PC Magazine's Top 100 Undiscovered Websites

Here is a link to PC Magazine's Top 100 Undiscovered Websites - check it out!

A different type of Wiki

I just received this link via the YALSA list serv that I want to share. It relates to our training because it is part of a wiki but please bring your sense of humor!

Learning 2.0

I found this video on YouTube and WOW did it feel familiar - laptop grand prize drawing & mp3 players...

(#23) Summary

What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?
I enjoyed learning about RSS feeds, something I should have learned about sooner but didn't take the time and the mashups for fun.

How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?
I am glad the KDL offered this type of training because it was good to have a outline of activities to do but I don't think it has affected my over all learning goals. I do enjoy learning new things and hopefully that will continue in the future.

Were there any take-aways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?
No, not really - but I hope other employees take advantage of this opportunity.

What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?
This format works well for me because I like being able to go at my own pace.

If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you again choose to participate?
Yes, I would participate in a different program.

(#22) Podcasts

Maybe it is because I am more familiar with iTunes store but I really do like it better for finding podcasts. Podcastalley didn't give enough information about the podcasts and there were not any customer reviews. I have heard of this site before because certain podcasts want listeners to vote for them here so that their show goes up on the ratings listed on the side of the main screen. Podcast.net had categories to select from as well as a search bar and there were keywords to use also but again no reviews. Yahoo podcasts has ratings and I liked this one the best of the three. I found one library related blog that could be interesting and I linked it to my bloglines, Hennepin County Library Teenlinks Podcast. This podcast is created by teens for teens and could be something KDL could do also.

I actually listen to a lot of different podcasts and here are some of the book related ones:
Amazon Wire books, movies, music
Book Lust with Nancy Pearl
NY Times book reviews
Book talks with Nancy Keane
Just One More Book children's book reviews
NPR Books reviews authors etc

Plus I listen to a few different Harry Potter podcasts!

(#21) YouTube

There should be a warning on this site: CAUTION: watching this site causes addiction! As you probably can tell, I have used YouTube before! Actually, everyone in my family has used this site including my 7 year old daughter. I hear "can I go on YouTube?" almost as much as "can I play RuneScape?" My husband started it and now every one of us has been taken over! So here is one of my favorite videos from YouTube - Brotherhood 2.0 singing sensation: Hank Green! (My kids call him Uncle Hank). FYI: Hank sang this song the Wednesday before HP & the Deathly Hallows was released.

(#20) Special Treat

Yes, finally a break! I really liked this video; I like the concept of us being the web and changing our way of thinking and organizing information. But I do not think the video would make sense to a lot of people, especially new users of the web. It moves very quickly through a lot of different elements of the web, including html, which is a foreign language to many. This video seems to be for people involved with Web 2.0 (using XML and CSS coding to fashion the way the Internet looks, making it flexible); people with an interest in organizing and making the Internet easier for others to use. This includes Librarians, who should be experts at organizing lots of data!

(#19) Online Music

I really like Pandora! I have listened to the radio online but mainly by going directly to a particular station who broadcast from their website (like WYCE - okay, I don't listen to this station but my husband does!). I might be wrong but Pandora isn't playing music that is currently playing on radio stations, is it? I do like being able to rate my play list. Pandora didn't take long to come up but why do you have to sign into everything? I just want to be unknown sometimes!

As for music, I do have an iPod so I have used the iTunes store, but not to purchase music. Mainly I look for blogs and other free things! My husband doesn't want to buy music directly from the web for a couple reasons, one is that the downloaded copy isn't up to his standards in terms of quality. The other reason would be he likes to see how the artist arranges the music on a CD. Yes, for all things music, I do default to my husband because he is the expert.

File sharing: this is something I never did either nor do I have a lot of interest. My husband is interested in live performances but I am not sure if he has spent time looking into this type of thing online.

(#18) Social Networking Sites

I started a Myspace page in the spring during one of my classes at Wayne. It isn't that important in my life but I find it is handy to keep up with people I don't see much. I was also able to locate a couple people I went to school with, one high school & the other college, so that was neat. My profile is set to private so you will have to request to be my friend.

I think social networking is important to teenagers and therefore, it should be important to libraries. Libraries, as part of library 2.0, need to be available to their patrons where they work and play. I know that Myspace has been limited at the Wyoming branch which might be seen as unwelcoming to teens. One thing I like about Myspace is that ability to privatize your profile. One thing I don't like is all the advertisements. A lot of teen authors have profiles and there are a lot of bands too. Most of the wizard rock bands only have a presence on Myspace where you can listen to some songs and add a song to your own profile. I have a song by Malfoy & the Dracos on my profile right now!

(#17) Wikis

I liked the Book Lovers and the Library Success Wikis. These wikis covered a specific subject and were easy to navigate. They both were very visually appealing. I think it might be interesting to see a youth services wiki with information on the different story times, related links for parents to continue the activities at home and when that story time is being done. I know some libraries have handouts covering information on story time for parents but I wonder how many times they are just thrown away. Having it all on the web gives more flexibility.

I have heard of different genealogy wikis based on families, as a place to share information and stories. The problem is, these are personal sites and I haven't been able to find a good example of one. I found Jotspot but they have been taken over by Google so I couldn't sign up right now. I also looked for an example, but didn't find that either. I am interested in trying this out on my family. They're ready for web 2.0 right? Well, they have email so that is a place to start!

(#16) Technorati & Blog Tagging

Technorati is very slow right now so I will update later on the searching features. I did "claim" my blog. I did a search on my username and it was strange to see my postings coming up. I will add more later when the site isn't as busy.

Okay, I did a search for "learning 2.0" and there are 544 blogs about learning 2.0. There are a lot more posts, 21,575 when I checked. The most popular blog "in the world" is Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful things. This is a interesting site but not one I would want to read all the time. Since Technorati has a lot more than blogs, the site is a lot more complicated to use. I did find a cute site, that relates to my mashup picture, I can has cheezburger?. Now that is a blog I can really enjoy! I will have to add it to my del.icio.us account.

(#15) Tagging

I really like the concept of having all my links available to me where ever I am logged into a computer. I sub at different branches but my reference links are not accessible to me. I have similar links at home and at work. I can see the advantage of having all links in one spot. I also like being able to see what other people have found. The web is so huge that there could be a really great site out there that you haven't found yet. While I was checking out Del.icio.us, I found a interesting looking site called What Should I Read Next. I will need to go back and checkout this site more carefully but this is how it works. Type in the title and author of a book you like and then the site will return a list of recommended books based on information provided by users. Worked well on the book I tried!

(#14) Web 2.0 Awards

So many to choose from! I finally settled on Yelp.com. (The link should already be for Grand Rapids). This site is a rating system for local business. I don't think a lot of Grand Rapid's people are on this site yet because there are not a ton of reviews for our area. But it looks like it could be a cool site to go to for information about all kinds of different things in town or out of town.

The site has different categories on the side so you have the option of selecting from there or typing in your search at the top of the screen. The GR seems to extend into Holland. I like the Google map showing the different locations on a street map. The map slides down the screen as you move down the page, which is kind of cool. But if that annoys you, check the "Map, don't follow me!" box.

I did a search on "library". The different GR & KDL branches are listed but no reviews. Vertigo Music also came up because a review included the term library. Bitter End Coffee House is listed also for the same reason. They are the first two in the list, probably because they have reviews.

I also found the hair salon I use and I could edit Business information without having an account. Keep an eye on this site to see how it expands.

(#13) Zoho Writer

This is my first ever time using an on-line word processing tool. It doesn't seem that different actually. Ths might be a good way to share a document for class with a group of three or more. Usually with only two people in a group, we just take turns working on the document and then sending it to the other person for editing and additions. I am trying to use the highlighter feature but it doens't seem to work...nope, it's a background color. Still doesn't seem to work. How abut I spel rong?  That's weird, it put A's after the periods but didn't show any spelling issues. I added a tag. Now I will try using the publish feature to add this to my blog. Cross your fingers. Nope - maybe I have to verify my account. Hold on, let me try that first.

Okay, I'm back. I signed out and back in so now my file name is showing up for this but the spell check doesn't seem to work right. It only checks on-line and then addes A's, again. Maybe I don't like this so much after all. I tryed the background color again & nothing happened. Let's try to add a smiley face. It puts it in the corner, that is strange. I will try publish again. Nope, I am going to switch to Firefox since right now I am using Safari. Saving and will be right back!

<div&gt;My document is here so I am going to try the background color again first. Doesn't look different in the preview. Okay, smiley time. b(218, 0, 0); cursor: pointer;' id='HA-spellcheck-error'>l.gif','cool');"> It worked! Now, the spell check. That is strange, it is finding mis-spelled words between two differnt words, like the space before happened and then the beginning of happened. Don't like this much. Plus, look at all my A's in the first paragraph! I don't think this is a good program to use for Safari. Last time to try using the publish feature, otherwise I will cut and paste this to my blog.
Technorati Tags discovery,exercise


It's me! I had to go back and fix the title and add my labels. The first paragraph is BAD! Do not use Zoho Writer with Safari! The publish feature worked, mostly.

(#12) Rollyo

Again, something else I have never heard of or used before! This was quite an interesting tool. I created a search engine for Genealogy, my hobby, and then I tested it with my maiden name. It seemed to work great! I can see how this would help streamline searching at the reference desk. If this became popular at KDL, it would be helpful to have a list of different searches so work isn't being duplicated.

(#11) LibraryThing

This might be the easiest of the training because I have been on LibraryThing since August 2006. But I added the random book covers to the sidebar. I don't use LibraryThing much now because I was introduced to another tool which I like better. Goodreads allows users to link up with their friends. On my account I have different shelves for my books so others can see what I am currently reading, going to read, and have read. Also, when I log on I am given a list of updates from my friends pages so I can always see what they are reading. We can rate books and link to others on the site to see what they had to say about the book.

I am one of those people who loves to have a list of the books I own, know where the book is located and when I last read it. So I have a program on my iMac at home to keep track of books for my whole family. (They don't appreciate it as much as I do!) I use Bookpedia which operates a lot like iTunes. Love it!

(#10) Library 2.0

In my web design class at Wayne, we were exposed to Web 2.0, which to me meant, making the Internet easier to use and accessible from different web browsers. Translating that to Library 2.0, based on my past exposure to the term and the articles linked on KDL learning, the library needs to make the library accessible to all different types of patrons, not just the traditional library patron. One interface that is central to all libraries is the OPAC. But the catalog hasn't been able to keep up with current technology. Searching is not as easy as it should be nor is the interface intuitive. Yes, the library needs to keep organization (ie: controlled vocabulary) as a priority but ease of use is important too. Patrons do not always ask a Librarian for help when they have a problem or cannot locate something, some just leave and never come back.

(#9) Library blogs, searching

I always knew there were lots of useless things on the Internet but it really comes out when you are not looking for anything specific! I think I liked the looks of Technorati for searching. I liked the listing of tags on the side, just click on an interesting heading. Actually, one of the best things about looking at other blogs is finding out the cool stuff posted and then figuring out where it came from! For example, my avatar is new because I saw another librarian had one and I liked it! On the same blog, there was a link to twitter.com. I could actually see what this librarian had IM to others. Just hope your boss doesn't catch you!

(#8) RSS Feeds

That was easier than I thought it would be! I knew what RSS feeds where and Safari has some already setup on my Bookmark bar but I never messed with them much. I love blogs but it is really hard to visit all the ones I have bookmarked each week (luckily, not everyone updates weekly or daily:)) I think this could be a real time saver for me! This might be the best thing I learned from 2.o training.

Here is the link to my Bloglines.

Update to the image generator: my family really liked the Simpson generator! They spent a lot of time editing their picture. So now we have a Simpsonized family.

(#7) Online image generator

This was fun! I didn't know much about this part of the web either so I learned something new! I liked quite a few different generators but one that really caught my eye was one listed on "The Generator Blog". The link to the site is: http://flash-gear.com/stereo/. I tried just adding the HTML but that didn't work so I guess you will have to follow this link to see my 3D Stereogram image: http://three.flash-gear.com/stereo/stereo.php?c=v&id=398839&k=86291433.

Just for fun I added the image which is from Letter James.

(#6) Flickr Mashups etc

I had no idea what a mash-up was so that was a good thing to know! The Flickr Color Pickr & Retrievr are quite similar and both could be a really big time waster, in a fun way! The pickr only requires a selection of a color where the retrievr needs an image or a drawing. The Flickr Toys area had so many different things to look at and do! The one I liked the best from that selection was the Lolcats because I have seen a number of different pictures on the web with that title and I really do LOL! So I created one for my cute cat picture. I also created a trading card but didn't make it a librarian card because mine was more general and didn't really know what to write in the comments area and I am not officially a librarian. Sorry!

Shutterfly

I wanted to try out shutterfly.com because I had read an article in FamilyFun magazine about "Hosting your online Reunion" and the author recommended Shutterfly (compared to Flickr & PhotoWorks) partly because of the ability to gather comments about the pictures. So I posted some pictures from my childhood and created a group. The group allows us to have a specific address to use for our childhood pictures. Then I invited my siblings and parents to join, view and comment on the pictures.

Shutterfly differs from Flickr because they only allow jpeg pictures, it installs a small program to allow batch uploading and it seems to want me to purchase copies of my pictures everywhere. But I like the address for my family pictures. I will have to check out Flickr more to see about leaving comments and only allowing a certain group to view.

(#5) Explore Flickr

Before I setup an account, I wanted to see what other people had put on the site. So I looked at some different keywords. One of the keywords was 'tuliptime' because I live near Holland, Michigan and bring my children to Tulip Time every May. The other keyword I checked was my maiden name, which is not a very common name. Interesting enough, there were quite a few pictures tagged with my maiden name, all from the Netherlands, and yes, I am Dutch! That was kind of cool discovery.

For my discovery exercise, I upload 20 pictures I had taken in 2002 while I was working at the Wyoming Branch. This is when the library first opened in their new building. All 20 are tagged WyoLibrary, these include pictures I took of my kids at the library that year. The pictures of just the library are tagged KDL2.0, one of which can be seen to the right. I added this using the blogger photo upload. (I had convert my picture to .jpg because I save all my pictures at .tif to preserve the original picture.)

Flickr was really easy to use. I did some batch editing and added titles to some of my pictures. I tried to use the map feature but it was really slow so I will have to try that later. I noticed some different groups while I was exploring, one was all penguins which was kind of funny. So this site does have some socializing also. I did checkout the keyword KDL2.0 to see what other KDL people had added: Looks like Wyoming is a popular branch!

My blog title selection

So I wanted to explain why I choice "On the Edge" for my blog. This could mean many different things! When I first setup my blog, I didn't have any idea what to call it (the hardest part of setting up a blog) so I was looking at the different blogs I have bookmarked to find some ideas. One of my bookmarks was for the Edge Chronicles, a book series I love!! So that is where the title came from and if you read the opening section of any of the Edge Chronicle book, you will see why this is a good title. Read the books too!

(#4) Which 23 things most excited to learn

Of the 23 things we are exploring, I am most excited about the Photos & Images section. I have been interested in checking out Flickr for a while but haven't had the time to do so. I was planning on finishing up some personal photo stuff and posting images on-line this month but I am running out of time. School will be starting before I know it and then it will have to wait until the next break in December.

Wizard Rock

I recently went to a concert. A wizard rock concert for Harry and the Potters & Draco and the Malfoys. It was fabulous!!! For those of you who don't know anything about wizard rock, check out this site. If you would like to listen to some music created by Wizard Rock bands, goto myspace.com under music. I really like Harry and the Potters, Draco and the Malfoys, The Whomping Willow & the Remus Lupins.

(#3) 7 1/2 Habits

Now to the reason behind creating a blog, which is work related. After watching the video located here, I think the easiest habit for me is Play IF that involves reading, which they mentioned in the video! I always have time to read! I never really understand people when they say "I don't have time to read". Why not? What could possible be more fun and relaxing than reading! I listen to audiobooks everytime I get into my car. I read books that are recommended to me, I read books of authors I love, I read books with interesting covers. I am very proud to say that I average a dozen books a month. (Yes, I keep track of my reading but I am not alone in this!) Of course this changes some because some months are busier than others but hey, reading is what I do and it is important to my career and it is FUN!

The hardest habit would probably be beginning with the end in mind. I don't usually start something because I think it will be educational nor write out my goals. I use technology (#6) because I enjoy the computer (most of the time). Even this Learning 2.0 Training, before we knew what it was about, I was excited because I was interested in seeing what type of information/technology would be covered. Yes, anything free, like a MP3 player is cool but it wasn't the only motivation.


On a side note, I found the spell check but since I am using Safari (Mac), the computer gives me an error so sorry if there are spelling errors!

My picture

This picture is actually of my cat, not me! But I had to upload a picture to my blog in order to add the same picture to my blog profile.




Adding a picture also involved me editing this post so I thought I would add that finding the right spot to edit posts took a few minutes because the help screen didn't tell me how to get to the correct screen to find Posting Edit Posts. So hopefully if anyone asks me to show them how to do this, I will remember how to do this! (Think: Customize)

The beginning

Yes, I have gone where I never thought I would go, a blog site. The reason I never planned on having a blog is because I am not much of a writer (and a terrible speller, does this have spell check?). I like to read and I like computers but I didn't think anyone would want to read what I wrote using the computer!