More neat stuff

I skipped over YourMinis, not wanting to install anything new. I love gadgets and widgets, but I try to restrict them to my iGoogle page (on which I have three tabs to keep all of my gadgets, like my Google Reader, Gmail, Google Bookmarks, Google Notebook, etc.). I went on to Photobucket, which differs from Flickr in that you can post anyone's content to your site (generally embedded, like a YouTube video).

What's neat about Photobucket is that it allows you to upload photos, videos, and other animations for sharing over the web. For embedding images and videos, I think it's much easier than Flickr--the tools are more like YouTube's. Though there doesn't seem to be a filter for searching--a few of the photos I saw when searching "dressage" were a bit sketchy.

Scrapblog is really fun and cool. I made a quick scrapblog:

I like that it costs nothing, looks great, very easy, doesn't make a mess like real scrapbooking. However, it doesn't look like you can print your pages, which doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense to me. Still, the templates are stunning, and it's got all the web 2.0 social tools like sharing, embedding, and RSS feeds.

Letterpop

I'm following Charlotte-Mecklenburg's Learning 2.1 in my aggregator and tried out Letterpop. Very easy to create a simple newsletter--the templates are a bit simplistic, but it's very easy to print or email your newsletter. Again, web 2.0 allows the creator to focus on content, not form. (Yes, sometimes form is part of the content, but as a democratizing publishing tool, web 2.0 tools are pretty decent.)

Some updates

Bloglines has a new beta interface, which I think is much nicer than the old hideous interface. And it doesn't mark all the posts as read as soon as you click on the feed to read it! Maybe they got the hint that that was a bad idea from my blog! :-) Not all the old features, like the email subscriptions and tell a friend, are in there yet, but it's much simpler to use. More like Google Reader. Which is, for now, my favorite.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg has continued their program of web 2.0 learning tools. I've subscribed to their blog feed for the program, and I think I'll try out the tools they mention, if I haven't already. Such as Thing 24: Zamzar. Free online file conversion, with a link to the result emailed to you. That's brilliant. Maybe we can finally have a good solution to the battle between Microsoft Word and Microsoft Works. I have to admit, I need and use Word so exclusively that I've never used Works, but it's a battle to try to open Works files here in the library so that patrons can work on the files they've brought in, which then dooms them to working in the library on their new Word files. Of course, the solution to that is probably Google Docs or Zoho, but in a pinch Zamzar will probably be a good thing. Let's not forget that it will convert many kinds of files to PDF, which is a fairly universal format, so if you need a quick PDF, you don't need to shell out megabucks for Adobe Acrobat and you don't even have to install a program on your computer. And when I was converting tons of scanned TIFFs to JPEGs for the Flat Tops Blog, because TypePad won't accept TIFFs in its photo galleries, I could have used this service and had them all emailed to the blog. I do wish it would convert Publisher files, though--Publisher is really kind of a crappy program, but I use it all the time because the templates are okay and it came with Office--I run into problems all the time sending Publisher files to other people because they have different versions or don't have it at all.

Week 9, Thing 23: Maryland Libraries Learning 2.0

What a whirlwind it's been! Some favorites from this program: Meez. I think of Meez as online paper dolls with extra pizzazz. So fun that I had to make two. :-) Also, Zoho Creator. I am completely tickled by the ease of creating web forms and databases. I'm glad I tried out Rollyo some more and discovered its limitations (boy, did that make me cranky). The future of libraries: I still think the future of libraries is bright and exciting, and I'm always glad of the chance to ponder how we'll get to that future.

I would love to do a program like this again. Only I'd, er, like to find out about more stuff that I'm not already doing, not that I didn't learn about some great web 2.0 stuff. :-) I'd like to see more people comment on blogs--there's time yet in the program, but it seems to me that it's one of the real rewards of this kind of program, getting to see what other people are doing in their learning journey and chatting with them about it.

I know it's been a bit of a slog for a lot of people who are not so technologically inclined as me, but I think folks have had an opportunity to have a bit of fun too--learning isn't all fun all the time, but gaining some of these skills is very valuable in our jobs and can be a way to open the mind to new possibilities in library service.

Week 9, Thing 22: Digital audiobooks

I am just dying for an MP3 player. I may have to break down and get one, even though I am a bad businessperson and have not landed an editing job with a new client (it's been my incentive to do that for oh, a couple years now). I would probably be more excited about Overdrive audiobooks if I had one. I've downloaded and installed the software--Joanna and I did a demonstration program for St. Mary's staff a couple of years ago when the Maryland libraries joined together to provide the service--and it's pretty easy to use and fairly easy to transfer materials to an MP3 player (not an iPod, of course). I do love the convenience of downloadable materials--for the audio and video, you need high-speed Internet access (and as the technology planning consultant we met with this week pointed out, the need for a computer with broadband access at home makes our downloadable stuff available only to reasonably wealthy people), but if you have broadband, it's pretty quick to download these large files. I like the convenience of the downloadable video too, but the unfortunate limitation of the digital collection is that hugely popular titles do not come out as digital audio, video, or ebook.

What I really love are ebooks. I download ebooks from Overdrive whenever I can (I've read pretty much anything I'd be interested in that's in the MD library collection), but since the audiobooks are so much more popular than the ebooks, we don't add many new ebooks to the collection. I download them at home and transfer them to my PDA. I like reading books on my PDA because I can do it one-handed--don't need another hand to flip the page, the little button on the front does it--and I can read them in any kind of light, because it's backlit. As more portable devices become the norm, I think we'll see more of an interest in ebooks. We'll have to see how the Sony Reader perfoms--I'm a little skeptical, because ebook-only devices have done very poorly in the past, and the trend seems to be toward multiuse devices.

Jessamyn West points out that there are iPod-friendly free public domain audiobooks available at Librivox, serialized science fiction at Podiobooks, and free poetry readings at Classic Poetry Aloud (although I like to read poetry aloud for myself, thank you). And of course at Project Gutenberg. It's been a while since I looked at Project Gutenburg--good to know that they are branching out. Great resource.

Week 9, Thing 21: Podcasting

That's my favorite Ask A Ninja video on the Maryland Libraries Learning 2.0 23 Things site! I showed it at staff day while doing a presentation for the St. Mary's County staff on web 2.0 technologies. "A factory that produces apple pie for whales." "Every week consistent content coming at you like KIAAHH, like KIAAHH!" Yeah, I'm a big geek. :-)

I'm not so into the podcast, myself--I don't have an MP3 player (very much want one, promised myself one when I get a job from a new editing client), and for me, it would take too much time to listen to them without having an MP3 player to listen to podcasts when having downtime driving, grocery shopping, cooking, etc. I don't even have time to watch television, so podcasts are something I'd have to add in while doing something else.

I'm impressed with the number of results from Yahoo! Podcast. It seemed like I got better results from Podcast Alley, though, more focused on actual libraries (search: "library"), even though not as many results. I don't like the interface of Podcast.net--too cluttered, and not enough results. I subscribed to NPR: Books from Yahoo! and Library Geeks from Podcast Alley. I might give them a try for a while.

As much as I myself am not into podcasting, I think it would be terrific for libraries. (I'm not into social networking like MySpace or Facebook either, because I am basically an introvert...but I can see their amazing potential!) Some libraries, such as the Orange County Library and the Denver Library, have podcasts--I particularly like the Denver Library's storytime podcast. How awesome would it be to have a story arrive in your RSS inbox every week? Although I think a videocast, for storytime, would be even better, because the librarian could engage the child in the pictures and do some dialogic reading. Not only would the library be encouraging and teaching early literacy skills in the library, but also online, reaching people who have a computer but aren't able to come to storytime. An events podcast, like Orange County's, could be fun too. Lots of possibilities with this technology, and with free tools like Audacity, the price is right too.

I tried quite a few times to record a short podcast on Odeo, but to no avail, it simply refused to save what I had recorded. Ah, well.

Week 9, Thing 20: YouTube

Video sharing is really, really easy with YouTube. You can embed videos in your website, comment on videos, use the social tools available to share videos with friends, and create custom RSS feeds for things you want to watch from a particular search or video uploader (I used to have a feed for videos tagged "dressage," but I had to give it up because there was no way I could watch all those videos!).

I really love this series of library videos, which show the bridging of the traditional divide between librarians and IT professionals:









The first Infotubey Awards were given at the 2007 Computers in Libraries conference. The winners made some amazing videos for library promotion--just think of the possibilities!

YouTube has really become a cultural phenomenon. Yeah, there's a lot of crappy stuff there, but there are also amazing gems like these library videos.