to my podcast.com page so I’d know when there was something new there for me to go investigate…  i didn’t even know I could add podcasts to my RSS feeder!  But now that I know, I’m an instant snob and want it all in one place…ha ha…

Sounds like it is time for me to meditate:   podcasts are cast…find them where they lay and be grateful…ohhmmm…..

Simplicity…really.

Well…to keep it all in one spot and so I remember to check them, I’ve used the RSS feeder in Outlook for my work-related RSS feeds in the past.  I have a very small handful of feeds that I signed up for when I was first exploring RSS feeds and haven’t gone looking for more.  From what I’ve seen…the Outlook reader is pretty basic and I could do more with some of the online readers in terms of organizing the feeds.  I’ve only been using them for awhile and I’ve already learned that you should only stay subscribed to the feed if it keeps your interest…otherwise you are just “marking all as read” or looking at checking your feeds as a tedious chore rather than an enjoyable chance to stay up-to-date.

For the assignment, I signed up for Google Reader.  I already use iGoogle occasionally, so it seemed to make more sense to sign up for the sibling product where I might be slightly familiar with the language and layout.  It was VERY easy to set up, which is lovely…and it was also easy to add to my iGoogle page so that I will be reminded to check my feeds with a tool I already use…which brings us full circle to why I use Outlook…

My unintended lesson is that there is more to learn.  I need to rock myself out of my rut of using the basic elements of these tools so that I can get the most from them.  I need to go play more with RSS feeds…I need to get myself overwhelmed with feeds to push myself to learning how to manage them better…rather than just reading them like emails.

First unintended lesson learned

It is acually a lesson I learned a long time ago and forgot in my excitement for the new fun toys that are my blog and the “All together now” class…

Read ALLLLLLL the directions and information, and THEN jump into the work.  D  I was so eager to share my blog with the group after reading “Thing #1″ that I didn’t read the following post about including my blog url in the comment that I added to the community page.

*shrug* Live and learn…and learn again if you forget, I guess.

OH!  An entirely unrelated note:  Anyone else hear about Dr. Horrible’s Sing-along-blog?  I love it for it’s campy, quirky, cheezy goodness.  It isn’t freely available on the web now (it was for one week only) but you might want to catch the trailer if you have a taste for the slightly strange.  And now that I think of it…this isn’t entirely unrelated…It is Joss Whedon’s attempt to use the tools of this new 2.0 world in his own field.

All is well in my 2.0 world…

I’m writing this blog specifically to join the “All together now: a 2.o learning experience” which is an open learning course facilitated by Michael Stephans.

I have a little experience with and knowledge of the different 2.0 technologies…but I’ve been learning about it rather haphazardly.  I’m hoping that following along with this program will help me get a clearer picture about how all of these tools are interconnected and inspire me to practice actually USING *gasp* the tools that i learn about!

oohhhmmmmm…all is well in my 2.0 world…ohhhmmmm….chant with me…hehe…