Thursday, June 21, 2007

LibraryThing

At least this site was easy to use. It serves as an easy place to keep track of the books that you've read. There is even provided space to track how long it took you to read, how much you enjoyed it, and so on. I could see this being of use to some of our patrons who come in regularly and can't remember if they've read certain titles, or which authors they enjoy. Alternately, it's a fine way to see what books are favorites of those with similar taste. Sadly, I'm not really certain how I'll make use of LibraryThing after this program. I can't really say that this will be one of my go-to sites in the future. If you get the urge to check out my awesome page, on which I did the absolute bare minimum of work, head on over to http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?view=lupus706&shelf=list

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Online image generators

Ok, these were fun. I started out the day being very frustrated the the "meez" site, because it just wouldn't load for me, and then when it finally did, everything I tried to do came up as an error. But now I've gone back to the exercise and tried a few more sites with much greater success. The Generator Blog had so many interesting places to visit. I really enjoyed playing around with those. The first I visited was the sketch generator, where you upload a photograph and it converts the image so it looks like a pencil sketch. After that, I tried the ASCII generator, which, again, converts images, but this time into a series of 0's, 1's, or whatever characters you choose. It's well worth checking out. The problem I encountered however was that there was no good way to save the converted image, or else I would have pasted one here for you to see. But it's well worth visiting at http://www.text-image.com/convert/ . Also be sure to check out the "pirate name generator", the "romance cover generator", and a favorite of mine for years... "The Wu Name Generator" for those of you who just have to feel a part of the Wu Tang Clan. Old Dirty Bastard... you'll be missed.

RSS Feeds

Well I sure did not enjoy this assignment. At first setting up the RSS feeds seemed simple. I visited Bloglines, made an account, and was able to find quite a few topics that were of interest to me. However, after selecting my topics of interest, I was informed that there weren't any RSS feeds available for those selections. Why would Bloglines include them as options if they wouldn't actually provide a feed? So in the end, I got only one of the feeds that I wanted and had to scour the net looking for more. It would have just been easier to go to each individual site that I wanted and read the most up to date news. I really didn't find this useful at all. I will continue to explore the options though, as I do know that some people have had great success with RSS feeds. I'll be sure to keep at it.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Flickr mashups


This was actually a very cool assignment. Flickr offered a number of different ways to play with photos, such as the movie poster or playing card or magazine cover. One application that appealed to me was one that did "beading". This allowed you to upload a picture, which would then be reformatted and displayed as a series of small colored "beads". Looking at these closely, it appears as a random series of dots. From a distance it takes form, and if you blur your eyes, the details are actually in place. Just amazing. I included one I created from a picture of a statue I've always liked "The Dying Gaul" from 3rd century BC Pergamum.

Monday, June 18, 2007

Flickr photos



Flickr actually had a large selection of images from Dumbarton Oaks, which is the first academic library at which I worked. It was a fantastic place in the heart of Georgetown, with acres of world class gardens and classically inspired statuary and stonework. In addition to housing one of the world's foremost Byzantine libraries, it's also home to 2 separate museums and an extensive pre-columbian library. It was the site of the Dumbarton Oaks Conference, which laid the groundwork for the formation of the United Nations.



7.5 lifelong learning habits

It seems that one area that I need to work on while learning is patience. It was nearly impossible not to hit the fast forward button as the narrator for the " 7.5 things" spoke in her painfully slow, deliberate manner. Her calm, non regional dialect seemed more appropriate for a hypnotist's office than as a narrator. But in the end (in addition to thinking I'm a chicken) I feel that the learning habits could be a useful tool to use.
The hardest for me must be habit 3-- view problems as challenges. It's far too easy to feel overwhelmed as the enormity of a task looms ahead of you. Something like the summer reading club seemed like a task that could never be handled. So many problems would arise that it appeared as an impossible chore. But when each bump was taken by itself, a simple solution could often be found. It will be important for me to work in the future to ensure that I look for creative and effective solutions to problems, rather than allow myself to be overwhelmed.
I think two habits come easiest to me. The first is 6- use technology to your advantage. I graduated college in '02, and so the internet was already a vital tool during my collegiate career. But this can also provide a danger, as it becomes too easy to simply "Google" something rather than take the time to search out a more appropritate source. Technology can be a great help, but we also need to keep its limitations in mind.
The other habit I feel comfortable with is 7- teach/mentor others. As an academic librarian, part of my job was teaching Information Literacy classes to community college students. I also served as a teaching assistant for art history classes while in college. This process instilled in me a great love of passing on skills and knowledge to a willing audience. To this day I find it to be alot of fun to sit down with a person and empower them with the ability to use a database or find books on a library shelf, or even navigate the internet. The sharing of knowledge and skills can be a powerful interaction.

New blog

Wow, who'd have thought that picking a "handle" and name for a blog would be so hard. I just spent about 20 minutes of county time sitting at a desk and staring at the screen, totally flumoxed by what names and titles to use.
But I guess now I'm up and running and it's time to jump back to the 23 things page to see what's next. As long as it doesn't involve renaming myself, I think I'll be ok.