Thing 20

YouTube

On YouTube I searched for "Texas library public" which resulted in a list of 220 videos.
My favorites are the videos about book cart drill teams. I searched for "Fort Worth Public Library" which resulted in 8 videos. I watched a video that a patron shot while using a public pc. It was very short and did not seem to have a point. Then I watched a video about Southside (Evans Rosedale) History which portrayed the Ella Mae Shamblee Branch Library as part of the Living Legacy of African American history in Fort Worth. The piece was effective in portraying the history of the area and the struggles African Americans faced in accomplishing their goals and dreams.

I'd like to see more local videos during story time (I realize that there are copyright issues in
videoing the reading of an author's work) and during programs like LibraryFest.

Thing 19

Google Docs



I love the idea of Google Docs. I've always wanted to share docs with coworkers yet we do not have a shared drive. Is it possible that we can use Google Docs for this purpose?



I already have a Google account, so I started by creating a doc. I listed all the tasks I need to complete before the end of the fiscal year which is in 5 weeks. I saved the doc and shared it with Joseph who is the Catalog Librarian.

I then checked out the spreadsheet feature. I usually import data into spreadsheets, so I tried the import feature. I was able to import a couple of .xls from by pc. Worked great.

The feature I am really excited about is creating forms to request information from people to populate a spreadsheet. I do not have a task for this right now, but I'll keep this in mind.

Thing 18

Wikis

I've added an intro page "Beth" at http://dfw23things.wetpaint.com/ with 4 sub pages. I found the wiki easy to use though. I use pbjwiki to add pages on our staff wiki, but that wiki does not prompt for keywords or descriptions. I think that I actually like the wetpaint wiki better as you
structure the hierarchy as you create the page instead of after the page is already created. This makes the hierarchy more seamless, but you do need to remember to keep the name of your page unique.

Thing 17

LibWorm

I went to http://www.libworm.com/ and searched for kindle and 440 series. I did find
some interesting articles and blogs. I did a subject browse and chose Fiction and Cataloging. Most of the articles were not about cataloging and the fiction was very general.

I searched my library's name as a phrase and found a few interesting pieces. I'm not sure
that LibWorm is something that I would use in the future though. I get info from a number
of other sources thats easier for me.

Thing 16

LibraryThing

I've looked at LibraryThing before, but did not use it. Today, I signed
up for a free account and added 5 books by one of my favorite authors.
None of the records had tags so I added a few.

I find the ThingLang to be innovated. I have not heard of anyone using
the ISBN to determine the language of the title. This would be a great
enhancement to OCLC or an ILS.

I love the ISBN Check. I did not realize that LibraryThing had an API
to fix ISBNs and return a 10 or 13 digit ISBN. I'll use this when working
with a bad ISBN which happens once in a while.

I read the blog about MARCThing but have not used it. Since I work in
MARC records daily, I'm not jazzed about not seeing MARC in LibraryThing.
However, I would like to use MARC record as it would have subject in most
cases.

Thing 15

Digg

For Thing 15, I went to http://www.digg.com/. I took a look at some of the most highly recommended stories. Most of the things at the top of the Digg list are pictures, and some
are videos. It's a mixture of news stories and magazine articles. I found it interesting, but
doubt that I would use it on a regular basis.

Thing 14

Delicious

I've registered for Delicious and installed the software to add the buttons.
I'll have to restart IE so I'll post what I have done so far and come back latter to finish.

I've added three bookmarks to my Delicious account. When I get back to
my own pc, I'll try importing the bookmarks that I have saved in IE.

My Delicious page http://delicious.com/beth_walters50

I really like the way that Delicious organizes my bookmarks. It is very visual as all the tags are listed on the side. Unlike using folders where you
you can only use one descriptor. I also like the fact that you can get to your bookmarks from any pc. I change pcs frequently and migrating the bookmarks may or may not happen. I generally have my cataloging bookmarks only on my work pc, now I can access them anywhere.


I imported the bookmarks from My Favorites in IE.