Thing 34 - Is It Competition? Online Answer Sites

Reference Librarians will be around for a long time to come, they offer that human connection needed to navigate through the sea of information available. As a public librarian I see it everyday; Where would I find information on birds? How do I find this site of the Internet? Could you help me find information about Canada? We need to be there to advise them on information options?

The biggest problem with using these sites is what to use when and how reliable is the information!
I did a search on: What Chinese Emperor was buried with Terra Cotta Soldiers?

ChaCha: Emperor Qin was buried with an army of more than eight thousand soldiers made of terra cotta. Thanks for using ChaCha!

AllExperts: Gemma writes on 2007-10-20 07:49:39
The Terracotta Army was buried with the first Emperor in 210-209 BC. Their purpose was to help rule another empire with him in the afterlife. they are also sometimes referred to as "Qin's Armies". After a great deal of advert sing.

WikiAnwers: Needed more information

Yahoo Answers: Several websites to investigate.

So you can see there is a wide range of answers to one question and finding the right site is tricky. The article 'Lose Your Wikipedia Crutch: 100 Places to Go for Good Answers Online' and 'Who's Asking? A Roundup of Q&A Sites' had several good suggestions on where to go for what. And for the public speed is usually an important factor.

Thing 33 - Travel 2.0

We're always getting requests for travel information at work and I love the idea that several of the sources are put together by people who have experienced the places they're rating.

I like the way that tripadvisor.com gives you categories to choose from.

Recommended Vacations: Adventure | Beach vacations | Casinos | Family vacations | Golf vacations | History & Culture vacations | Romantic Getaways | Shopping vacations | Skiing | Spa | Cancun | London | NYC

Trip to Europe:
Austria | Belgium | France | Germany | Greece | Ireland | Italy | Portugal | Spain | Switzerland | The Netherlands | United Kingdom

I really like homeandabroad.com mentioned in the 'Next Wave of Travel Sites' article. It gives you several options to choose from and has planned itineraries or lets you plan your own.

Thing 32 - Google Maps and Mashups

My Trip to Scotland
If you Zoom out on the map you can view pictures and video of all the spots I visited.


View Larger Map

I enjoyed looking at:
Perfect Escapes - A travel search engine that features a click-through Google Map
MapsZipcode - Zip codes nationwide would be helpful for work.
Area Code Maps - Good for work
Map Clock - Helpful when trying to figure the right time to call my kids
How Norwegians View the Rest of the World - Great
Earth Knowledge - Good for Students
Map of Executions - Eye Opening

Thing 31 - More Twitter

I'm only in stage 2 of twittering - Presence - 'I don't really get why people love it, but I guess I should at least create an account.' With that in mind I have customized my Twitter page with a Flickr photo, listed my blog's url, posted a profile picture, added my name to the Tweeter Directory and found a few people I know and will follow.

I would use Twitter as a way to connect with people who have common interests. I discovered new kniting patterns/techniques and have beeen kept updated on good books to read. I don't do a lot of twitting just because of the time factor.

I Am A Comma'

I am open minded and extremely optimistic.
I enjoy almost all facets of life. You can find the good in almost anything.

I keep myself busy with tons of friends, activities, and interests.
I find it hard to turn down an opportunity, even if you are pressed for time.

My friends find yme fascinating, charming, and easy to talk to.
(But with so many competing interests, my friends do feel like you hardly have time for them.)

I excel in: Inspiring people

I get along best with: The Question Mark

What Punctuation Mark Are You? - http://tinyurl.com/33hlbw

Thing 30 - More Ways to Use RSS and Delicious

I don't usually read RSS feeds on a regular basis but think that 'FeedSifter' will help eliminate some of the volume. I do like the idea of organizing my feeds so I can choose what I want to review.

Delicious, is one of my favorite "things" from 23 Things. The feature of Delicious that I use most frequently is tagging; I love how I can easily organize my growing list of bookmarks using tags.

We use Delicious at work to organize the sites we use on a regular basis. Since we have four circulation stations it's easy to make sure everyone has acess to the same list of sites. I took a long look at 'Insuggest' and found a lot of sites to add to my 'Delicious' account. Once I finish 'More 23 Things of a Stick' I plan on going back and exploring more of their features.

Thing 29 - Goggle Tools

Search Tools - SearchWiki
I did a search for 'Best Sellers Books' and got several results which I was able to manipulate. I was then able to list in the note field, books I'd like to read so I have a list for future reference. I can see where this would be helpful because as they said in the article in the New York Times "40 percent of the searces people make on the Internet are duplicate queries they have made at least once before" but I don't like the idea that once you've manipulated the list you can't go back to a search where google ranks the sites.

I'd probably use this for queries I make on a regular basis but I'm not sure I'd use it all the time.

Productivity Tools - Sites
Since I already have a gmail account and use the google calendar I tried creating a site for the Friends of the Elk River Library to post information about their organization and collect readers advisory information. I'll need a little more instruction on layout etc but could see this as a useful tool for the Friends. You can do a lot more with this than a PBwiki.

http://sites.google.com/site/elkriverfriends

Thing 28 - Customized Home Pages

1. Which of the services did you use? Why did you choose that one?
I chose igoogle, I like the clean look and how easy it is to change. Since I have a google calendar and gmail it makes it the best choice.

2. What was your experience in setting it up? Easy? Or not?
Very easy to set up but I can see where looking through all the exciting widgets could be time consuming.

3. Which gadgets/widgets/flakes did you add?
I noticed that some of the widgets I had on before no longer work so I deleted some of the things from my first set upm changed the picture, and added my google calendar, twitter, and some fun knitting gadgets.

4. Do you have any recommendations for gadgets/widgets/flakes you find fun or useful?
I love the radio I added to my blog. I can pick a station and listen while I'm working.

Just to test out another site I signed up for Netvibes. I found widgets on gmail that I couldn't find on Netvibes and didn't like that they didn't show you much about the different widgets just a short description.

Thing 27 - Twitter

After finishing all the 'To Do' projects I had a 'Twitter' account with great sites to follow. Everything from knitting, decorating, books, libraries and friends. I'm not sure it's something I'd use a lot but it does have interesting possibilities.

I was impressed with alltop.com mentioned in the video 'How to View Twitter and Use It Effectively'.

I'm not sure I'd use it for the library but I'm following the Hibbing library site and Casa Grande, AZ library site to find out what uses they come up with. I agree with the article 'Twtter Explained for Lirarians and 10 Ways to Us Twitter'; It's important to keep up-to-date with emerging tools - flickr started out as a silly web photography game, not the amazing social tool it's turned into.

That said I can see it being used for web conferencing, brainstorming with colleagues and sending messages to library patrons on 'Twitter'.

Thing 26 - Join the Ning

I joined the Ning in Round 1 of '23 Things On A Stick' I've used it make comments on another members page and upload photos. I joined the Great River Regional Library group and can see using it to keep each other updated on our progress.

For this lesson I've:
Left a comment on another members page
Upladed photos
Watched Zomo's video - which was great!
Joined the Great River Regional Library's group

I recently had a hard time coming up with a title for our community wide book discussion; I can see using this to get suggestions from other members and sharing photo and video suggestions for display and programs.

Thing 25 - Bloggers Toolkit

I decided to add the following:
1. Odiigo - Which I found easiest to use and had the most realistic sounding voice.
I had problems with 'Vozme' opening multiple sites and 'Talkr' didn't want to open

2. Click Comments - This is so easy to install and use!

3. Clustrmap - I think it will be interesting to see where people are viewing my blog from.

4. Widgetbox - I searched widgetbox which was mentioned in the 'five part video series on widgets'. This is amazing! I love the piano, clock and radio I added.

My new 'Surprised' Favlcon reminds me of you surprised I am everytime I figure something on 'More 23 Things On A Stick'!

As you can see I spent a lot of time on this lesson but it was so easy to get carried away with all the options out there.