AurThings: Mostly Excellent - Some suggestions

I would say I was introduced to some concepts and tools I had zero familiarity with before AurThings and will use selected tools and skills in work or life.

Even the things I was re-introduced to proved helpful as the first time I tried them I did it either in a rushed fashion or just forgot about them. Some I see the use for more than I did before.

The text and instructions were excellent.

If people felt they needed to do every single thing, including challenges, I can see people dropping out of this. Some of it was very challenging.

Though not everyone could have attended and it would take yet more time for instructors, it would have been nice to also offer ten minute instruction sections for each week, just because some concepts were difficult to understand with text and playing around. Some concepts that took me 30 minutes to finally get were not actually hard - just not obvious.

Overall this was a great experience. I often don't take the time to try new technology that doesn't resonate immediately so this helped me leap off a few virtual bridges. (Sometimes I swam...sometimes I drowned!)

Ok. Since this is an audiobook blog: remember audiobookers! Public libraries now have lots more free stuff for iPod users!

Fun Things

Guess the Google - Did not enjoy this. I'm not very visually oriented.

Montage a Google - Could be useful in creating an image for a guide.

Spelling Bee. Funny mechanical bee. Good for kids or ESL students.

Free Rice. Accomplishing something when you do this so better than others! There's also learning involved which is nice. (Can you tell I just don't generally don't like computer games?)

Since I'll be looking at Animoto closely when I write a review/article for Charleston Advisor on Xtranormal, I'm going to hold off for the moment.

Wordle- Firewall preventing viewing.

Jackson Pollock: Hate this one! Stress-inducing!

Webby Awards Site: Ah! Fab! Never been here and a treasure trove of possibilities! Thanks.

eBooks & Skillsoft

I'm up to speed on eBooks and the specific collections and processes outlined on the AurThings page (nicely done, by the way!) That's one of the areas I buy and work in.


I looked through Skillport online learning courses and the books 24x7. Oh how I wish we could afford Books 24x7 for our computer/IT students. I guess I didn't see any courses I would think of taking unless I had to. Seemed simple enough to access all this. (I couldn't find a Browse function at first for courses. Realized it was 'Catalog.')

Firefox Add-ons and Explorer Plug-ins

I do use Firefox and have add-ons including one that fills in forms, one that makes text bigger (Readability), and one that saves websites to be read later (ReadLater). I did just add Delicious - good idea.

I didn't know how to add more plug-ins for Explorer so this is helpful. I now have Skyline and Google through easy access and added Delicious to both Firefox and Explorer.

iGoogle

I do have an iGoole page with cute background, weather, time, and newsfeeds from local and national locations. I used to have a gadget on it counting down the time to a big party we had for my husbands birthday.


I find I use MyYahoo page (exactly the same I believe as iGoogle) alot more since Yahoo is my preferred personal e-mail. (Had gmail - stopped using it). On that page I have weather, movie theatre times/shows, TV listings, podcasts (book reviews, music), news items, and a link to Liz D'Antonio-Gans fun blog
(http://laughterasmedicine.tumblr.com/)

Tagging, Delicious

Added a few tags (labels) to my blogger posts.

Went to my old Delicious account which I created in 2003, added to in 2004, and apparently visited once last year. I have to admit I never think of going here but I definitely should - so this is a good reminder. When I tried a variety of topic searches, many excellent recommendations emerged. I must remember to better bookmark this and use this. Added six sites I'd recently found for Native Americans - audio/video media. I also need to look at our Delicious account on the Research Help Desk computers. I looked at it when we put it up (at the former Reference Desk) and have since neglected to look.

I looked at Digg and it looks horribly overwhelming. Already have so much info coming in via RSS, Blogs, Old Media etc - and we can rate and comment on it all. Guess I'll get attached to those my friends and colleagues get attached to.

Jing-Jingaling

Jing seems like it will be extremely helpful in teaching and communicating. Here's a simple static screencast showing one of our cool audiobook selections here at the library:

Audiobook Screencast

Thanks! I never tried this before and this will be useful.

Podcasts Redux

I had Audacity re-installed and look forward to updating the Podcast Guides that were lost during the LibGuide update if I get permission to do so. Also will add some very short audio to existing guides.

Podcasts!

I'm skipping over Screencasting for now while I wait for Jing to be introduced. That will be totally new for me.

I subscribed to the Podcast for the KGNU radio show 'Musica Mundi' on my 'My Yahoo' page. I was inspired to choose this one because a friends musical group was performing on this show and I noticed you could subscribe to a podcast of this program.

My Audacity software disappeared when I got a new computer and I haven't requested a new download yet since I don't see making a podcast very soon. Hopefully I can be excused from doing a podcast now as I did two for our previous Library Guides pages that were up for the last two years (recently removed) on how to identify journals vs. magazines and tips on finding journals.

Podcasts are really nice when audio is important in getting the message across (intonation; sound sampling; environment; music) and for listening to when doing other things (cleaning, exercising.) The problem can be that some sites allow simpler downloading to portable devices than others. Some I can't figure out at all.

You Tube

Well, hopefully I will not earn a demerit for not watching March of the Librarians again -- but I think once was enough. (Smart, clever, nicely done...but once was enough...life is too short to repeat too many YouTube videos.) So - I don't know what familiar person is in it.

However, I absolutely do see the use of presenting YouTube videos for learning! And so many useful ones exist for librarians to use! Here's just one on differentiating between scholarly and popular journals:

Twitter

I had tried out Twitter in the past and realized it just doesn't really work if you don't use it with your phone. Since I got off Twitter I've gotten false spam from Twitter saying friends are begging me to re-join...friends deny this. This makes me feel rather angry at Twitter for lying to me - but I do understand people it enjoy it

I can see the use of this for activism (i.e. we're getting shot at....) but otherwise I think it's not for me for personal use. Maybe a work use will emerge.

IM

I hate to say I also had a bad past experience with IM - inappropriate messages from people I don't really know. So - I was going to reactivate Yahoo IM and just do a message or two with Elaine for this exercise but I have to have an administrator upload that for me and it doesn't seem worth an adminstrators time right now (I get a new computer tonight). Checked my Google Talk for people in the library but didn't find anybody.

I also sometimes do Ask Auraria and so am familiar with that IM program.

So - this is somthing I do know how to use but have chosen not to use at this time. Should I need to use it for work, I do have the basics down. Thanks!

Week Five: Facebook

I didn't do this part of the 23 Things since I'm an expert Facebooker. In fact, after a year - years? - of non-stop, annoying messages and virtual gifts from people I barely know, I suspended my account. It's still there hanging in cyberspace. I intend to open a more anonymous one at some point after I get over the trauma of my last experience. : - )

For those friends and colleagues who were my Facebook buddies - no offense intended. The annoyances were not from you. They were from friends of friends of .... you get the idea.

I do miss receiving the and giving the occasional vampire bite, I'll admit.

Progress on AUR Things: Wikis and RSS

Ok - I now have a Wiki that I hope people will add majical/magical things to:
http://tinyurl.com/nxykw7

And I'm now signed up forJudith's blog and the Library FYI. I didn't know you could sign up for RSS feeds via Outlook so that is a nice revelation! I had previously done RSS feeds only via Bloglines and Yahoo - both easy as pumpkin pie. To eat, that is. Not make.

And in keeping with the name of this Blog:

Here's an RSS feed from Librivox, announcing the availability of new audiobooks in their collection: http://librivox.org/newcatalog/NewReleases.xml.
Librivox books are read by volunteers. More on Librivox here.

Introduction: Blogging on 23 Things

(This is a sample blog created within the Auraria Library in Colorado to practice using Blogger.)

Photo Credit: Leo Reynolds -flickr photo


I have a very unfair advantage for this 'thing' since the Bloggoddess Gayle has been helping me in the last few weeks establish a blog for the newsletter I'll send to faculty in August, describing services and resources.


I did find learning a little slow going. Some things are not intuitive (i.e. finding 'edit posts' under 'new post' is not something I would have immediately thought of.)


Blogs may be useful for libraries since allowing feedback is generally a good thing. Unless you have people with boring lives, as we sometimes do on IM reference, who send 'make-believe' questions. Of course, I deeply respect this practice.

I'll mention that I there does seem to be alot of help available 'out there' when you have a Blogger question. I couldn't find an answer in the Blogger help the other day so, using Google, I just put in 'Blogger' and my question and instantly found my answer.

Free Downloadable Audiobooks

So - just in case someone with a real interest in audiobooks finds this blog, here's some REAL information.

I adore listening to what used to be called Books on Tape. Of course, since those ancient times, when our knuckles brushed the ground as we adjusted our Sony Walkmans, books have evolved to CD and digital formats that you can download to your favorite digital player. iPods are most widely used though my Zen is fine and there are plenty of others.

Though I want the audiobook industry to survive and so encourage purchasing CD's and downloads, I must admit that the majority of my listening is done for free. Most public libraries offer growing lists of downloadable audiobooks.

Other free resources:

Gutenberg: The Audiobooks Project

Internet Archive. Collection ranges from alternative news programming, to Grateful Dead concerts, to Old Time Radio shows, to book and poetry recordings, to original music contributed by users. Includes non-English audio options.

Librivox. Provides free audiobooks from the public domain performed by volunteer readers.

The Spoken Alexandria Project from the Telltale Weekly

Best Places to Get Free Books: The Ultimate Guide - From Friedbeef's Tech - Both audiobooks and text only books. A mixture of great and marginal recommendations.

Some more are also listed on this guide created for Auraria Library, in the process of being updated.