Tee Hee

Bush Acknowledges Existence Of Carbon Dioxide

ListenNJnw

This is something that's been available in our library for quite some time. If you're interested in audio books, this is a great service. In fact, it's almost revolutionary. All you need is a library card (hopefully in good standing) and an internet connection on your computer. I won't get into the specifics to much, because you could just go to the website and get all the info from there. But basically, from ListenNJ's website, you download a player to your computer, browse the selection of books, download your selection and viola, sit and enjoy. You don't have to worry about anything even returning the material late. After the loan period, the audio book is automatically returned/deleted/uninstalled/unusable/etc.

There are some things that I personally don't like about ListenNJ. One of these things is the need to have their player downloaded. You can't use iTunes or Quicktime, Media Player, etc. You also cannot play the audio book on an iPod. While this may be okay for some who don't mind purchasing other MP3 players, most of the iPod generation will miss out for now.

This is also assuming that you are allowed to use the audio book in that form. Unless the services have changed, the way it worked was each book had certain rights purchased. Some you were allowed to burn to cd and have forever and always. Others were strict "listen-to-on-the-player-only" titles.

If you are interested in audio books, this could be a good service and worth checking out.

YouTube'n

As you could see below, I modified my Thing #20 a little bit and posted a video from Adult Swim rather than YouTube. While it doesn't discuss anything library related, I felt it touched upon a more universal theme. Everyone's got bad days. And yeah, sometimes just chalk it up to poor communication. Plus the video makes me laugh, so that's a plus.

I like YouTube for what it is. It definietly has it's uses and is a good source for people to share information (even if it's just something funny to brighten someone's day.) That said, I have found that there's more junk to sift through recently. I don't know if that's because I haven't spent much time on YouTube in recent months and rather go to certain websites for video clips (ie: Adult Swim) or I just don't have the patience to surf around on there.

I could see several uses for YouTube where libraries are concerned. It would be a good outlet to communicate some of the services, or even show a video tour of the library. Of course, that means said library would have to have the means in which to make the video and upload it. There could be a link from the library's webpage to the video clip. While it might be better to post the clip on the library's page itself if it was something that specific, general information could benefit library users from different places across the board.

Sometimes bad days are the result of poor communication...

Web 2.0 awads list

Man, there's a whole lot of stuff on there! It's pretty cool how some of the sites on the Web 2.0 awards list are things that we've touched upon through PalsPLUS2.0 (Google docs, del.icio.us, LibraryThing, etc).

I was also happy to find sites that I already know and sometimes use (Google maps, Picasa, YouTube, Craiglist, etc).

One of the sites I found to be interesting is called ColorBlender. You can make your own color palettes, match colors, find "blends," etc and use them in Photoshop and Illustrator. I'm sure something like this will come in handy at some point in the future with my artwork.

Also of interest was Spoke, one of the 3 sites they have listed for professional networking. I've heard of this site before, but never fully checked it out. I think that I'm going to have to take a closer look at a couple of these...

Google docs!

I wish I had known about Google docs sooner. I was late jumping into all of Google's goodies and now I feel like I'm really playing catchup. This would have been an EXCELLENT resource for all of those patrons who came into the library to use the internet AND Microsoft Word only to find that we didn't offer that service at the time.

Here, they would have been able to do research online and open a Google document and type to their hearts content (until the time limit was up. This still would not have been a big deal since Google ceremoniously backs up pretty much everything you do... if only Illustrator was so kind...). There appear to be enough other online resources available for those who don't use Google/Gmail services. Very handy.

I don't necessarily feel that these types of programs will make Microsoft Office obsolete. I can see them perhaps using it in conjunction with traditional word processing software. Isn't it a good idea to be more versatile anyway?

Library 2.0, Web 2.0, etc...

Well I must say that I enjoyed this "thing." In fact, I found most of these perspectives to be quite comforting in that some librarians and libraries "get it."

I'm not a librarian (shock! gasp!). However, being immersed in public libraries for over 10 years, I feel like I'm a pretty good judge or outside authority on the subject.

I thought Rick Anderson's "Away from the Icebergs" article summarized much of what has become an issue for libraries today. For example, I would agree with his thoughts on the collections of libraries. Certain materials are in higher demand than others and it's imperative to meet those demands in order to serve the public.

Now granted, a library community's demographic will help to dictate the needs for that library's changes. We have a heavy "reader" population for our library branch. There are families that checkout upwards of 50 or 60 books at a shot (I think the record since I've been here was around 100 books at a pop). We also have a high demand for the bestsellers and popular authors, fiction, mystery, etc that any other library has. That's not to say that we don't have patrons looking for nonfiction or reference materials. However, our city is fortunate enough to house two libraries. More often than not, when it comes to collection development in the reference areas, the main building (understandably so) is the one that gets the most current material. Originally this was a frustrating issue. But when it comes down to it, there are tons of resources available online. If push comes to shove and that patron really, really, really needs the most current information from that reference book on stamps, he can just drive the 10 minutes over to the main building and go to town.

In some respects, I agree with one of my coworkers about our branch evolving into a fiction library. Almost like a circulating Barnes and Noble. Stock multiple copies of the most current fiction, the hottest authors, the best reads of the year. Not that we'd have to eliminate nonfiction or reference entirely. But I feel the collections can be adjusted to meet our needs. Resources would still be available online, and we have a whole OTHER library for our patrons to access. How many towns can claim that?

The other thing that was touched upon in this article was "reliance on user education." Let me apologize in advance to any coworkers or supervisors I may offend by my following opinion. We're understaffed. Now I know that's nothing new, and it's been like that for years and it's probably like that everywhere. But we're not just understaffed when it comes to numbers. We are understaffed when it comes to people capable of answering the questions or teaching the public about the services that they can access. It's absolutely great that we can offer down loadable audio books and as I just learned today, video on demand service. (How cool is that? All with your library card!!)

But our staff is under trained. It's almost a guarantee that any person who walks through that door or picks up a phone to ask about these services I'm going to have to field the question. Let me remind you that I am not a librarian. Let me also throw in that I'm not even a supervisor, let alone anywhere near the top of the food chain. I am an artist. If you told any of my college friends that I'm the "tech guy" they would laugh at you. Out loud. In your face. What I know I've learned from playing around on my own. I understand if numbers in the library cannot be increased. The staff NEEDS to be more knowledgeable. There's no point in providing services that are not understood by library staff. As a whole we need to be more aware of these services and at least understand the concept enough to be able to explain it to someone else.

I was going to talk about some of the other articles, but this post is way too long already. However I will add that I am proud of our libraries. Look at what we're doing. Look at what we offer. We may not be the forerunner by any means, but we're not really being left in the dust either. I think we're in a good position to keep adjusting and evolving. And if we're able to do so, the public won't outgrow us. They'll need us just as much, just in a different way.

Technorati

Thing #14 is pretty interesting. Talk about sharing! Haha. To be able to browse for information from alllll those blogs. It's pretty neat, and I like the idea of being able to search for say, pen and ink techniques or something and get a myriad of results.

(I actually did search for pen and ink techniques and even got a few videos people posted. Not bad.)

While I don't see Technorati as being a site I would use religiously, it's a cool resource to remember.

del.icio.us

I think I like Thing #13. Using del.icio.us to bookmark sites and keep track of them on the internet as opposed to a certain computer is an awesome idea. Sites can be accessed and managed from any computer at any time. No more jotting sites down or emailing myself for later.

The idea seems a little similar to RSSing in that you subscribe and keep track of internet sites through another website. However, I can see del.icio.us as becoming a strong source of reference material. (A better one for me than perhaps Rollyo...) The first thing I tagged is "How to Fix a Broken iPod."

Hopefully I'll never have to refer to it. But if I need it, it's there! Or if a friend needs it, it's there. Nice.

One Book New Jersey 2008 (Part 1)

I am taking quick break from working on the OBNJ poster. I'm actually a little ansty working on it this year. The deadline isn't even that tight. I think I'm just a little concerned over having my eyeballs lasered this week. I am anticipating my work output to slow down. (I was going to add a funny comment about how at work, even with my work output decreasing, I'd still probably be pretty much on par... Interesting.)

Anyway, I'm about halfway done with what I'm actually able to work on. I'm a bit limited with how far I can go since no one knows what book #4 is yet. Hopefully the Reader's Advisory Committee (if that's what it was) will pick something a little different from the previous years. That would be cool.

Okay Emily, since I know you're the only one that reads this more or less, I will keep you posted on my progress!

:)

Yo, Rollyo

I'm going to be honest: I am not a fan of Thing 12.

Don't get me wrong, Rollyo seems like a pretty cool tool. The concept of just searching websites you know and trust is a good one. And I can definitely see a use for this for a librarian who gets frequent questions about specific topics. Instead of googling, yahooing, or asking jeeves, you have your roll of 5, 10, or 50 sites that you can just search through. Sharing your rolls is cool and fits into that social networking stuff.

But I just don't like it. Right now, it's not for me. I don't mind googling or goodsearching for something and getting a new site now and then. If it's a site that I frequent, I'd just as soon bookmark it or add it to my Reader.

(Not to mention I'm not crazy about remembering all these user names and passwords.)

So, I have explored Rollyo. I see its purpose, understand what it represents and the possibilities it holds.

I'm just not going to jump into this one right now. Thanks for presenting it to us though!

Shelfari (instead of LibraryThing)

vs.


I am indeed what thing #11 suggested-a book lover. This is probably a good thing, considering a big chunk of the past 10 years have been spent practically immersed in a paper forest.

I feel like I went a little against the grain of the assignment again however. Much like my Flickr vs Picasa blog. Since I didn't really look ahead at the assignments, I had signed up for a Shelfari account about a month ago. It's basically the same thing as LibraryThing. The whole idea and concept of keeping a catalog or shelf of your books is awesome. This would have come in handy years ago when I first entered the paper forest and starting reading half of what passed through my hands (okay, not fully half, but a lot more than if I didn't work in a library, ya know?).

It's not easy to try and recall all the books I've read, and I alllmost started to feel like some of our friendly patrons who ask "Can you tell me if I've read this before?" It's all right there on the site now. I can add to it, find friends with the same reading interests, get reading suggestions, or give them. Pretty neat deal.

Now from just looking at LibraryThing and not really signing up and playing around with it, the differences between that site and Shelfari seem to be on the surface. I don't know who started first, but LibraryThing does seem to be a bit more "put together." A few more links, and a pretty strong "buzz page" which they claim: "If the buzz page doesn't convince you, you cannot be convinced. Go away."

Based on my what I know (admittedly again, I don't know that much about the site) the only thing that puts Shelfari over LibraryThing is it's use of color. I'm sorry, that's the Illustrator in me. I find Sheflari more visually pleasing. And I invited a bunch of friends to join, so I can't jump ship just yet.

Either way, both sites are great ways to keep track of stuff. And great tools to expand literary horizons.

Patience

Those motivational posters are always fun, and lots of them have some great pictures. I used Big Huge Labs (http://bighugelabs.com/flickr) to create this motivational poster.

Of course, a little Rossi flavor can be a good thing too. (That's a modified mikaroni original right there!)

RSS-ing

I jumped into the RSS feeds when I signed up for a Gmail account. I didn't check out Bloglines much more than the links provided because I already set up the Google Reader and have been utilizing that tool.

One nice thing about setting up a Google Reader is they have bundle feeds. So, for instance, there is a News bundle which has feeds to BBC News, ESPN, Google News, etc. You can subscribe to these preset bundles, then add websites to the already existing bundles, or create your own. I stumbled across some cool photography websites this way through one of their packages. It's also pretty easy to manage the subscriptions. There aren't too many websites I visit every day, so it wasn't hard to just go through and subscribe to them. I didn't even have to look for the RSS icon (which was pretty easy to spot once you're actually looking for it) since the Mac has the RSS option right in the address bar.

Pretty much the only sites I haven't subscribed to are the news sites. Seeing as how news is updated quite frequently, I still find it easier to just hop over to CNN, Commondreams or wherever and check out the headlines. Other than that, it has been an overall timesaver.

My "Tech-Related" Blog: The Magic and Tragedy of Apple Z

One of my favorite technological advancements of all time is a nifty little feature named "Undo". I first discovered this little guy in school, where he was aptly named "Apple Z" for the shortcut command on Mac computers. His PC cousin is "Ctrl Z" and as I am usually choc-full of mistakes, they have become fast friends.

Apple Z comes in handy especially while working on an illustration or another art project in the computer. It's fun (and a huge time saver) to be able to change entire blocks of color, layouts, lines, or anything else and then just undo them. Basically, it's a big help to play around with any element and try new things without having to worry about losing original files or having to take the time to revert to a saved copy. It's pretty cool to say the least.

Of course, Apple Z also spoiled me. Most of the artwork I've done in the past 4 years has been on the computer. It all starts out traditional, then I scan it in and go to town. Adobe Photoshop is amazing, and Adobe Illustrator is another of my best friends. In fact, Illustrator allows me to Apple Z to my heart's content.

But as you may have noticed from an earlier post, I started painting again. Now, I took quite a long break from painting, so it's a little slow getting back into it. Imagine my surprise when I decided to redraw the figure's forehead, only to decide she looked better before hand, and couldn't Apple Z my way back to the beginning.

Well, "fiddlesticks" as Grandma would say. (I didn't actually say "fiddlesticks." While not as playful, my choice of words was definitely colorful.) And silly me, I can't tell you how many times I actually stopped and looked for the undo option during that first couple of hours.

It's quite embarrassing. But it also (re)taught me that no matter how wonderful even the tiniest technologies are, sometimes it boils down to gettin' your hands dirty and doing it the old-fashioned way.

Or Grandma's way. You know, whatever works.

Painting!

I started painting again! Woo hoo!

Down by the bay...

I used to live there. Why did I move back?

Flickr vs Picasa

Believe it or not, I took about 1600 pictures during my college career. Most of those were taken during my Junior and Senior years and pretty much all of them were taken with disposable cameras. Needless to say, I have still yet to take the time to scan in those pictures. (And I'm not holding my breath that I will tackle that anytime soon.) Being the savvy artist that I am, one would think I would have used my now ancient digital camera, and a wicked-cool photo sharing site like Flickr. Share them with everyone, print out what I want, etc. etc. Would have been sweet.

Oh well.

I am semi-familiar with Flickr and Snapfish. I've surfed through friends' pics with guest passes in Flickr, and apparently even have a Snapfish account. I don't take nearly as many pictures as I used to, so I never really got into the online photo sharing frenzy. This will probably eventually change.

While it seems that Flickr is probably the most popular of these sites, and one with some of the best sharing/organizing capabilities, it apparently requires one thing I don't have: a Yahoo! account. I have a Hotmail account (that is driving me crazy since they upgraded to WindowsLive), a Verizon account, and now a Gmail account (which I signed up for because I intend to eventually can Hotmail.) I don't really want to keep track of another account. Not to jump on any sort of Google bandwagon, but since I can access my blog through Google, why not my pictures too?

Perhaps Picasa will meet my needs, limited as they are at the moment.

In my younger days...

Posted from my Picasa account! That's about 3 years old now. Whoah.

Shelfari?

Haha, and I joined Shelfari.

Look how advanced I'm becoming.

Hi.

Look, I made a blog.