Week 13

For me, this program has opened my eyes to social networking. I had never previously had many good thoughts towards establishing relationships with others via the net, but Facebook changed that after a party I attended where others tagged pictures of the people whose names I couldn't remember, and suddenly I found my social network vastly expanded, which doesn't always happen after a party. Usually you get to know a couple of people there and then everyone else becomes a blur.

I can see that kind of thing becoming a huge advantage in the Library and Information Industry - Small as we are in W.A., there are still a lot of people that don't know each other, and this can be rectified by things like Facebook profiles and groups, as well as events. It's one of those things that you really have to become involved with for it to work for you.

Other things we have looked at in this program have potential, such as Twitter, SlideShare and YouTube, but may not ever be fully embraced by students or libraries.

I think libraries are moving fast towards things like del.icio.us, PBWiki and Blogger. We are moving at incredible speeds, helped along by wonderful people like Lucy, who had leaped straight into everything we were looking at and immediately began applying it to her job.

Personally, I will always continue to explore new things that come about - Maybe not at the same speed as the younger generation, but certainly when I see a use for them.

98% Chimp

I found this to be utterly amusing and true :-)

Week 12 - Revisiting Goals

Admittedly, I haven't really achieved any of the goals I set out in this program. I did my usual thing where I got really into it at the beginning and was extremely enthused and eager to jump ahead, and then I dropped off for a while. I allowed my second obstacle to stand in my way - instead of putting time aside for the program, I said to myself that I would do a blog entry at the end of the day if I had finished a certain unit record in time - and I never did.

I also haven't fully explored the aspects that I haven't known of until now. I did only a very brief look at SlideShare before finding something I liked and posting it, although I have to admit that it is interesting how little "popular culture" things are on there, everyone would rather use things like YouTube - Power Point is viewed as being too "boring" and "business-like" for the younger generation to really invest in it. Which is probably a good thing as it seems a lot of things on there are of a higher quality and serve an actual purpose.

And now it occurs to me that thoughts like this are probably best left to other blog entries like "Reflect on anything to do with program" :-P

Getting My Blog Entries Confused

Okay, so I'm trying to get all my 23 Things completed today, or at least most of the way completed, and I have managed to confuse myself over which blog entries I have and haven't done. So, to make it straight-forward to myself (and poor Kathryn who perhaps would also have to sift through these to make sure I have fulfilled the criteria), this blog entry will be my list of completed, relevant posts.

Week 2 : Goals, obstacles and learning toolkit
Week 3: Anything to do with program
Week 4: Anything to do with program
Week 5: RSS
Week 6: Anything to do with program
Week 7: How's it going?
Week 8: Anything to do with program
Week 9: How are these new tools likely to change our users' attitudes to the service offered by their library?
Week 10: Anything to do with program
Week 11: Which of the tools covered so far seems the most useful to libraries?
Week 12: Revisit goals from Week 2
Week 13: What have been the highs and lows of the 23 Things for you? Where to next with emerging technologies? For you? For libraries?

LOLCats

This is one of those things that just jumped out of nowhere - I was introduced to it by a friend, then the next thing I knew it was being talked about everywhere and now it has seeped irrevocably into my personal life - I actually know someone who can't stop talking like a LOLCat and is afraid that it will leak out at work!

Anyway, this is the first one I came across that really caught my eye, since it is one of the things he says to me so often when I exhibit my usual klutz behaviour:



This is me completing Thing 23 by exploring LOLCats from the Learning 2.1 Blog :-)

ShiftHappens

The following is a very interesting slide show - even though it's focused largely on America. And it's very true. This really is the most interesting time to be alive... So far ;-)

Shift Happens

From: jbrenman, 7 months ago

| View | Upload your own

This is a stylization of a slideshow originally created by Karl Fisch, examining globalization and America’s future in the 21st century. It is designed to stand alone, without having to be presented in person. Enjoy!


SlideShare Link

YouTube

Well I found it really difficult to think of something interesting to search for in YouTube, so I settled for some good old Monty Python :-)

This is the Pet Shop and the Lumberjack Song.

My Desk

Here is my work desk at Murdoch University Library. It looks a little less neat at the moment - what with various unit lists, headphones that supposedly aren't working and damaged DVDs - but it still looks pretty much the same.

I can't wait to start using my new desk calendar and diary for next year. Hehe.

Week 5 - Passion

So today there was a very brief post on LibrariesInteract.info which said that a lady won an award for a study on the word "the" and how it can cause problems for filing things alphabetically. It amazes me the different things people can write about. I guess when you're passionate about something, you're passionate about something.

I envy that. There have been so many points where I have been inspired by people's books and essays, all the wonderful things they can find so much to write about, but I just don't have that kind of passion towards anything. My interests fizzle out before they can mature and I just end up with a pile of incomplete personal projects.

Otherwise, the only other things I've really been receiving through Google Reader have been the Flickr pictures for the 365libs project and everyone else's blog entries through 23 Things. I keep considering unsubscribing to the 365libs feed because so many pictures get loaded a day and I just find it a hassle as all I really do is have a quick glance and then "mark all as read". But I'll leave it there for a little while longer. At the very least it gives me a bit of a kick on Fridays when Amanda, Lisa and I upload pictures to the 365libs and it comes through my Google Reader :-)

Week 4 - Another Reflection

I almost scared myself by thinking that it was the end of the week again and I hadn't done my blog for Week 4 like I had promised. But no, I am saved by the slowness of time (even though lately it feels anything but!)

So I think I'm looking forward to Week 12, as it involves something that I haven't had much experience with (YouTube) and something I'd never even heard of before (SlideShare). At the beginning of this programme I found myself leaping ahead into things I already knew and investigating things I had known of, so I look forward to being able to discover something new in the time that I'm actually supposed to. There is always the possibility that I might jump ahead with those anyway, but that would probably involve me being bored at home and without homework, which won't be for much longer anyway.

Next week we will be getting onto things that I haven't investigated too much on my own yet (PBwiki), so I think I will have a better appreciation now that I will be moving at the appropriate pace. And now that this post will catch me up on the blogging side of it, I must get around to setting aside a designated time for me to blog and investigate the technologies involved with this programme. I think I will use my 23 Things session for the "playing around" side of it, then maybe set aside some time on a Friday afternoon to blog about my week with the technology (my session is on the Tuesday, so I will have had a few days to come up with some opinions of it).

I have been enjoying seeing everyone else's blog entries for this programme. It's very interesting to see the different styles of so many people in the same profession - just one of the many things I love about library people. Especially here at Murdoch and other University Libraries - there is an entire world in this one place and an entire set of diversities to fill it.

Week 3 - Belated

Yes, this just means that I will need to reflect on something to do with the programme again early next week.

I've actually gotten quite into a lot of things to do with this project. Thanks to Groucho Marx's Dog, I now have a Firefox Add-on for my Google Reader which I've found quite handy. When I'm at home I have three Firefox windows and over thirty tabs open on the same pages so I am not constantly having to revisit sites that I use often, so in that instance I can actually see in the tab title if there are unread items (or just click on the tab and glance at the page itself). But at work I find that Firefox can easily get too cluttered (as I am always having to open and close new items) so it's been quite useful to have a small, unobtrusive tool telling me that something awaits me via RSS...

Some other things that have intrigued me have been the more "social" items such as Twitter and Facebook. I have embarked on these on my own however, so I will need to create new ones at the appropriate time for work purposes. But it does interest me to think on how Murdoch could use these tools. I'm not certain at this point that I could see a decent use for Twitter, but as I have once again rushed ahead of myself, I will reserve judgment on that until the week we are actually meant to be looking at it.

Anyway, so I have subscribed to everyone's 23 Things blogs, LibrariesInteract.info and Flickr accounts (both Murdoch's and the 365libs Project), but my ICanHasCheezburger hasn't worked, so I think I may have to go back at some point and make sure I've subscribed to the right thing. I briefly subscribed to a couple of interesting things on the list that Kathryn provided, but was instantly overwhelmed at the number of new items that sprang up overnight, so I have removed those and kept it simple.

I think that would have to be my main advice to those out there who are finding it hard to keep up with their subscriptions: Just start off on the basic, even if it means that you aren't subscribed to the more interesting things. You won't like this technology if it stresses you out :-P

Goals, Obstacles and the Learning Toolkit

Goals

• To become comfortable with all of the technologies being looked at in our sessions
• To explore beyond the circle of what is offered in this program
• To understand how these social technologies can have an impact on libraries in the 21st century

Obstacles

• Becoming too immersed in the "funner" aspects of the program
• My current inability to delegate the appropriate amount of time (either too much or too little)
• Avoiding the less fun aspects of the program
• Learning to keep my learning "work focused" and not letting my personal life seep in

Learning Toolkit

• Canon PowerShot A640 digital camera
• Work desktop and home desktop
• An open mind
• Outlook calendar
• My interest in the technologies involved
  

Twitter

I have now joined Twitter. I'm not too sure what I think of it yet, but it seems fun to use. It's great for all those random things that happen during my day that I try to remember for a blog entry later but never do (like me cleaning out my bedroom to find a half empty bottle of beer on the top shelf of the built in robe! LOL).

I keep going to write the first post for 23 Things and getting sidetracked... I actually haven't watched the 7 1/2 Habits video all the way through yet, so I should probably do that before I start the entry, rather than try to do both at once.

I've also now just realised that I have yet another place to post things to... I already blog twice a day on as it is! And now I have this blog and Twitter to post more random things throughout my days.

Okay, enough, back to cleaning/homeworking.

23 Things

So here's my Blogger account for the 23 Things program being run at Murdoch University Library. I actually haven't had a blogger account for a couple of years, since around the time I was working at Curtin University's libraries. Nice to see my old template is still here ;-)