Thing 41 - Mashup Your Life

This would definitely streamline productivity, it's hard to keep up with all the different sites. By the time you log in, add your update and read information on the site you've taken up a lot of time. Much easier to log in and have all the information in one place and as it happens. I tried FriendFeed but didn't find very many people using the service, I'll have to work on that. So far I'm keeping up to date with Barack Obama! I'll try it for awhile and see how it goes. I like that you can seperate the messages by personal or professional so you can diferentiate who you want to send messages to.

Thing 40 - Mashup The Web

I explored all the mashups but decided to design a card for National Library Week, you can access it by clicking the title of this post. I designed it using Phreetings which was easy to use although you were limited to what you could do with the design.

Book Tour would be useful if you wanted to schedule an author appearance. You can usually get a better rate if they have two engagments in the same area.

Wheel of Food was fun - my son and I use to play a game called 'Where Don't you Want to Eat' when we couldn't decide where to go for supper. We'd take turns calling out places we weren't interested in until we narrowed down our choices. This would have helped us with our decision!

I like MusicMesh: It lets you visually browse through bands starting with a single artist and easily watch videos of the artist that are posted on YouTube. A fun way to discover new music or just watch videos of your favorite band.

http://mashups.web2learning.net/ I found this interesting article on Library Mashups give it a try.

Thing 39 - Digital Storytelling

I didn't have pictures available from library programs but did have several pictures of my first grandchild (go figure) I decided to make a 'Mothers Day' card for my daughter. I used Scrapblog and found it very easy to use. I've been trying to find a way to download our family photos for viewing and this is a definite possibility.

This would be a great project for the summer reading program 'Be Creative @ Your Library'. Give each child in the workshop a digital camera to use, a variety of scrap booking materials and then have them create a day in the life of scrapbook page for display.

Thing 38 - Screencasting

How to Register for a Library Program

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I'm not actually sure I did this right, I was expecting more glitz. I decided to use Jing since I had problems getting Skitch to open correctly. (Guess it won by default)I didn't think it was real easy to use. I had problems finding the help screens and once I did I found the voice on the video annoying. I'm not sure I'd use it for work unless I could get it to work smoother.

Thing 37 - Photo Tales

I used 'One True Media' to create a montage of pictures from our vacation. The site was really easy to use but I'm not impressed with the photo quality, you'd probably have to buy the upgrade to see an improvement. I can see using this at the library to advertise programming and at home to share special events.

Thing 36 - Comic Relief: Generate Some Fun

I'd recommend the following sites to students and plan to add them to our del.cio.us account at work:
Image Converters
Son of Citation Machine
EasyBib

We'll soon be getting our own website at work and some of these would be great to add interest. The Comic Strip Generators will be great for the summer reading program 'Get Creative @ Your Library'. It would be fun to have some kind of competition for the kids to enter.

As you can see I had fun with several of he generators!

Shelf Check 330

Margaret's Dewey Decimal Section:

086 Collections in Spanish & Portuguese

Margaret = 31871850 = 318+718+50 = 1086


Class:
000 Computer Science, Information & General Works


Contains:
Encyclopedias, magazines, journals and books with quotations.



What it says about you:
You are very informative and up to date. You're working on living in the here and now, not the past. You go through a lot of changes. When you make a decision you can be very sure of yourself, maybe even stubborn, but your friends appreciate your honesty and resolve.

Find your Dewey Decimal Section at Spacefem.com

My Name In Chinese :

Thing 35 - Books 2.0

What are you observing in your library about books and reading?

People love to talk about good books and exchange titles, the tools listed in this lesson are designed to do just that enhance a persons reading and give them an opportunity to share what they've read.

• Our print circulation numbers continue to grow


• Our community wide book discussion we hold each year continues to see increased attendance.


• More and more children are coming to storytime because as it says in the NEA report:
  "The simplest argument for why children should read in their leisure time is that it makes them better readers. According to federal statistics, students who say they read for fun once a day score significantly higher on reading tests than those who say they never do."


• Graphic Novels and the 'Twilight Series' have done a lot to increase reading among teens Young adults show the most rapid increases in literary reading. Since 2002, 18-24 year olds have seen the biggest increase (nine percent) in literary reading, and the most rapid rate of increase (21 percent). This jump reversed a 20 percent rate of decline in the 2002 survey, the steepest rate of decline since the NEA survey began.

Do you think these Book 2.0 tools hamper or enhance one's reading experience?

Some of my favorite sites helped me find new titles, see what other people are reading and find discussion questions for book clubs. They enhanced my reading!

Which of the sites/tools did you visit? What are they appealing features? Any features seem unnecessary or just there "because"?

I love my LibraryThing account

These sites will be a great help with our 'Friends of the Library' book discussion group
BookBrowse
ReadingGroupGuides
Reading Group Choices
LitLovers

Other thoughts?
I agree with Andrea on her choice of sites
http://www.multcolib.org/books/

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