ta da!

This is my wrap-up post. I finished just an hour or so past the original deadline, but I see this morning that the deadline was extended, so I guess that, barring this post, I DID technically finish on time! Yay me. The timing of the glitch in the 23 Things blog made finishing those last few things a little bit frustrating for sure. I was able to unearth the instructions with a Google search but it was more challenging. It took me awhile to even think to try finding them another way. I convinced myself it was Karma paying me back for not finishing earlier, or for not doing the lessons in order :)

Participating in this program was a great way to force myself to get in there and explore some tools. There were a number that I had already dipped my toe into, but the lessons gave me the incentive to go a little deeper and try more than I would ever have gotten around to on my own. There were some challenges along the way, but most of it was relatively easy to do on a basic level. I feel more confident now, and have a better understanding of how some of these tools work and can think better about how they might adapted to library purposes.

I'm really glad the State Library took on this program. We had wanted to do something similar at our library level, but it was a little too much for us to take on on our own. The support of the State Library and the excellent collection of mentors made this a successful effort--Thank you!

It's been an eventful year, both professionally and personally, so I've included a happy personal photo to wrap this thing up.

Week 10: activity 2

Week 4: Flickr

New language specific labels for our foreign language films
Originally uploaded by t.sherri

It's silly I know, but this lesson was the one where I got stuck. Part of it was that I was determined to do the option where I shot my own photos. It was one small hurdle after another. Borrow a camera. The battery was dead. Etc. Not a serious excuse among them, but I just stalled out right here. I've missed the midnight deadline by about an hour, but that's okay. I have done all of the assignments (except viewing the webcast, and it will just have to wait), and I've learned some good stuff, and some fun stuff.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Week 5: RSS and Feed Readers

I chose Google reader since I use Google mail. I have a mix of work and personal feeds I check now and then--Tame the Web, Library Trainer, Trendwatching, Fresh from the Farm, and my son's own feed. I don't follow them religiously, and I rather like that they're there when I have the time, but not clogging up my email, or needing me to log in to a bunch of different sites. I like the convenience. I think my selection could be better. Some things I added a while ago haven't had a post for a long time, and I've grown tired of others (but not my son's, of course). I think it's getting harder to draw the line between "work" and "personal". I used to have separate feeds for work and home stuff, and finally decided it was too hard to keep them separate. Because I'm old-school and worry that it will look like I'm frittering away my time, I end up looking at them mostly on my own time.

Week 6: Tagging and social bookmarks

Like several of these social tools, I had set up a delicious account back when it was still del.ic.io.us, or whatever it used to be. However, I've barely used it since then. So this exercise was a good excuse to explore it further than I had before. I imported my bookmarks, regretting that I had never removed all those standard ones that come loaded, like CNN, Washington Post, etc. Not that there's anything wrong with those sites, but I have no need for them to be bookmarked. So, now I've got a lot of cleaning up to do. I'll have to get back to that. I created a link on my bookmark bar so now I can easily add a delicious bookmark whenever I want to. That will be really helpful for those times when I'm away from "my" computer but want to find "my" stuff. Really a great idea. The recipe I shared with Rebecca is, like most of those I've marked, just one that sounds good--can't say I've tried it yet. I bundled some recipes together which is quite easy to do. Good lesson. I learned some things that makes it much more likely for me to use delicious.

Week 7: microblogging

I am S_Turn on Twitter. I've had this personal account for awhile, and I find that I don't have much to tweet about on a personal level. One of daughter's friends decided it would be fun to follow me, and was so surprised when I tweeted that she...tweeted about it. Oh, mom. But, I do enjoy following some folks. Both of my kids have accounts and post fairly frequently. I usually get a smile out of those, at least the ones I understand. I enjoy reading Martha Shulman's recipes, and may actually someday actually make one of them. I tried following Jamie Oliver for a bit, but there were too many messages for me, and too exclamatory. I follow Wheatfields bakery to see what specials they have. My son flies a lot, so I started following KCI this winter to keep an eye on snow delays and such. I find that I don't really enjoy following anyone who does tons of posts. It's just too much information for me. I actually like the short and sweetness of microblogging. Some posts are really useful, some are just fun, and some help you keep in touch. And, yes, it's easy enough to find people to follow.

Week 8: Cloud computing

So much stuff is on the cloud that sometimes I don't even know that I'm there. For the purposes of this week's assignment I created a simple Google Doc and asked people to contribute a quotation or joke. Here's one that brought a smile to my face:

Never tease a weasel, this is very good advice, a weasel will not like it and teasing isn't nice--Jean Conder Soule, Never Tease a Weasel

We occasionally use Google Docs at work for collaborative editing. It's really pretty handy but I guess we are kind of stuck in our old Word ways.

Week 9: Instant messaging

I've instant messaged a little bit off and on for awhile, but it's not particularly my cup of tea, although it has its uses. My favorite use has been to videochat with my son when he's away in Michigan. It's nice to actually see his face :) I just signed up with Meebo which is a nice way to consolidate. Still not sure this will ever be my fav.

Week 10: Video on the web

I was having trouble posting my video for activity 2 to this page, so I just gave it its own page. Originally I had some music in it, but it wasn't copyright free so I took it out. It was kind of boring before, but now it may be the most boring movie on record (no offense, Spot), but I learned how to add music, some effects, inserted photos and video, so even though there's little action involved, it was fun.

The video below is for activity 1. I made my video of our cat just to prove that I'm a librarian, but dogs make me smile. Love this commercial.

Week 11: Break

I excelled at the week 11 assignment. :)

Week 12: Screencasting

I downloaded Jing on my Mac and used it to create an unpolished and very simple video on how to place a hold in our catalog. I had a little trouble figuring out how to select the screen I wanted to capture. I finally got my link created, but I think I made it harder than it needed to be...must try again. However, the video is done

http://www.screencast.com/t/NWI3MGFlNTI

Week 13: slide sharing

I feel a little like a cheater for using Animoto's photos and music entirely, but I decided it was time to cut to the chase and see how many more of these I can knock out quickly. Since I don't have my own digital camera and have been leaving the family picture-taking to my kids for quite awhile now, I don't have a stock of photos at the ready. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. Still, I had some fun with this assignment and it would be fun and relatively easy to put together some more personal or work-related videos. My video isn't great, but it kinda makes me happy and makes me want to take a road trip. The less-than-inspired title is Where the Road Leads

Week 14: Library Thing, etc.

I already have a GoodReads account, so I set up an account in Shelfari to complete this assignment. I also set up a Library Thing account, too, but didn't spend too much time there. Maybe I was tired by then, but I didn't like its display as well. Any of them would be a good way to keep track of books read and those I want to read, as well as finding fellow readers who share my taste. Pretty fun stuff.

Week 15: wikis

I was going to try to do all these in order, but I'm so behind now that I've just decided to start here at week 15 and work my way backwards. I've used wikis a little bit before in my work, but never really done that much collaboratively with them, which is really the joy of a wiki. This lesson forced me (well, I went willingly) to edit another wiki. I added a link to my hometown's library to their wikipedia page, and a section for libraries, not that there's ever likely to be more than one. Then I successfully created my page on the 23 Things wiki. Since I have so much catching up to do, I did this one pretty quickly.

Week three: online meetings

For this assignment I viewed one of the archived sessions at Infopeople: George & Joan on Revitalizing the Library Experience. One of the things that I liked from the session was the idea that it is important to personalize and localize library services, especially so as more and more information and goodies become universally available on the cloud.

I really like the availability of these kinds of webinars, even though when I watch them alone I do find it hard to stay really tuned in. The visuals on this one weren't particularly engaging, so I had a harder than usual time staying turned in. (I've never been good at audio learning.) We've shown a number of them here at the library in a group setting which actually works a little better for me, maybe it feels more like a classroom. Plus, if it's a good session it usually spurs discussion if you're watching with others.

Week two: facing up to facebook

Assignment: Facebook. When my daughter first started getting "friend" invites from the adults in her life several years ago, she thought it was just wrong. She made me swear not to get a Facebook account. But, as time has gone by, and she's gotten used to her "older" friends, she's been nudging me to jump on in. So, at last I've done it. Sort of. Still haven't found a picture I want to use and I'm not sure what kinds of things I want to share with my Facebook friends, but I took the first step.

Week one: blogging

Hello! I'm Sherri Turner from the Lawrence Public Library. This is my first blog post as part of the 23 Things Project. I've made a few forays into the social web, but mostly find myself putting off further exploration until tomorrow (and tomorrow, and tomorrow...). So, when the State Library announced this program it seemed like a great, structured way to put an end to the ellipses. Here we go!