otsukaresama deshita!

Week 10:

23. Peruse the new SPL website.

Is everyone aware that there is a site search box? It is tucked away at the bottom of the page...

Just click and the search box appears:

24. Learn a new language with Mango Language Learning.

I was impressed with the range of difficulty level offered in Mango for Japanese. I'm far from fluent, but I am more than a beginner at Japanese. I thought it was a great refresher and having the text and audio at the same time worked much better for me than the typical 'listen in the car' learning programs. I would like it if we had bookmarks or business cards just to promote Mango.

25. Tweet on Twitter.

Did this some time ago and you can see my twitter badge on the right.

26. What is Thingfo?

You snooze, you lose. Thingfo is now invite-only.

27. Summarize your thoughts about the "27 Things" program on your blog.

Although I had familiarity with many of the 27 things already, many of them I had never really bothered to explore until now. I always though Twitter was completely narcisstic and now I realize that it's more about learning about other people, groups, news etc than talking about yourself.

In a similar vein, I also enjoyed reading all the posts made by other staff members (more than I enjoyed writing about my own experiences). I hope we all keep it up from time to time.

Otsukaresama deshita! Thanks for the hard work!

Queue the 'Wrap it up' music

Week 9: Podcasts, Video & Downloadable Audio
20. Explore YouTube and find a video to add to your blog.

• See Below

21. Learn about the wide world of podcasts.

• I chose AV Talk, which is mainly movie reviews

22. Browse SPL's downloadable audiobook collection and "checkout" one that you like.

• I'll have to check this out at home, since I need iTunes to transfer the audiobook to my iPod once it's checked out.

Enjoy a Bit of Fry & Laurie:

Natomas Tweets

So I set-up an RSS feed in my Outlook inbox that updates anytime someone puts the word Natomas in their tweet. (I also set up feeds for "sacramento library" and "natomas library")

Here are some of the best so far from the Natomas feed:

Spending time with a beautiful woman @ Sacramento Library South Natomas.

I am prolly natomas' worst boyfriend... I hope i am... I better be

A large yellow beast arrives and I seat myself within it's large and boxy frame. "To Natomas, ho!", I command it.

o u stayed in natomas ! its nice out there people aren't asses like they are in elk grove !

I love the smell of Natomas in the late afternoon. You recognize sarcasm when you see it, right Well, that's where the condos are.

Natomas High is the triple OG...the first HIgh School of #inthenutty ....Inderkum came muuuch later on

#inthenutty if u go to natomas ur at albertsons after school and if you go to inderkum your at carls jr

(So now I know that the hash tag for Natomas is #inthenutty. Maybe I need another RSS feed)

PS - My apologies, ELK!

Ebooks vs Ebook Readers

I just attended a web conference session on ebook readers. I was hoping the session would address the problem of lending ebook content that the library already owns with the Kindle. For a quick summary of why Overdrive books don't work on the Kindle, read this.

For that reason, the session was more concerned with describing the wide variety of ebook readers available and encouraging libraries to try lending the readers themselves. My initial reaction was that this was kind of crazy AND probably crazy expensive to implement. Besides, aren't libraries about content, not devices? Of course, then I thought about how every branch provides public computer stations, because the real point of the library is facilitating access to information. Plus, the accessibility of ebook readers is phenonemal, since they are much more flexible than a printed book. Text size can be changed for readers who have vision problems and some ebook readers even have a text to voice feature that makes a book accessible to the blind.

Logistically, a Kindle lending service would be tricky, but a few public libraries are already doing it. The patron is effectively borrowing a mini-library when they get an ebook reader since it can hold so many books. Would a library offer themed Kindles, like one with a collection of popular mysteries and another with romance novels? Or just put the entire NY Times Best Seller list on all of them?

Twitter Badge Success

I very recently created a Twitter account for NNT, in large part because I thought Jessica's Twitter feed on the RAN page looked pretty cool: http://www.saclibrary.org/?pageId=912.

I wasn't sure how easy it was going to be to get the widget on the NNT branch page, but it turned out that Twitter has an easy process that creates the code you need for you. Just go here and then select whether you want to put it on your blog, Mspace page, or website. It gives you a choice between Flash and HTML and I found that the Flash widget looked better. (I also used the same process to add the Twitter feed to the sidebar here)

Anyway, here is the end result: http://www.saclibrary.org/?pageId=607

Huzzah!

Zoho: a sisyphean ordeal

Actually, it wasn't that bad. I could see the benefit of having a web-accessible word processing program (especially when you compare free to the cost of any Microsoft program), but it was a frustrating experience due to the constraints of SPL bandwidth. Loading times were sooo slow, I would lose my work when the page timed out, etc. The layout and functions of Zoho were fine, but clearly Microsoft Word wins out when you don't have a fast or reliable internet connection. Nothing is more irritating than outpacing your computer's work speed.

Week 7 - Wikis

Wikis are powerful tools for compiling and organizing information. I think the beauty of the wiki comes from the wisdom of the crowd. The aggregate information supplied by laypeople can easily outshine the expertise of an individual through the power of a wiki. For an extremely dorky example, take WoWWiki, which has 74,856 articles and can be edited by anyone. None of the published guides or websites sponsored by Blizzard, the company which created WoW, can hold a candle to the information held in WoWWiki in terms of comprehensiveness or depth of detail.

Of course there are opposing viewpoints...