Johnson

And I find myself up on the fence once again. Are video games and tv bad for you? do they make you smarter? are you smarter than a 5th grader? are the internets (infamous new word that Webster should consider) making us dumber? well... back in my day we didn't have the internet and look how well I turned out! wrong!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Let's start with the Internet- um information at your fingertips- greatest invention ever! The internet has allowed us to expand our horizons. We can create content or just read it, post a blog and share our opinion or just read someone else's. Internet= limitless opportunities

TV- PBS, history channel, fox. cbs, cnn, discovery = all on tv. Sure there's crap out there (yes, Jackass-you!) TV has a lot of different types of programs and it's up to the viewer to choose carefully.

I happen to be an avid reader but there are others out there that prefer tv and there's nothing wrong with that! If I pick up a trashy romance novel and someone else watches a documentary on global warming- who's going to come away with more knowledge- not me and Fabio (dude on the book cover of trashy romance)

video games- I'm not a big fan but a lot of these games allow the user to create complex content and allow for ample imagination. I think the people in who play online/interactive games are much better than those of us who played the ping pong paddles with intelevision.

SNS & Libraries

First, I want to comment on the class division Boyd discusses. I have fallen victim to this. I have Facebook and not a MySpace because I felt that Facebook was for more sophisticated people and kids used MySpace. haha wow-I fell for that!

SNS and libraries- my library has a MySpace page, not tricked out or anything, just in the hopes of attracted more tweens/teens to come to the library. Right now we are using it as a meeting place to get kids excited about a battle of the bands- at a library?! who woulda thought! certainly not when I was younger! anyway.. if this is where people are getting together why shouldn't the library join? it's not harmful and hell it's free advertising!

Ning

I took a look around Ning and it looked like a cool way to social network with people. I searched two things: Metallica and CSI. Metallica fans do not have their shit together on Ning CSI fans do though! It's fun to talk to other people who have the same interests as you. I think that this would be especially good if you liked something that no one else in your area liked (if you prefer golf to Nascar but live in Kentucky) :-) Again, as much as I like a lot of these things in class, this like the second life is probably something that I'll rarely if at all use. But it's cool to know that it's out there.

My 2nd life

Here's my second life character Annabella Svoboda- pretty smokin' ain't she? I always wanted to ride one of these things around.. just without the huge rats. I like the idea of this MMO but honestly it's not for me. But I could see how people could end up being on here for hours. I wasn't able to get to info. island, or anywhere else cool for that matter. I think that if I had more time with it I'd be able to get around a little easier. It's cool how you can create these worlds and characters without leaving home. I'm actually surprised about all of the things that you can do, especially sell/buy stuff on ebay- non-tangible MMO stuff! Wild!

If I were Steve.....

I don't think that I'd change anything about this class. I really liked how everything was conducted with the wiki and the blogs- we really learned about the future of libraries and I'm glad that I was a part of this class. However, if I were Steve I wouldn't leave RU and all of its offerings (roach coaches, a real ghetto close by the main campus, constant traffic, no parking, and the list goes on) just for some posh Ivy League. Ok, if I were you, I would dump RU and go to PU haha Princeton University = pee youuuu haha ok, now I know that you will definitely leave us :-(

Guild Wars

I know that we were asked about playing a console game but I've only played Rock Band which I love but I suck at and I still play old school 8bit Nintendo. Sorry folks, the corny music, the thrill of not being able to stop the game, save it and return later still proves to be a challenge. I can't stop and pick my weapons like some of these games today, Mario just hauled ass and hoped to run past the ninja turtles. Anyway....

My husband plays Guild Wars (an immersive game) online with his loser friends and my brother all the time! Ok, so they're not all losers but they can certainly play for extended periods of time and not even realize it. I won't lie and say that my husband actually let me play for fear that I'd get him killed but he was kind enough to le t me watch- jealous ladies? you should be :-) So he's got his headset on (and if he doesn't watch it he'll end up wearing that for a living) and he and his friends are running around this fake ass world killing stuff and idfk what else. 5 minutes later- I can't take it anymore and I leave. Nothing can beat saving the princess in world 8 and I don't care what anyone says- viva mario!

Xbox Rock Band

If I were lucky enough to be given the chance to consider buying a console (lolol-would never happen) I would choose Rock Band for Xbox. Ok, but if I didn't know that already- this is how I would go about it-

How would you research?
I would ask the kiddies! They know what they like to play. I would also get recommendations from other libraries that use gaming and see what they think of their systems. I would also test drive some systems before hand if possible- CJRLC allows members to borrow xbox Rock Band and Wii- it's so cool! Of course I would check out their respective websites, and consumer ratings as well.

What would your criteria be?
-good price
-can take a beating
-replacement parts easily available
-technical assistance provided

Which do you think you would get?
xbox with Rock Band- I think it's great how 4 kids can play together and they can play online. Plus my friends and I play on the weekends and I need some practice hahah

Frontline

I love Frontline and the work that they do. This was a great portrayal of the lives of teens today. They love to network and share their, sometimes very personal, lives with everyone except their parents. Watching this I can imagine how the son Cam must have felt: betrayed. Adolescence is a difficult time especially with a whistle blower mom like Evan. However, I think she did what she felt she needed to do to protect her family. In a few years when Cam is a father, he may come to realize that his mother wasn't out to ruin his life, but rather to save it.

Social Networking Sites

MySpace and Facebook- love them! These sites are great self publishing arenas. I have a Facebook but a MySpace, no reason in particular other than I like the look of Facebook better.

These sites are addicting and just tour around it for 5 minutes, especially looking up old friends and seeing what they're up and suddenly you'll see that 2 hours has past. You don't mean for it to happen but it does. Every time you click on one name an see others pop up as well, you just keep clicking and discovering new things and "meeting" new people and discovering where you fit in the world.

I do have some reservations about these sites because they can easily be accessed by employers and be used against you in the future. One must be very discerning about materials posted to the web because they can come back to haunt you.

Anderson- The Long Tail

Just a quick story first. I had to interview a cataloger for my cataloging class and having very limited experience, I sought out our County library's head cataloger. She was very informative but said one thing that really stood out- you will never catalog the same book in the same way you did six months ago. That made me think about what Anderson had to say about DDS and books getting "lost". Why did I bring this up? Oh yeah, I thought a question should have been posed about the how we display our collections, how we decide to put certain books in one area vs. another. But I digress....

In the latter chapters of the long tail, I enjoyed the discuss of less is more, or is bigger=better. I tend to agree with a bigger collection = a better one. Limited collections in any store, unless they are specialty stores, make me think of the days of the Little House of the Prairie's General Store when I want the Sears catalog! I work in a small library with limited funds and space but I do try to make sure that we have a diverse collection because I feel that choice is important.

text based blogging or podcasting

I guess this all boils down to personal preference. I prefer reading to listening but there are definite benefits to both.

Text-based blogging- great for:
-hearing impaired individuals
-those without speakers
-trying to read a blog secretly at work (not that I do this)
-visual learners

Podcast blogging:- great for:
-sight impaired individuals
-listening to anywhere
-auditory learners
-a more personal feel to a blog

New Tastemakers

I'll start with something that Anderson said at the end of ch. 7 about pre and post filtering. Before I arrived at my library, they only ordered books that the former director liked and the NY Times bestsellers. We continue to buy from the bestsellers list because tons of people will line up for a book just because x x wrote it and it's on the NY Times bestsellers list. We also now take recommendations from our patrons. If enough people feel that a certain genre or book should be ordered, we seriously consider purchasing it. I also tend to buy a lot of books from NJ authors, in the
hope that it will somehow help- who knows if it does.

I'm not sure where we fall with being th new producers but we give the people what they want. If they want all of the bestsellers we make it happen (even though I will always try to sneak in a couple of books that I or others felt were good as well).

On a hippy side note- I liked the mention of Amazon producing books on a need-basis. I think we could save a lot of trees that way :-)

Story

This story is about how my husband and I got our cat Cremesickle.




http://media.switchpod.com/users/kdscils598x08/story.mp3

Google Analytics

Over 67% of visitors are using Firefox (including myself) when viewing my blog.
Over 73% are using a cable connection (including myself).

Google Analytics is a great way to keep track of blog stats! I continue to be a Google fan!

Ed- Exp. w/ Flickr

This is my second time at good ol' RU. I earned my undergraduate degree in Italian and now I'm in the digital libraries track at SCILS. I really enjoyed my time at RU- I met lots of great friends and had some really great teachers, one in particular (Lidia Radi) was wonderful. Fast forward a couple of years and I'm back at RU. This is my 3rd semester, it got off to a rocky start with HIB, but now I'm really enjoying it. I hope to finish by this time next year.

My scils598x08 Flickr pix

Scils598x08 Flickr pix for the class

B&D reading

On the job training & hands on learning- I firmly believe in this. From my own method of learning- I learn much more when I am allowed to practice what I am learning. This is one of the reasons that I chose online courses. I do much better when I am an active learner vs. traditional passive learning. When I was a teacher I tried to have the students do "real-life" tasks instead of just listening to me lecture. I think kids are learning to take a more active role in their education and learn more by doing actual experiments and applying what they have learned as opposed to just taking notes and studying for a test just to forget the information a day later.

I think this also goes hand-in-hand with staff training. Many people learn by watching others but also by trial and error as well. Sometimes holding training sessions can be boring, but if you watch someone else or want to learn something because you now understand its importance- you might have better results. There are many factors that go into learning a new skill- willingness, necessity, learning style, etc- it's hard to create a one-fits-all learning situation and solution.

Del.icio.us- virtual introduction

I like del.icio.us tags. It's a cute way for others to see and get to know your interests. I'm not sure where you would go beyond that, but as an intro. for the week it might work. Maybe you have Student A look at Student B's tags and try to describe that person just by their tags and do a little social experiment to see how well our tags describe us.

The Long Tail

So far I am enjoying Anderson's The Long Tail. I enjoy reading about the trends of business/selling throughout modern time. Before I started this post I was attempting to articulate my thoughts but I'm back to my original phrase" give the people what they want". Anderson mentions the Sears catalog, and the vast amount of cheap, accessible goods- people wanted the ability to purchase new things and the Sears catalog gave them that option. He also mentions B&N and how their superstore carries 10x more titles than small booksellers with a wide range of topics. B&N also also started letting people read in their store and offer Starbucks as well. People want more choices and better prices with less hassle. Libraries are already benefiting from the long tail. We offer a multitude of programs for all ages, Internet access, ILLs, research help, and the list goes on. We are giving the people what they want. We do our best to keep up with new trends, new books (bestsellers and local authors), knitting classes, art shows, you name it!

Shelfari

I'm currently signed up for LibraryThing - although I never use it. So I signed up for Shelfari for this class. It's a very cool site. I LOVE the MyShelf tab. Here you can do many things:

-Add books that you plan to read, have already read and books you are currently reading.
-Add your favorites with a star rating system
-Add it to your blog
-Add friends/groups
-See what's popular among fellow Shelfarians
-Create a wishlist like Amazon has been doing for years (there's also a little Amazon button conveniently located there so you can go right to where the books are)
*coolest feature- you can change the look of your bookshelf as you add more books

Shelfari also allows you to post community questions- which is great if you're not sure if you want to read the book or have a question about historical accuracy in a book, etc.

One problem that I found was when I was trying to add a book to my shelf, I misspelled the author's name and it took three times before I was able to locate the book I was looking for. Suggestions didn't appear like on B&N's site.

Overall- I would give it 4.5/5

Wikispaces vs. pbwiki

Being a newbie to the world of wikis, I find them very interesting. For the group project this week, my partners and I had VERY different work schedules. It was difficult for us to find time to meet and chat, however our wiki made this much easier. We each were able to take a section of the project, work on it when our schedule allowed, and still create a great final product.

Both wikispaces and pbwiki are very easy to use and they seem pretty similar. I noticed in wikispaces a few things that I didn't see in pbwiki- but of course I could have overlooked them.

Wikispaces has:
-ads unless you pay which is usually the case with anything that is free
-usage stats like Google Analytics
-you can import a blog
-export as HTML
-have access to backup space
-more template options

I like the look of wikispaces better than pbwiki but as far as function- they seem to be equal.

B & D Reading

Just a couple of weeks ago my library had a major meltdown with our computers. When I read Ch. 3 last week I thought to myself that these guys were right on target about how important the IT people are. I don't know anything about networking and we had our IT people over everyday for 2 weeks straight. I felt hopeless when we were having comp. problems because we had come to depend on the computers to carry on with our quotidian work. Most of us take them and others who do behind the scenes kind of work for granted.

RSS overload?!

Can there be too much of a good thing? Hmmm...... well... this is my first experience with RSS and subscribing to it with a reader. I've been putting it off because I was afraid that it would be too much. I already have a lot on my plate as do many of you I'm sure, and this just seemed like one more thing that I didn't need. However, being able to sign up for a reader like Bloglines really keeps all of your feeds organized. You can subscribe to the things that you are interested in and it lets you know when there is something new. As much as I love this, I wouldn't give up my newspaper. Many times there are articles that I wouldn't necessarily subscribe to but when it's in the paper I tend to read it cover to cover instead of just a few articles.

I think all of this technology can be a lot to take in all at once but like anything, you need to learn how to use it to make your life easier. So to answer this question about RSS overload- I'm not sure where I stand. I love being able to read the news articles that I enjoy in an organized fashion, but at the same time I feel as though I'm missing out on other happenings in the world if I don't subscribe to them.

BvG - Bloglines vs. Google Reader

First, I love Google.... yeah, yeah, don't give me any crap about it. I know they try to run the world and I'm an automaton da, da, da...

Google Reader
-allows me to check my gmail
-use Google documents
-use the calendar feature
-chat
-and newly discovered- a feed reader

Bloglines
-made feed suggestions for topics that I enjoy
-visually pleasing!!!

I have to pick Bloglines for this. It's more organized, and since I am new to this, that is important to me.

New Social Software

A new social software site for me is Jing. We haven't covered it yet, sorry Steve to jump the gun, but I love this site. I heard about it from Steve at the NJLA conference in April. It's a site where you can create a screencast and record your voice. I had never used it before, but it looked like something I wanted to use on another project for class. It took me less than an hour to figure out how to use it and create a small screencast for my website. It's just like Camtasia, but free! Of course there are time limitations, but for basic things, it's great.

In the future, I'll use it for my website at work. I can create simple screencasts showing patrons how to renew books, place holds, and eventually demonstrate how to use Word, PP, or other computer basics. I'll also use it as a training session for new employees, this way they can watch it before they come to work, and hopefully to be better prepared. Additionally, it be used to show how to access new databases, or our new catalog, etc.

Feed

I'm only up to page 70ish but I'll start with some comments

-interesting language

-the one girl wants her lesions to create a "necklace"

-For a few minutes I thought that it might be cool to have a feed, this way I would have info. at my fingertips (or faster as stated in the book). I changed my mind very quickly when the kids wound up in the hospital as a result of being assaulted (getting their brains hacked).

-Last but not least, my favorite part from the chapter "Missing the Feed"- "I missed the feed....You can look things up automatic...like if you wanted to know which battles of the Civil War George Washington fought in and shit." I think Titus needs to subscribe to the History Channel feed.

kdscils598x08

I am very new to blogging. I really only have a couple of blogs that I read and I personally do not blog, other than for this course.

Looking at Blogger and LiveJournal....
-I like LiveJournal much more than Blogger, it lets me be more creative.

Blogger
-Blogger is great for beginners and for those who want to keep things simple.
-Blogger allows the user to post YouTube videos.
-Automatically saves the bloggers work.
-Spell check!!!

LiveJournal
-The user can post over the phone or text which is great if the computer is down.
-There is an IM service.
-Switch users if the blogger has more than one account and/or personality :-)
-More backgrounds.
-There is an expanded poll feature which allows for different types of polls to be created instead of using surveymonkey or something similiar. Click here to take my poll
-Down side- distracting ads.