Friday Fun

Ok, I know it's not Friday but, well this is just a snippet of one of the funniest South Park episodes ever...entitled 'You have Zero Friends' I couldn't upload it in work because my flash player needed to be upgraded!!! (by the way the new series of South Park starts on Friday). Have a good weekend everyone.

Journals, Journals Everywhere!

This is a fantastic resource, Journals TOCs has the largest collection of Table of Contents (TOCs) anywhere, including a large number of Open Access journals - check it out, registration is free.

Twitter





Setting up my Twitter account was easy and I had a quick scout around it, on a personal level I don't think it is something I will get into on a regular basis. I added a couple of names to follow, Charlie Sheen seems to be the man of the moment, and William Shatner (because I'm a closet Trekkie!!).



You can click on my link on the right of the page. My account is private for the moment so you will have to be confirmed as a follower before you can access my account and check out my Twitterings!!!

There are lots of free 'follow me' buttons to choose from, just add a new HTML page element to your blog - copy and paste the code and away you go. I tried to use this cute image, but it was too big and I couldn't find the code for it to make it smaller.

Again, I think the potential  is here to do good things for the library; some libraries take the queries from Twitter and Facebook and add them to a reference page on their Wikis, this then enables all users to find quick accurate solutions to their questions. 'Banking' queries in this way gives all staff, especially evening staff that may not have access to staff email another avenue to locate new or changed library information.

I also found an updated list of Libraries that use Twitter that may be of interest, unfortunately they are all American, but at least they will give us some ideas on how we might utilise this application.

Week 5 in the BBL

Wow! Week 5 and Social Networking already.

So, on to Facebook and Twitter.

I have a Facebook account already, I keep it strictly to family only. I am absolutely sure that I do not use Facebook to its full potential and for now that's the way I like it! I find the instant messaging very handy, but you can IM in gmail and other applications as well. We mainly share family photos, videos and events through Facebook, uploading and sharing is uncomplicated and you can download, save and print the pics you like. I find the ads extremely irritating but there seems to be no way to eliminate them from a personal account, I know you can hide ads that you don't like, but then you go into a whole new realm of Facebook trying to find out why you don't like the ad, so it is easier just to ignore them!!

Facebook is very touchy about obviously false names so it took a while to find an abbreviation of the Anonymous Librarian that it would accept, so please welcome Ann Lib to the world of Facebook!

I like the Glucksman Library (UL) Facebook, and their Twitter, their posts are concise, with regular updates giving clear information.

Personally I think Facebook would be a great way to market the library, to highlight the services we offer, and to advertise up and coming events and exhibitions, the key is to get the balance right between what we want to say and how we say it.

Comic Life

I  downloaded the Windows version, no username or password needed! It's quite a nifty programme, you can use photographs or images or mix it up a bit. I put together a simple little picture postcard montage of some pics I took last winter, it's hard to believe this was only a couple of months ago!!!. It took me a while to figure out how to save and then export the image in a format that blogger would accept, but I eventually worked it out! I had put together a montage of books covers, but then I realised there may be a copyright issue - so enjoy the snow!

Week 4 in the BBL

Well! here we are week 4 already, and on to Things 8 and 9 - Wikis. I've read a bit about Wikis and how to use them, it looks a bit more intense than setting up the blog, look at Wikipedia for example! I've registered as a member of the 23ThingsSPD Wiki which was pretty easy, and I've created a new page with some text and a couple of links to other library training Wikis. It's great that you can preview the page before you save it and that you can go back and edit the page once it is saved. I only had a quick look around but I couldn't find a spell check??? I think there is a lot we could do with this...but I will have to play around with it a bit more...
I'm loving the Common Craft videos, they are simple, clear and to the point - just what you need when all this is so new to you.

My story so far...

I've opened ssooo many accounts in the last couple of weeks, my little blue book has become a life saver, I can't go anywhere without it! For the most part I've used my gmail account and variations of my gmail password in an effort to keep it all in check, but for some reason I couldn't sign up to Delicious with my gmail account, even though it gave me the option to, so now I have a ymail account as well.


I've become a blogging convert. I've learnt how to set up a blog, edit and delete posts. How to add links, images and video. I've also figured out how to time release a post, so that it is published on a certain date - not bad for someone who knew very little about the workings of a blog a couple of weeks ago!

Time is moving on quickly though, and I haven't gone back to any of the social bookmarking sites that I set up, but I will when I have more time... we could use it as a way of sharing articles and information to do with the library without clogging up the email. I use Firefox at home and found that using Diggo was much simpler with Firefox shortcuts, you can capture a page, or you can mark it to read later - great stuff when you come across info that will be good for your studies! Subscribing to Google Reader and various RSS feeds was doddle, probably because they weren't new to me!

Creating the comic strip has been great fun, there is so much you can do with Bitstrip and it is all free!!! You can create you own scenes and characters - down to their hair and clothes, you can share your scenes and characters or you can keep them all to yourself. I had to create the 'library' scene from scratch because there wasn't one, my dialogue and humour are a bit hit and miss but I'm working on it!!

So, I've created clouds, tags, bookmarks, blogs, links, a comic strip and lots of other stuff, I've even copied and pasted some HTML into my blog template to show an animated tag cloud of my blog labels - phew that was a bit scary (saved my template first just in case I messed everything up). The more labels and tags you use the better the cloud.

Friday Fun: Cutest baby ever!

Rembrandt-Homer by DeviantArt

Words of wisdom to live by:
"Three little sentences will get you through life. Number one: Cover for me. Number two: Oh, good idea, boss. Number three: It was like that when I got here"
Homer Jay Simpson.

RSS feeds...last words

Feeds are pretty much everywhere nowadays, nearly every site you access has them - even the comic strip of the adventures of the Anonymous Librarian has an RSS feed.

It seems to me that everything is being geared towards you owning that one piece of mobile technology - whether it be an ipad, smartphone etc. to keep us instantly updated, mind you I'm not sure whether that's such a good thing!

Librarians: Masters of the info universe

Did you know FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was a librarian? Check out this CNN article, all library users should heed the advice at the end of the article!

Taking things a bit too far perhaps???!!!!

Pittsburg woman arrested after talking on phone in college library - San Jose Mercury News

Week 3 in the BBL

Week 3 already!

RSS feeds, they are what they say they are! Simple to set up, simple to use. I signed up to Google Reader a long time ago, and subscribe to a large number of feeds already, some professionally and some personally. You can add the 'Next' button to your bookmarks toolbar so you have instant access to all your subscribed feeds. Google Reader also allows you to bundle your subscriptions, label the bundle and also add a 'Next (bundle label)' to your bookmarks toolbar. I find this so handy, click the button and instant updated info!

Public Library Closures - UK

I have just read an article in yesterdays Guardian that made me want to (I'm sorry I can't say it here - I'm way too polite!). Feel free to comment!

Wordle, wordle, wordle

Not mine unfortunately!

I just love Wordle! It was great fun playing around with it! Creating the cloud was very easy, copying and pasting the URL also easy.
Tried Tagul as well, this programme is a bit more complicated, but just as much fun!

Something to aspire too!

Winner of the Oxygen Student Media Awards (Smedias) - Best Blog Award Great, simple name for this blog!

Delicious...aaahhh

I've had another look around Delicious and I must admit it is starting to grow on me, the advantages of having all my fav sites bookmarked in one place, outweigh the 'clunkiness'. My wandering tags and bookmarks seem to have found their way home aswell! It's not a very pretty site, a bit harsh and busy on the eye, but you can't have everything.

If you would like to check out my bookmarks, go to the Delicious SPD page. I tagged an interesting article about the New York Public Library and also another article about Library 3.0!!!!

Still working on the clouds...
Sunny Clouds courtesy of www.freeimages.co.uk 

Week 2 in the BBL

Delicious...hhmmmmm!!


Signed up to Delicious, bookmarked a few sites, applied a few tags all fairly straightforward, but I don't think I like it. It feels a bit 'clunky' and while I can see an application for its use in a library environment, as a free spirited catalogue/subject portal perhaps, I know I won't use it much at home.



I followed the instructions to share my bookmarks with twentythreethingsspd, but they seem to have wandered off somewhere, hopefully they will turn up if not I will try it again later.

tag: lost sheep

I will check out a few more social bookmarking sites and report back.

Librarians Do Gaga