Thing #14 Library Thing

This site is amazing! It's my favorite "thing" so far. I've been playing around with it now for a couple weeks - so far I've entered everything from my personal bookshelf in our home office, (only about 170 books or so). I just may have to get one of those lifetime memberships..... I've enjoyed looking at other members' personal libraries, author clouds, tag clouds, etc. Since I am a very visual person, I really like being able to have a picture of each book cover along with its description. By clicking on a book in my library, I can find out how many other members own it, see its tag cloud, read reviews, and get recommendations from LibraryThing on similar books I might enjoy. You can even click on the "Unsuggester" and it will tell you books to avoid. I tried this just for fun with one of my books, "The Complete Chronicles of Narnia" and was very surprised by the results--there were SEVENTEEN knitting books on the list! Since I enjoy both knitting and Narnia, and have even read some of the listed knitting books, I thought this was really funny. There are lots of possibilities for libraries to use this tool on their websites. We could highlight newly published books, local authors, award winners, best sellers, etc. We could even promote LibraryThing as a way for patrons to keep track of the books they have read.

Thing #13 On-line Productivity Tools

I used iGoogle to set up a customized start page, since I already had a Google account. I started by deleting most of the "default" things ( like You-tube, CNN, How-to of the Day) because they were things I didn't need. Then I added a few of the many available widgets, the local weather forecast, and Google Calendar. I don't know if having this page will actually increase my productivity, but it is nice to have everything in one spot. I am having problems with the Google calendar--maybe they are related to the change to daylight savings time. All of my appointments for the week of 3/9 -3/15 are showing up on my agenda as one hour earlier than I entered them. When I go to Google calendar, the correct times are still in there, but for some reason, the wrong times are showing up on my start page. In order for an online calendar to be useful, it needs to be accurate. I guess I'll stick to the regular calendar that I carry with me in my purse. I tried TaDa list, it was easy to do, but I didn't see any real advantage to having my lists online, other than I can't lose them. Backpack looks great for businesses where people collaborate on group projects, but it was way too detailed for my personal use.

Thing # 13 Reflections on Productivity

"Despite good hearts and equally good intentions, work in the world rarely feels light, pleasant, or healing. Instead, as it all piles endlessly upon itself, the whole experience of being alive begins to melt into one enormous obligation. It becomes the standard greeting everywhere: I am so busy" Wayne Muller

What is productivity? To try to do more things in less time--so we have MORE time to do MORE things? It seems everyone these days is so busy. The Chinese character for the word "busyness" is formed by combining two other characters - heart and killing. This is an interesting insight into how the stress of being too busy, always rushing to meet the deadline, "multi-tasking", etc. can affect us, both physically and otherwise. So, today I encourage you to slow down, take the time to relax with a good book, and remember that you still have 44 days to finish up the 23 Things.

Thing #12 Social Media Sites

After exploring the various sites, I decided to join Digg. I liked how you could customize which kinds of news you wanted to view. I submitted an article from the BBC News into their "offbeat" section, and browsed around, "digging" a few articles as I went. I came across an interesting slideshow of an Albino moose-the pictures were taken in Montana. This item has received 3472 diggs so far. Although I liked this site, and many of the articles were very interesting, it can really be a time-waster. Its kind of like reading an on-line magazine. I'm not convinced that social media sites are actually a better way to become "in the know" than traditional news sites or news media, but they are certainly an interesting alternative, and something to be aware of.

Albino Moose
Originally uploaded by pizzler

Thing #11 Tagging and Social Bookmarking

Tagging was easy--I've used it before in LibraryThing. The concept of social bookmarking was new to me, though. Signing up for Del.icio.us was a challenge, as Firefox refused to allow me to install the necessary buttons on my toolbar. They installed into my Bookmarks Toolbar Folder, and I have to open the folder to use them, but at least they work. I bookmarked several sites, and searched by tag to find some other sites similar to them. This would be a useful tool for someone who is doing research and needs to keep track of information on a lot of different websites. It would also be great for doing online comparison shopping (cars, hotels, etc) and for organizing and saving recipes. If you put your most frequently used sites on Del.icio.us, you can access them anywhere from any computer. I found the Library Del.icio.us sites that I looked at to be somewhat confusing. Their featured websites are organized according to when they were bookmarked. If I just wanted to browse what was new or popular, this would probably be OK, but if I really needed information on a topic, there would be better places to go.

Thing #10 Wikis

I've used the Wikipedia quite a bit in the past, but didn't really have any idea how it worked. Now I know what a "wiki" is. (It's such a silly sounding word!) The Common Craft video gave a simple explanation of how a wiki can be used. It's a great planning tool for a group of people who are unable to meet together in person. I really liked the library staff wiki from Albany County. The library where I work could easily set up something like this to keep staff updated on procedure changes, etc. I explored the MN 150 wiki, and found it very interesting. The site had excellent instructions for how to edit their wiki . They even had their own "sandbox". So I practiced in there for a while, then set up an account. I added an entry of my own to the wiki, and then went back later and edited it. The site encouraged people to share their memories on the selected 150 topics, but I found that very few people had done so--maybe they need to learn how to edit wikis! One thing about wikis does concern me. If anyone can add or edit an entry, how do you know if the information in a wiki is accurate? Who verifies the information? What if someone deliberately (or through ignorance) enters incorrect or offensive material? This could be one reason why teachers do not want students to use Wikipedia as a source. (Bird photo taken by Balaji Ditt.)

Thing #9 Online Collaboration Tools

This Thing was frustrating. When I tried to edit the document in GoogleDocs, it wouldn't let me because I didn't "have permission", so I e-mailed the team, who sent me another link to the document. I still could not edit the document, because I had to "sign in". Since I have a Google account, I signed in, and finally I was able to edit. (However, the instructions said we didn't need to have an account...) Google Docs was easy enough to use, the font size was nice and big, and you could click on the revisions tab to view the changes that had been made, when & by whom. This tool would be useful to students working on a group report. I never did get into ZOHO. I emailed and got my "invitation" to edit, but when I clicked the link, all I could do was view the document.