Thursday, May 15, 2008

CE Course Week 8 Exercises and Progress

I made it to the end ! Hooray. I went to the mashup, http://findnearby.net/ . I am looking for wooden blocks for my daughter to buy them for her birthday. Toys R Us and Walmart only carry foam ones. When I went to the site, I didn't see anything on Craig's List which is in Nashville. However, there were many listings on Amazon, so I will have to look at those. Initially, I tried to find a mashup under travel of hotels that will let you bring your dog. I couldn't find that or one with Christian music.

I went to Rollyo, and I found a story about a mishaps with the systems at the Lakeland Library Cooperative in Michigan. Unfortnately,15,000 library patrons’ records — names, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, street addresses, children’s names and library card numbers — wound up being accessible to the public. The author said if she were a patron, she'd want a lot more information. I think it would be a nightmare.

The mashup about infectious diseases with a google map is something I sent to our infectious disease nurse and the 2 docs on staff. Although I can see a lot of personal applications, these would have to be part of our web online catalog with something users could get into if they wanted to see a list of their holdings as I wouldn't have time to maintain it. So I hope the vendors are looking in this direction.

The Public Library in Nashville already has a way for users to sign in online, renew books, request books, and look at their library accounts.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

CE Week 4 Social Networking and Booksmarks

I signed up for a del.icio.us account, and it really helped me as I have so MANY bookmarks. Heaven forbid if the IT Dept has to reimage my computer. I have lost them all and at best instead of them being arranged by the frequency that I use them, they are in alphabetical order. With del.icio.us, I don't have to worry about that. I especially like it for consumer health sites.

I think it will be used more in the hospital library setting when my users start using it more. I am considering whether I want to offer a brief class with another librarian in the system. Childcare is an issue for me. Right now, I am doing it on a one on one basis.

Monday, May 5, 2008

Web 2.0 Week 6 Online Photo Sharing

I found flickr very easy to use. I had done some photosharing through pictures I purchased of my daughter through Sears. It was easy for me to share them with people via their email addresses. However, I hadn't used them for work purposes. I will have to add my photo to facebook when I get home as I can't access it at work. I can think of some ways that libraries and their patrons can use online photosharing. I have a kiosk project that was pictorial and used tutorials from the National Library of Medicine. I had an extremely hard time trying to find medical images. If I had known about finding images which can be used as long as the picture's source is acknowledged, that would have been a lot easier. I think this would be a good way to share photos from interesting cases from morning report with others.

I thought it was good of the Library of Congress to be so forward thinking and partner with Flickr. The photos from the 30s can be preserved digitally rather than in paper. This eliminates the problem of deterioration.

Web 2.0 Week 7 Podcasting

I liked learning about podcasts because I would rather see a video than read a lot of instructions when I am learning something new. I enjoyed the ones for this class, and I could hear the audio on the ones from UT. My Media Servcies Dept would let me do some kind of instruction, and schedule a time to tape it. Then they would be willing to convert it to a file. However, I would have to upload it myself. Since I am in a one person library, this would be pretty challenging for me to do as far as finding the time to write and produce something. I would probably ask another library if I could use their videos.

When I went to see UT's podcasts, I couldn't get any video. I couldn't get on Odeo at all.

Monday, April 28, 2008

Web 2. Week 3

My IT department blocks the web sites for social networking. I had to do my assignments from home. I did have another librarian as a friend, and Bart from this course. I could see the value of MLA using this tool even thought I wouldn't be able to do so.

I wouldn't publish anything I wouldn't want broadcast on the 6 pm news.

I do see this is the wave of the future. I mentioned I was using facebook to my sister. She asked me if I would be my 15 year old nephew's friend. As I only have 2 friends, I thought this would be fine. He has over 200 friends from school and church.

Web 2.0 Week 3

I did ask a colleague to add me as a friend as well as Bart, who assisting with the course. I do see the value of MLA using Facebook. the problem I have is the IT Dept will not allow access to it. I had to do my assignments on my home computer.

I would never put any information I didn't want broadcast on facebook. However, the same rules apply to email. ( I think many people forget that as email is so commonplace.

I liked using facebook, and I had to laugh. When I told my sister I was using it as part of a class at work, she asked me if I would be my 15 yr. old nephew's friend. I have 2 friends, and he has 200. This is definitely the wave of the future.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

MLA Week 5

I like Google Docs because it was so easy to use. MS Office Live might be a contender since it works with all the other MS products that I have from work. I wouldn't put PHI or sensitive information on any of these tools. However, I have a lot of documents where sharing would be an advantage rather than us emailing version back and forth.

My workplace blocked facebook, so I didn't try the tools for this week from work. I'll have to see if I can do that. If enough people use these tools, I think there will be some allowance for them in the workplace.

However, my hospital will probably be about 10 years behind everybody else. We just got wireless through the hospital in the last 6 months. I can't see our IT Dept letting people use Google Docs or Zoho, but I think they will trust MS. I enjoyed this week the most I could see these tools have the greatest application. Plus, I had already heard of blogs, and wiki before. It certainly is a wonderful, wild world out there. I consider myself a person who is an early adopter, so I think it is great fun too. (There is something about making learning fun that really make people want to learn more)>