Second Life

I could not believe how much fun I had playing Second Life! We're talking a virtual world in 3D, where you can be anyone you want to be. You can walk or fly around while you explore what's out there, socialize, build a business, and even own real estate. Check it out at www.secondlife.com.

Warning: it is addicting!

The Power of Reading

Trading Card #2,
originally uploaded by ancientcoinsguru.

The Power of Reading

Trading Card #1,
originally uploaded by ancientcoinsguru.

I don't want it to end!!

I was very hesitant about this program because I was worried about the time committment. The first few weeks were a real struggle, as I faithfully read and explored every discovery exercise, and followed every link. After almost quitting the program, one of my younger colleagues suggested I change my learning style....just do the discovery exercise that sounds the most interesting, then jump in the assignment, and explore. Wow! Not only did this cut down the time in half, but I found I really enjoyed each exercise. And began to see more and more ways to use these new tools at work and home. The most unexpected outcome of this program...a new (and fun) learning style!

My favorite exercises: wikis, RSS feeds, Library Thing, and Facebook.

One of my goals in life is to never get too old to learn something new. So this program has certainly assisted me in reaching for that goal.

If I had to make a suggestion on how to improve this program's format, I would stretch out weeks 2-4 (or break them into smaller components). Each of these assignments took me 4-5 hours to complete. Lots of staff dropped out during this time. I think TLC was something new for most of us, and it was very difficult to keep up. Once I got into week 5, I had hit my groove, and none of the assignments took over 2 hours.

Not only will I participate in another program like this, I can't wait to start the next one!! I hope we can start the next one in January, to keep the momentum going, and so we don't forget what we learned.

My thanks to everyone on the TLC committee for offering us this program. It was a fun journey!!

Facebook

Nice site. I set up my profile, added a few photos (actually 14 photos, maybe I got a bit carried away), and posted a message to Poetic Diva's wall.

Did you know there are 8,129 members of Facebook in the NSU network? This seems a good way to reach out to our community of users...maybe we should start listing our library events on Facebook?

Podcasts

I found one (and only one) podcast on ancient coins: Pieces of Time. Unfortunately, it is on Yahoo PodCasts, which is due to be shut down on October 31st. This podcast is an interview with Wayne Sayles, the Executive Director of The Ancient Coin Collector's Guild, an advocacy group that supports interest of ancient coin collectors. Wayne is also a well known author of several ancient coin books, and one of my favorite dealers to talk to at coin fairs.

I also searched for some interesting techncial services related library podcasts. Again, I found nothing in podcast.net or PodcastAlley.com, but found one site on Yahoo PodCasts: Check this Out! Podcast (episode 51 is The Truth about Technical Services, a discussion of the myths and misconceptions about technical services librarians).

I have added the RSS feed for Pieces of Time and Check this Out! Podcast to my bloglines account.

YouTube and Ancient Coins

Most of the services we have studied to date have had little or no application to my hobby, ancient coin collecting. Image my surprise to discover 158 youtube videos on ancient coins! Quite a few had been done by Gregory Zorzos, from Athens, Greece, who has written more than 250 books, board games and cdroms about ancient and modern history. Since I do not speak Greek, I have never read any of his work, but recognize his name. Since a video is visual, I can learn a bit more about him and his research.

I selected his video Coins with Sphinx. This video lasts 4:55 minutes, and is accompanied by singing (anyone out there know what language? while the language may be Greek, it sounded German). A sphinx is a winged lion with a woman's head or a woman with the paws, claws and breasts of a lion, a serpent's tail and eagle wings.



I liked this site! I am now a YouTube member, and have subscribed to Mr. Zorzos site, so I will be notified when he adds to his site. It would have been nice to been able to search within a playlist -- I was looking at a playlist with over 200 videos, and had to look through 20 pages.

I think the visual aspect of this site could be interesting if applied to library websites. Visuals are a great way to capture people's attention, and give them the urge to explore more.

Checkout ListDump - it's a hoot!

I confess....I am a list junkie!!! And I was delighted to discover that others share my obsession.

ListDump is advertised as a list-junkie’s dream, and those of you who are hooked onto lists should check this site out. You can browse lists on thousands of different topics, add your own lists, contribute to and vote on other users’ lists. http://www.listdump.com/

Web 2.0 Award goes to ProjectStat.us

I was immediately attacted to the Content Aggregation and Management category of the Web 2.0 awards, since I spend much of my time at work monitoring deparmental projects, updating status reports, and communicating this information to the folks who requested the project in the first place. ProjectStat.us won the 2nd place award for this category.

ProjectStat.us is a service that can help manage projects in 3 easy steps, and allow everyone to see up-to-date project information at any time.

1. It is quick to set up -- one simply needs to provide username, password, and address (choose a generic user name and password, because everyone who works on the project will use this info).


2. Enter the project details, such as the steps needed for the project, project coordinator contact info, timetable, status, etc. Customer information can also be entered, so if you are doing the same project for 3 customers, you can personalize each page.


3. Anyone who want to track the status of the project can view their project's info using a token, which you send out by email. This is a useful feature, since they do not need to remember user names and passwords. Your token could even be the name of project...such as PLS withdrawals or Genealogy Periodicals.
   

This software would be easy to use in a library setting. While it is ideal for teams, it can also be used by an individual. Once the team decides on the steps for a project, this can be keyed into ProjectStat.us. Each staff member assigned to a task could update the timetable/tasks/etc. as soon as a portion of the project is completed, and other departments could see the real-time status of their project at any time. Project delays can also be noted.

Lady Mineia

Here's a short document I publishing from Zoho to my blog. It was much easier than I thought, and only look a few seconds!

Who was Lady Mineia?

Lady Mineia was a major benefactor of the ancient Roman city of Paestum, as can be seen by historical inscriptions found when archaeologists were excavating the ancient site. During Roman time, women's name were taken from their family name. Thus, Lady Mineia was the daughter of Mineianus. Mineia M.f. (MINEIAnus Marci F.) was also the widow of C. Cocceius Flaccus. Her family was both rich and powerful.

Zoho Writer

Zoho Writer has some really cool features. I can envision myself using the presentation template at my next conference, and using the meeting details template at meetings. I also like adding skins and a time zone to my documents as well.

I've been using a wiki to share online documents. Since I was basically looking for an online word processor that I could share online with friends across the country, Zoho Writer seems like a much better alternative.

I also trolled around the site and discovered Zoho Show, Zoho Planner, Zoho Creator -- lots of other web based applications just waiting to be discovered and shared.

NSULibs Wiki

I added a few entries to the NSULibs Wiki -- favorite blog, wiki, animal. Many thanks to Carrie for showing me how to link URLs.

Wikis

I have a wiki I use for my research on ancient coins. My editor lives in Bradenton, and she can easily proof my grammer, suggest alternative avenues of research, and throw darts at my conclusions. She has a wiki as well, since she writes mystery short stories set in ancient Rome. I edit her fiction, and help with historical research.

But I have not been able to think of many ways that a library can use wikis. So I found this exercise very helpful...there are lots of ways libraires are using wikis!
--subject guides for users, which can be accessed and edited by lots of subject librarians

--reading programs, where each participant is encouraged to write and edit reviews

--a wiki designed for the worldwide library community, where librarians are encouraged to contribute ideas that have been successful at their library

-- a conference guide

-- a wiki designed by one library patron (while I think of wikis as group projects, it can be used solely by an individual)

-- a collaborative tool for instruction librarians

We just designed a wiki for Technical Services at the Sherman Library. We are using the wiki as a collaborative project to formulate and edit the department's strategic plan.

Thinking about Library 2.0 and beyond

Our world is changing, faster than many of us can take in. Libraries as place were an important resource in the past for anyone seeing information. But that day has come and gone.

The web now provides our users with a virtual graphic world. Library 2.0 puts the power to question, research, seek, and interact with others, directly in the hands of the users.

Barriers are blurring between individual libraries. There is movement underway for a single metadata creation effort whose results we all can use. I see libraries merging their pubic catalogs. OhioLink is one catalog for an entire state. Certainly the next step is a catalog for a group of states...with the logical conclusion being one catalog for all US libraries. Users will tag and comment. Subject headings will be defined by users, not by librarians.

I especially enjoyed Dr. Wendy Schultz's comments on Library 3.0 and Library 4.0. While I'm just learning about Library 2.0, she believes Library 3.0 is already here, and Library 4.0 is just around the corner. "Library 4.0 will add a new mode, knowledge spa: meditation, relaxation, immersion in a luxury of ideas and thought." In today's fast paced world, this concept has great appeal. I think the idea of the library as a knowledge spa would be a great way to market the Sherman Library services.

Technorati

I certainly got different results when I did a keyword search for “Learning 2.0” in Blog posts, in tags and in the Blog Directory. While there were only 680 blogs on Learning 2.0, there were almost 25,000 blog posts on Learning 2.0.

When I explored popular blogs, searches and tags, I found:

-----Naruto, the top selling manga series, is a top search term (while I was not surprised, it's always nice to see a BOOK in the top 15)

-----I explored Engadget, the #1 blog, which had more unique links in the last six months. It's a good site to go to for info/ratings/recalls on gaming, MP3s, cell phones, laptops, and other gadgets.

-----I also liked the 4th ranked favorite blog, which advertises itself as "everything in the known universe about lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done."

del.icio.us

I'm not one who bookmarks alot, so I was a bit hesitant when doing this exercise. But I created my own del.icio.us account, and installed their buttons on my taskpane. Then I bookmarked 2 pages I used regularly, and started to explore. And I was pleasantly surprised! I was able to see who else bookmarked the site, and then I linked over to their accounts, and discovered people I had met at coin shows. One had their blog listed, so I linked over to say hello. This was really fun!

Rollyo

Wow! I thought this would be the hardest exercise this week, and it turned out to be the easiest! Here is my search engine which seaches 4 of the major web sites on ancient coins.

Select...My Ancient CoinsSearch The Web

LibraryThing

By now, no one should be suprised to see that what is on my shelf is books on ancient coin collecting! It only took about 10 minutes to add 8 titles from the Library of Congress to my catalog, add tags to all the books, and set up my display preferences.

LibraryThing is very easy to use, but I did not find that the isbn feature worked too well. I had much better luck seaching by title and author. The display options feature is nice, since I preferred option C, with full bibliographic info.

Here's the link to my LibraryThing catalog: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/ancientcoinsguru