#23, or The End

Wow, sometimes I thought I'd never get here. Now, there are other people at my branch that're way behind me. I went back and read some of my older posts, and I have to say, if this program had been done for a grade, I think I'da failed. Negativity set in right at the second post. I eventually got back onto the upside of the program, but to be frank, I'm not sure how much good I'll take away from here. I thought that I might start utilizing an RSS reader, but I promptly forgot about the existence of the thing and went back to surfing directly to my news sites. I appreciated learning about things like Twitter and Wiki's, but again, I don't think they'll ever obtain a permanent seat in my life at the moment. Of all the 23 things, I've not adopted anything new into my routines. The strongest thing that I'll take out of this is the experience of doing everything, which if I pursue my career through CML, may someday prove to've served well. May that day come with joy and lightness.
In response this program overall, I think is a good thing that CML offered. I think it could've been done in a slightly more organized fashionL: the blog could've been plotted out in advance to try to avoid some of the launching wrinkles that were encountered, and I think a better job could've been done testing links and verifying information before diseminating it to general staff. If resources were available to dedicate to offering at least open labs if not whole presentations for the differen things, I believe that would've been a great tool for learning. I would've liked a clearer tool for sharing your blog, finding an audience for your voice, but perhaps it's my own fault that I never did find such a thing with my reluctance to participate in things such as Twitter, and my online bashfulnes over linking to people I work with. I would endeavour to participate in any future discovery exercises, though I must say, the incentives were quite enticing.
This is Brian, signing off.
-Brian Franz

#22, MOLDI

MOLDI is the library of the future. While you usually associate moldy with something old and undesirable, unfit for consumption, I think MOLDI is what libraries shall turn into over the next years. The population will become tech- and web-savvy, and they will want to have access to what they're looking for instantly. I did not attempt to download anything because I personally am a Luddite, but I think this is a brilliant service and something that I am glad to have access to through CML. I would like there to be a FAQ section under About Us or Support. I am curious to know how materials are "automatically returned," and how, when you're simply downloading a string of data, something could be "unavailable". The technology, while probably beyond my comprehension, is still something that intrigues me.
I might someday try downloading the eBooks, though I'm not a big fan of PDF files. I don't get much use out of audio files, because I need to focus on what I'm hearing and don't have time to dedicate to doing so. Still, like I said, I think this is a great program and something that's definitely forward-thinking for the library.
Blessings,
Brian

#21, podcasts

I've never taken the time to figure out what podcasts were, 'cause I'd assumed they dealt with iPods rather than with broadcasts. They make somewhat more sense, now that I know what they are! I have a slight problem with them myself, because I've fallen in to the habit of listening to NPR radio. I feel like if I didn't hear a broadcast when it came out, I'd be hearing yesterday's news. I inserted some podcast URLS into my Google Reader (which I've been lax about using), and discovered that is quite easy; you just pretend that it's a normal RSS feed, and boom, that's it. You can view the podcasts on the reader.

I didn't like the first directory for podcasts to which L&P directed me. It was too poorly organized, Google adds took over the top of the page, the bottom right part of the page, the top left part of the page, and more. Searches included Google adds rather than just showing you results, and the whole thing just turned me off. The second one was better. It was more organized, the searches actually returned what I expected to see, and the feel of it was just better, to me. I did not find; as I recall, my search returned 200 listings, most of which simply dealt with libraries in a single post rather than being about or by libraries. The couple that I looked at hadn't been updated in some time. That was rather disheartening. I think a library could utilize podcasts in a variety of ways. If a library organized book groups, that would be a good way to maintain connection and tell people about the books. If they were going through expansion or changes, podcasts could introduce the customers to those changes. Even just for day-to-day business, the library could use podcasts to keep customer up to speed on their libraries.

That's enough words on this topic.
See ya,
Brian

Youtube, #20

Youtube is a really cool thing that I don't use enough. Like Flickr for movies, you can upload your own and/or veiw movies from any other users who've uploaded. The registration process is annoying (it took me five tries to make it work, partially 'cause I wasn't reading the site) and there's a LOT of junk on youtube, but there are also some really cool things. This is one of my favorite videos (for obvious reasons to those who know me). Enjoy!

Minstrels: The Lute and The Fury


http://www.petegold.com/luteandfury/credits.htm

#19 already??

And it was an easy thing, too. I looked through the Power Tools, and Book Burro caught my eye. If I bought more books from a greater variety of places, or if I had enough money to start collecting rare books, I'd be much more interested in that. The tech wary part of my brain is a little suspicious of anything that you actually download and attach to your browser, but this claims to be a part of Mozilla Firefox anyway, which is my browser of choice. Maybe if I ever get a FT position here at CML so that I can stop working at Barnes and Noble (where I get a nice employee discount), I'll look more into that. I also read the Tooling Around blog, and was frankly a little disappointed. Here's a brilliant place to establish a connection with the public, and we don't even get one post per month? It'd be a great place to outline the new browser for people, to really focus on things like the toolbar, and even feature some of the Premium Resources.
Just my 2cents,
-Brian

bibli-award

Quick post. I found a really cool thing I'll be looking more in-depth into at http://www.biblio.com/. This business is a perfect example in my mind as to how the web can open new worlds to old businesses, this one specifically the out-of-print book business. It appears to be essentially a networking tool to connect book dealers with potential customers. It functions as a cataloguing and therefor a "reference" tool, and can help you get the book you're looking for that the library no longer has and the bookstore can't get.
That gets my vote.
-Brian

Doc relief

So, I didn't really do the discovery exercise because I've been using Googdocs for a while now. I've actually relied on it for work-related things twice now. Last month, I interviewed for a full-time position for which they asked me to fill out a pre-interveiw questionaire. I copied the word doc that was e-mailed to me into Googdocs, and went to work. I shared it for editing, and corrections were marked right on my file. Then, Hurricane Ike struck. I was able to complete the document in a new location because it was all saved online, and I even submitted it on time for glowing reviews in my interview. It's a really cool tool. I don't really like the way they organize the documents that you save because it's done by time (docs saved today, yesterday, three years ago), but that's okay. It's both a good and a bad thing that they save everything you ever create, but I'm sure there's a delete option somewhere. (I use it as a notepad for things like recipes I find online, etc.) It's a really cool thing.
It scares me sometime the extent to which Google is starting to take over my life
-Brian