Borrowed Thyme

aHA! Zoho!

2008-02-13T15:50:00.000-08:00

MY LAST KRL2pt0 assignment! yahoo! (yes, I did them out of order...)

Anyway, just signed up for a Zoho account, and I can see the possibilities here. I belong to an organic buying club & we're always looking for better ways to know who is ordering what so we can get better prices and more consistent orders. The Zoho software and Googledocs both have good spreadsheet applications that could make this more efficient. No emailing spreadsheets. Everyone can see what everyone else is ordering. etc etc etc.

I think it would be helpful to do a "tour" of Zoho, or have an online demo of all it features, but for what I'm thinking it's pretty straightforward. I like that when you select the tool you want, it takes you directly to a very familar-feeling spreadsheet, wordprocessor, whatever.

Applications for the library? What if we didn't have to purchase application licesnses to be able to offer wordprocessing and spreadsheet tools to our patrons? This does that. What if students didn't need to be able to afford a computer in order to do their homework. Pretty cool. Yet another way to open the door to all the other really cool things the library has to offer.

Tweetish

2008-02-13T14:48:00.000-08:00

Explored twitter, and really don't "get" it yet for application at the library.....but am SO excited about something else it could do! I was walking my hubby through all the COOL things I've learned in the KRL2pt0 journey, and then mentioned that Twitter was still on my need-to-do list for this afternoon. He sat with me & we read the KRL twitter blog aloud, and I could see the gears start turning. He's part of a volunteer rescue group that helps folks stuck on the sides of mountains, lost in the wilderness, etc. They have pagers for when they have call-outs, but have been looking for a way to eliminate the pagers & have the call-out message sent directly to members' cell phones. I think this could be their solution! Very cool to sit here in my living room and see an immediate, real-life application for this new technology we're being introduced to.

OK - back to library application..... hmmm....... Meeting change notices? Out-of-power annoucements? Not sure how this would be better/faster/different from using the group-email capabilities of Outlook, though. Perhaps something with patrons...? I need to think about that more.

Explored some Twitterers. Found the author of the KRL reads Farenheit 451 blog. Found Shannon Petersen (loved her twitter about the coolest moment and the teen wanting a fort).

Created my own account. Way too tough to figure out how to find people. I added a few people to follow, but after 30 min gave up on trying to find krl. What did I miss??? Did a search for kitsaplibrary, library, krl, etc etc etc. Nothing. gRRRRR.

Facebook

2008-02-13T01:03:00.001-08:00

So it's entirely possible (likely, even) that I'm missing the point here, but it seems to me that it would be easy to spend a LOT of time trying to create blogs, facebook entries and the like without really having a clue what impact it was making in terms of patron using the library. I'm all for moving forward, taking advangtage of new technologies, and most definitely being useful at where the patrons are, as the blog gal described. My issue with social networking for libraries is that it's easy to do a really bad job of it. Blogger gal pointed that out. So is bad better than not at all? I don't think so. But is it bad to not try because we think we'll be bad at it on our first attempt (and second and third)? I think so.

I guess I think that if libraries decide to jump, we need to jump with both feet, and COMMIT to learning how to do it better, be more effective, etc. Committing means that staff time is dedicated to it for the long haul, and that training and research dollars are allotted to make it better, and staff time is provided not only for producing, but also for researching what can be improved. Simply throwing it out there for a few rounds and then bagging it because it's not working is the worst option of all I think. Try it. Assess. Learn from version1 and move to version2 and so on into infinity. Or at least until web3.0 arrives. So yes, thumbs up, with the conditions that we be active in figuring out who's doing it right, and learn from them, and advancing this new technique. Reinvest.

Wiki needs a little PR

2008-02-13T00:05:00.000-08:00

Catching up on assignments here.....

I wasn't sure if I was wiki-ing correctly because when I clicked on the PR dept page, nothing came up. Nevertheless, I persevered. (That MP3 player is like a little carrot dangling in front of my slee-deprived eyes. Am I in college again???) I added to the PR page, and wa-la! It appeared. Went back to the home page, clicked on PR dept in both places (left and right) and it shows up in both. Cool! Simple, quick.

How could KRL use this? It's the layman's website. Get it up quick, anyone can do it. Quality control could be an issue, and message control could be of real concern to PR dept. though. Hmmm.........

Lost in space

2008-02-12T23:15:00.000-08:00

Just spent over an hour creating a totally unnecessary but pretty fun digital meez. For a non-surfer, practical-oriented computer user (just want to use it to get my work done and email then go do other things, thanks) I got really serious about creating just the right meez for the mood!

But I digress.

LibraryThing is cool! I've always had little success selecting good books off the shelves without a recommendation. Wine, like books, has always been selected by the label (cover). Most often, book covers are deceiving --- really great cover art does not a good read make. But I HAVE gotten some great reads off the book group shelves at the library! Makes sense, and they're selected by the fine folks who find great books and bring them to other people's attention for a living. LibraryThing just expands that. See what people are reading, talking about, love, would read again, etc Perfect!

Now if someone can just help me find a really good glass of wine...

2008-02-12T22:51:00.000-08:00

Online videos

2007-12-31T22:44:00.000-08:00

YouTube: fun! But really hit & miss unless you are looking for something specific. The viewer ratings are really valuable. Could spend a lot of time here. Or, could spend a lot of time outside, doing something fun of my own! There's definitely a cultural shift that's gone on, and to ignore YouTube is to ignore that aspect of pop culture. Sort of like shrugging off TV. You can, and you can be perfectly happy(ier) doing so, but you'll also miss out on a lot of the common humor and references of the time. That can have greater implications that it would initially appear. As what felt like one of only about three teenagers in the universe that didn't have access to MTV, I think I'll make up for a little of that lost cultural reference on YouTube.

Quickie on wiki

2007-12-31T22:11:00.000-08:00

Just toured the wiki for Stevens County and for KRL. So glad to have had an intro to the land of wikis -- have heard about them for a long time but didn't really have a sense of what they are. I'm not a web cruiser -- more a user, on & off as needed, not for entertainment, so have tended to stick with the type of websites I know & trust. This KRL2pt0 project is opening up whole new expanses of info & experiences. Now just need to weed through & determine what will be the most useful & interesting new tools to use, and train myself into new habits. Easier said than done. I'm grateful for the experience, though. This is training like I've had nowhere else, and something I would've never done on my own (wouldn't have know where to start, or even what to start.) So this is all good.

As for the wikis -- the Stevens County one reminded me a lot of an online tourism project I've been working on for another county, except without the gorgeous photos. Interesting. As a new user I hadn't a clue what the difference between "category" and "portal" was -- they aren't familiar terms for webpages (are they akin to "services" and "links"?). If so, it seems that would deter new wiki users (like me) from clicking further.

As for the KRL wiki -- the PR dept page should include press release updates. It would also be nice to have committee meetings & committee work handled this way (just like the Common Sense demo of the camping trip.) Sure would save a lot of email.

Flickr flutter

2007-12-03T00:12:00.000-08:00

It's interesting -- I've used Flickr professionally, uploading photos to a group account for a project, but haven't explored it as a private party viewer until today. I'm still not a fan. Ticked off a little by the idea that artists must give our art away in order to be in the current millenium. Perhaps over-Internetted for tonight. Over saturated. (Under-vacationed???! haha) (As I write, my partner is in the balmy islands of Hawaii at a conference, and here it rains and blows and I am working....grumble grumble).

Enough for tonight. Why post if it's not a good? At least it's authentic.

Feed me -- does that mean I'm Gen X? Gen Y?

2007-12-02T23:48:00.000-08:00

Just spent waaaaaaayyyyy too long trying to catch up on the krl2pt0 assigments. Got SO VERY sidetracked in completing the RSS task....becuase it led me to so many interesting things! I'm not a net surfer, but to have info delivered to me once it was narrowed down a bit to my interests...very cool! I didn't really jump on the tagging wagon....I can see the benefits, maybe, but the bug didn't bite me. The RSS stuff is different though. I like it!

Tagging

2007-10-31T08:32:00.000-07:00

So I am just finishing up the tagging assignment for KRL2pt0. It feels very much like learning to use new software or a new keyboard or someone else's computer.....awkaward, but I have a sense that it could be useful once the awkwardness goes away. I tagged random pages from my Favorites files (a website I was a part of creating, some resource sites I use for my business, and a watersports club site). The geek in me found it was fun to see some people had already tagged some of those sites ("so the rest of the world really is using this stuff -- this isn't just busywork that our IT department was putting us through!:)"). I was then surprised to see that the WA Kayak Club site -- a very busy site for a large club in a techno-savy region of the country -- hadn't been tagged yet. Hmmm...

43 Things I Might Want to Do This Year

2007-10-25T12:33:00.000-07:00

The "20 Reasons" article was great. (The MSOD in me particularly loved it.) But, the "43 Things" article got me thinking. Here is my first go at a list. Think of it as a digital time capsule that I get to open up on October 25 next year....

43 Things I Might Want to Do This Year:

Hike into the Grand Canyon
Hike out of the Grand Canyon
Really look at web design as another facet of my business
Start homeschooling with my little one
Watch "The Killing Fields"
Paint my office
Buy a new house
Sell this house
Visit my friend in Tucson before she moves
Rebuild our photo website
Post our "B" photos to Flickr as a tool to drive visitors to our site
Make time to read more books
Get a new desktop computer
Visit China, VietNam, Korea, Thailand or ????
Take our little one to the prospective parents night at the adoption agency
Get a new bed
Get a new hairstyle/color
Add Flash to my website
Earn an iPod!
Buy investment property
Go to a photography workshop with my partner
Join the local photo club
Join a pro photographer association
Rebuild my business website
Finish (need to start, first) the Illustrator training
Exercise every day
Save a little every month & go out to a very nice dinner without worrying about the $ we're spending
Build a sandbox or a treehouse or a playstructure
Get software & a computer for our little one
Teach little one to do something new
Earn more, and work equal or less, in my regular business (raise rates, or be more selective, or be more efficient, or all of the above?)
Stop drinking soft drinks
Grow a garden that feeds us
Learn to snowboard?
Kayak more
Spend more time with my son
Upgrade to CS3
Build a family photobook
Write and send pictures to little one's birthfamily and foster family
Enter a real photo contest
See my friend on stage in Portland
Finish my tribal dance top
Get rid of a lot of stuff that we don't need. Simplify. Less stuff = more time to play.