Self as DDC III

Deirdre Routt's Dewey Decimal Section:
008 [Unassigned]

Class:
000 Computer Science, Information & General Works

Contains:
Encyclopedias, magazines, journals and books with quotations.

What it says about you:
You are very informative and up to date. You're working on living in the here and now, not the past. You go through a lot of changes. When you make a decision you can be very sure of yourself, maybe even stubborn, but your friends appreciate your honesty and resolve.

Find your Dewey Decimal Section at Spacefem.com

Self as DDC II

Deirdre Routt's Dewey Decimal Section:
399 Customs of war & diplomacy
Deirdre Routt's birthday: 4/30/1969 = 430+1969 = 2399

Class:
300 Social Sciences

Contains:
Books on politics, economics, education and the law.

What it says about you:
You are good at understanding people and finding the systems that work for them. You like having established reasoning behind your decisions. You consider it very important for your friends to always have your back.

Find your Dewey Decimal Section at Spacefem.com

Self as DDC

Deirdre Routt's Dewey Decimal Section:
992 [Unassigned]
Deirdre Routt = 459848585100 = 459+848+585+100 = 1992

Class:
900 History & Geography

Contains:
Travel, biographies, ancient history, and histories of continents.

What it says about you:
You're connected to your past and value the things that have happened to you. You've had some conflicted times in your life, but they've brought you to where you are today and you don't ignore it.

Find your Dewey Decimal Section at Spacefem.com

Week 7, Thing 16

Wikis
I have been using wikis for various things over the years. I have even helped set some up in WetPaint. Generally they have been marginally useful.

They are also useful as the content that is in them. The ones that ALA and PLA have used for conferences are content rich and have been useful tools to use. I have never contributed to them, only used the information contained in them.

I have found the WikiNorthia project by Yarra Plenty Regional Library to be intriguing but it is also frustrating as it is missing so much.

The problem with wikis is that you need content and you need to get people contributing to them. I asked my husband if he used wikis at all with his students. He then told me he had set one up this semester for students to use in their logic class so they could work on answers and so on. And none of them were using it! This is meant to be the web 2.0 generation that is so connected to it all but they aren't using the tools provided.

The wiki we set up for Dangerous Ideas after our PLA presentation has been used a little bit to generate some discussions but not a lot. Again, it lacks a lot of content. And who is going to provide it?

I like and use wikipedia. I wouldn't use it as my only resource but as a wiki it works well. Other times I wonder. That said, i am wondering if a wiki would be more useful to TSRT to get members working together on projects. Overall, it seems that just because you set up a web 2.0 tool doesn't mean anyone is going to use it.

Week 6, Thing 15

Web 2.0 & libraries
I have been hearing about Web 2.0 for a few years now. It is really affecting libraries and is part of our need to adapt to new technologies and new tools. Web 2.0 is very pervasive. It is part of our personal and professional lives.

I feel like I am only slightly connected to it. I don't use social networks like FaceBook or MySpace -- I do have an account on one of them which I started in order to get in contact with one of my pages a few years ago when the phone numbers I had didn't work. But I have done little with it (I have thought about trying to create a Technical Services page and using that but haven't taken the time to do it yet).

However, web 2.0 is very important in the Next Generation catalog, something I am very concerned about. We need to have an online catalog that appeals to our patrons and especially to those who are using the internet. We also need to be responsive and use the web 2.0 tools for all sorts of things. We need to find ways to integrate them into various aspects of the library.

I have seen the Library learning 2.0 program AKA 23 Things AKA O! What a Geek as being one way to get OPL staff learning and using some of the tools. I am hoping that people will realise that some of the tool they might use in the personal lives can be used professionally too. And use them more. And teach others of us how to use them.

I also found Annette Lamb's keynote speech at NLA/NEMA on Thursday, October 16 -- Recipes for Success to be very useful to introduce even more web 2.0 tools and more importantly, how to use them in libraries of all sorts. There is much to think about there and how we might use them. I hope we can follow up on using these.

Week 6, Thing 14

Technorati revisited
My theme continues -- still not a convert. Maybe it is that I am not convinced of the usefulness of the blogosphere. I do enjoy blogs and I have found using RSS feeds and bloglines a useful way to keep up with blogs (note to self, remember to check bloglines feeds!).

And blogs are becoming an increasingly useful way to keep up with all sorts of things but Technorati does not do it for me. I found the blogs are very general in nature and the searching not very useful. I also found it difficult to go from the Technorati to the actual blog which seemed self defeating.

Unless the real aim is to keep you in the world of Technorati and to create a kind of sub world there. Which seems contrary to much of the web. I prefer interconnectedness. I appreciate things that make it easier to navigate the internet but I am not convinced of the usefulness of Rollyo or Technorati.

Perhaps it also has to do with these being older tools that were first part of the Learning 2.0 program in 2006 but now in 2008 they are dated and have not adapted enough to what is going on now. It is good to know that there are options to search in different ways but I won't be going to back to Technorati any time soon.

Week 6, Thing 13

Delicious
This I was skeptical about (hey, see a trend). But I have found delicious halfway useful. It was easy to convert my existing bookmarks into a delicious page. The difficulty I have is that I now have to tag them. And I get a scroll of most recently bookmarked sites but it really would be more useful to have a scroll of most USED sites.

I have tried for a couple of weeks not to use my favorites list from IE but have recently gone back to using it as it is easier to go to for somethings. I do like that delicious is available to me from anywhere but I have not yet become a convert.

I need to work more with this tool and over time I may come to like it more. I do see the usefulness of tags and would like to explore using them more -- both to explore what I have and what others have used with the same taxonomy. (Hey, I am a cataloger at heart).

Week 5, Thing 12

Rollyo -- well I have been avoiding this one. It just doesn't interest me that much. I am not sure I see the use of it. But maybe if I actually try it out I'll feel differently.

Well, I set up a simple Rollyo search for cooking -- searching both Epicurious and Vegetarian Times, the two sites I am most likely to search if I am looking for a recipe. The problem I had was first you had to enter the web address -- which means you have to find it, then copy and paste. Ugh --I'd rather use bookmarks and search each site myself. I usually know which site is more likely to have what I want.

Then when you perform a search you get lots of duplicated and plenty of ads sprinkled in your search results. It is worse than Google!

Obviously I am not a fan. Maybe if I was doing more public service I would want to use this but it seems like there are other ways to achieve the same thing that take less work.

Prize

How could I forget to do this? You'd think I, of all people, would remember to do this. But no.

Well, I have a MP3 player, but as anyone who attended any of the OverDrive training sessions I did, may remember, it doesn't book mark. It was a gift. A very generous well-intentioned gift but the lack of book marking makes it difficult to listen to OverDrive audiobooks on it, unless I am going to be listening for an hour or moe. And I have a few audiobooks loaded on it which I still haven't listend to.

Now I mainly use it to listen to NPR while I walk. Which is fun. And we have used it to listen to books or music in the car (we only have a cassette player in the car) wtih an FM adapter -- it is nice as the music gets mixed up but we have found it hard to use in a city even the as small as Des Moines (never tried in Omaha, I figure the interference would be worse here).

So, the long and short of it is that I want the MP3 player. It bookmarks.

Week 5, thing 11

LibraryThing


I've known about LibraryThing for a few years -- checked it out sporadically for various things. I have even recommended it for a small library for someone to use. And I have heard presentations on LibraryThing for Libraries. We have even discussed whether we should use it at OPL.


But, I have never had a LibraryThing account until this exercise. It was easy to set-up. I am not sure if I'll continue to add to it or not. It could be interesting but there are other ways I'd rather spend my time. And given I spend a certain amount at work cataloging and thinking about cataloging, not sure how much of that I want to do in my spare time.

I did a display for LibraryThing at the bottom of my blog. Interesting to find the widget in LibraryThing and then work out how to display it in Blogger. Definitely doing a lot of lifelong learning here!

I did, however, find the groups in LibraryThing pretty interesting. There are some interesting discussions there and I'd be interested to follow some of those. Not sure how much I'll participate. At ALA Annual (held in June ) Tim Spaulding, the creator of LibraryThing announced Open Shelves Classification – to build a system to replace the Dewey Decimal System – so far there are some interesting discussions going on.

The main things I have thought about contributing, in terms of books, are what I am reading currently (although that won't stay up-to-date), creating a list of desired reads, keep track of what my book club reads. And someone suggested this for my kids and their cousins (as they are all spread across the world) -- let them create libraries of what they like to read -- an interesting way for the cousins to connect. Not quite sure how I might orchestrate that one.

Week 5, thing 10

Catalog card generator from the Generator Blog.

How could I resist?

I have been using various things from the Generator Blog to play with images for posts for O! What a Geek posts. Some are fun. Some are not so great. I ended up using this image for my LibraryThing picture. Seemed appropriate.

Image generators make it easy to create images that are tailored for whatever you want. They can create a great impact for a variety of thing. But I also find myself getting a little jaded about them -- they make it too easy so after a while it doesn't seem that impressive.

Week 4, thing 9

While getting this thing ready for O! What a Geek I tried searching on the Topix, Syndic8 and Technorati (for the record, I dislike these "cute" names which are difficult to spell. I have enough problems spelling). I didn't much care for any of them.

Technorati was okay for locating some blogs. I tried searching on Melbourne, Australia to see what came up and found a news blog that was about commuter cycling in New York and that there had been a bicycle recent accident in downtown Melbourne.

I also used Bloglines search tool and found some cooking blogs -- I found it more interesting to find other blogs by looking at what a blogger had on his or her blog roll than using the search tools.

I generally found the search tools for feeds not too helpful. What I disliked most, particularly with Technorati was the duplication of search results and how difficult it was to get out of the Technorati environment and to the full blog. I would not want to subscribe to a blog on the basis of one post -- I want to look at other posts and that was difficult to do in Technorati. Bloglines is a bit easier to navigate that way.

Looking forward to playing next week!

Week 4, thing 8

I learned about RSS feeds a while back from Michael Sauers's workshop. I set up feeds in Bloglines. I checked them occasionally. I forgot my password and didn't check them -- oh boy too many feeds, too much to read -- set them all to read and they all go away.

With the O! What a Geek program I rediscovered my password and restarted using the RSS feeds. I have some good ones already set up -- various blogs that connect with library things from cataloging & tech services issues to those to do with the Think Tank and future thinking. And then some for fun --with cooking & knitting. There is great information there!

I also have subscribed to several co-worker's blogs through Blogger and will use that as a way of keeping up with what they are doing.

Now I just need to keep checking in on Bloglines so the to read feeds isn't overwhelming.

Wordle

Thanks to Nikki for sharing her OPL Wordle. So I decided to play around with it.

Here is what was created from this blog (prior to this post):


Boy do I write a lot!

Week 3, thing 7

Technology

Oh sometimes it is wonderful and sometimes it seems like a curse. I spent the past day and half doing Horizon Acquisitions training. Oh boy -- my brain was about fried by lunch time. But, then, we learned how to undo something that had been done months before and was causing problems (bib records with no items). Andy patiently undid then and they were deleted from cataloging -- what a joy! But it took a long time to undo. Why wasn't there a global undo?

That sometimes is the problem -- using technology you have to go slowly, step by step. Like following a recipe or a pattern. And things happen. Sometimes too quickly. Oh, darn, I didn't mean to push that button. Sometimes you can stop it and sometimes you can't. No, I didn't mean to print out that page. But, yes I really do mean to delete this.

One of the things I love about technology are the many ways it can connect with people. Yes, it can isolate us but it can also connect. My family lives in Australia. When I went off to college the main way I stayed in contact with them was by letters. And it was hard to fit in writing a letter every week with all the other things I had to do. Phone calls were expensive so happened only rarely. But airplans could fly much longer distance then when my family moved there so it took much less time to get back and forth.

By graduate school I got email and so did some of my family members. Since then I have kept in much better contact with my family. I exchange emails with various family members a few times a week and have a weekly phone call with my mother (phone calls are also much cheaper -- remember when it was a big deal that someone was calling long distance?).

Next I hope to get a webcam and start having video links with my family so my family can see how my kids are growing and they can see the rest of their family. These are all wonderful technological advances.

There can also be downfalls -- like the time you end up spending doing this. Or that work grinds to a halt when computers do. But I'm going to concentrate on the positive here.

OPL Book Cart Drill Team trading card

OPL Book Cart Drill Team trading card
Originally uploaded by DeirdreAnais

This is from Cinco De Mayo 2008. It was cold! But marching helped warm us up. I thought the trading card was a fun thing to do.

Spelt and Poppy Seed Birthday Cake

This is an image I grabbed from Flickr. It reflects a few of my interests. First I love poppy seeds -- I see it as my Hungarian heritage coming out (my grandfather on my mother's side was Hungarian). My wedding cake was poppy seed with a chocolate ganache and raspberries.

Lately I have been trying out whole grains and spelt is one I've been trying so a spelt poppy seed cake sounded interesting. Not sure I'd make it and a basil icing, huh, really not sure about that. I've never heard of basil as a compliment to sweet things but maybe I'm missing something. Or maybe not.

Spelt and Poppy Seed Birthday Cake
Originally uploaded by KitchenCaravan

Week 3 Things 5 & 6

Flickr & Mashups


When I started this project, I knew about many of the web 2.0 technologies but Flickr was one I had the least experience with. Well, now, I have created a Flickr account, added contacts, uploaded pictures and played with Flickr mashups. What fun!

I found it was easy to do the mashups and a bit addictive but then it could really slow down page loading and stuff.

There are definitely some neat tools out there to play with. The images I loaded are in separate posts.

Week 2

Creating a blog! When I first learned how to do this I was nervous and uncertain about it. Now I have way too many blogs (okay most of them are work related but still) and feel pretty comfortable doing this.

I have found it easy to blog about things and have enjoyed experimenting with how to use this tool. The first blog I set up was to be to communicate with my far-flung family and was an attempt to not write 4 or more different emails to parents, brother and in-laws (parents, sisters and brother). But I couldn't get the parents using it so I kind of abandoned it (and it is strictly private, invite-only).

My father and I both love to cook and it occurred to me to start a recipe blog. We both post recipes to this blog, periodically. I know that some OPL staff have taken a look and loved his Lamb in Mother Sauce (Mother Sauce was originally used for chicken the lamb idea is his -- BTW he lives in Australia where lamb is plentiful and cheap).

Then it was suggested to start a cookbook blog for our OPL cookbooks so I played around with that. I am hoping to get other staff involved and interested in this. I have to work on getting the images and PURLs for the cookbooks in HIP but that might have to wait until after O! What a Geek is completed.

Week 1

When I was getting things ready for O What a Geek I realised that I really didn't have a clue what was happening the first week of the program. I was surprised to discover the introduction was on lifelong learning. What a great idea. Isn't that one of the things the library's are all about, after all?

Most of us learn a lot at our jobs, every day. Some of it is fun, some of it is unavoidable. I can now spell Ha Noi in Vietnamese after working on 50 books in Vietnamese yesterday and today. (It uses the Roman alphabet but has lots of diacritics and accents which I won't try and duplicate here but check out the catalog under Vietnamese Language materials in a few days and you'll see!)

It is nice to set aside some time to just learn each day. It seems like a good break from everything else.

Library Learning 2.0

I am feeling surprised and pleased at the response to OPL's O What a Geek : Library Learning 2.0 program. Wow -- people are actually doing this. This is so great. I guess the incentive of a prize helps. :)