Step # 9 Social Networking

I am familiar with both Facebook and My Space, learned about Linkedin a few weeks ago from a patron at another library (he said it was great for work networking), but was not familiar with Eons, so that is what I joined. However, my email continues to act up and when I tried to “click here” to validate the account, I received an error message saying, “dialog box is already open. Please close it and retry.” This is the same message I get when I try to send an email out. Hopefully, it can be fixed! 

I am part of “Ning” at my full-time library, which is being used as a shared blog for our InService Day training and is private, at this time.  I’ll let Bran know of it’s existence via an email from my private email account.

 

Step 8 Overdrive

i listened to 7 sections, including how to place holds, on the Overdrive how-to site, and followed the instructions.  It was easier than I imagined to download the book I chose, Betsy-Tacy by Maud Hart Lovelace. I’ve always had a fondness for this historical series, and discovered a wonderful thing as an adult: there is a place, Mankato, in Minnesota that has the restored, real houses of Betsy, and Tacy and Tib!!  People flock to this town every year, to celebrate the stories based on the very real little girls who lived at the turn of the last century. As a child, I read all the books that my library had; as an adult, I found the “missing” and no-longer published volumens of “Winona’s Pony Cart” and “Carney’s House Party” held by libraries who managed, somehow, to hang onto them over the years.  Through these stories, I learned about World War I and what it felt like to be caught overseas, in Germany, when the War broke out.  Betsy’s Joe taught that true love does not run smoothly, just as Carney’s romance taught that a “friend” may not be husband material.  Listening to the downloaded book brought my friends and so many memories back to me, but I have to say…I did miss the illustrations found in the original print versions.  I think the illustrator was Vera Neville, but she may be the modern illustrator, so I’ll have to check my personal library at home!

The download was fast, just under 2 minutes, and I could have burned it! 

Ahh, memories…but nothing replaces the paper version, the few illustrations, and all those pictures I made when I read those books so long ago!

Step # 6 Wikis

I listened to “Common Craft, Wikis”, read the info on How Stuff Works, revisted Wikipedia, newly visited Wikihow and Wetpaint.  Wikihow did not have anything on Rose of Sharon bushes, how to grow lilacs, but did have an article on how to make your hair smell like lilacs (a situation that is rather dependant on actually being able to grow lilacs first, in order to harvest them for this experiment…. unless one is a REALLY fast runner, very tall, and can unconscionably steal some lilac blooms from a neighbor.) Wetpaint did not have anything on Rose of Sharon, lilacs, or foxhounds. There were some things that could be clicked on, but the pages were merely templates.

The editorial on editing a wiki was good, but the topic does demand detail (pages and pages of detail) and time to put that detail into practice if one is unfamiliar with html editing.  I did not edit a real wiki, but did play in the sandbox. I will go back to this step next week, prior to the ending date, and edit the wiki page on “foxhounds,” to read: “Foxhounds DO make good pets and ARE of a watchdog nature. A most valuable thing to be learned from your foxhound buddy, should you be fortunate enough to have one, is that FOOD should NEVER be turned down (unless it is liver or other ick organ to be eaten by a human). Communication is important, even if it is late at night and the neighbors are sleeping …what’s a few loud barks among friends?” One can learn a lot from other species, but the real question comes in application of the learning.  Do alpha animals war upon their brethern all the time, to the point that humans do?  Some may be banished from the fold for trying to be alpha, but there are no secret prisons or torture chambers. (oops, off track here.)

I may create an article for Wikihow or Wetpaint on Rose of  Sharon bushes, and upload my digital photos. I’ll let you all know if I do!

Step # 5 One Stop Search (federated searching)

This is great for finding information from a variety of sources about a topic.  Some databases are very specific, such as Auto Repair, and a person needing to find out about how to repair a car would absolutely want this specific source, instead of taking a global view and getting too many incidental hits.  When the car needs new brakes, it’s not necessary to know how many cars may be selling, or colors they come in, or other incidental bits of irrelevant info.

I used “foxhounds” as a search and came up with 34 pages of found information, including listings in Novelist K-8 (1 hit), Prices 4 Antiques (8 hits), MEDLINE, and Historical New York Times (1,893 hits!). 

I was able to sort by simply clicking on the icon for “Hits.”  In clicking on the source with 41 hits (Health and Wellness Resource Center), I learned that “vector transmissions” of virus means that companion animals can pick up diseases other than what the common transmission normally is thought to be.  In one instance, a study of pit bulls showed that animals in a region were becoming ill with a disease that is normally transmitted through dog fights when the animal is bitten by a diseased dog.  In this survey, vets traced the vector path of occurance among dogs that were never in fights, which indicated that the newly infected animals became ill through another means than being bitten directly by another dog.  The method of infection turned out to be a flea!  Since my search was on “foxhounds”, my readers my wonder why pit bulls came up in the article.  The federated search located articles that included any mention of foxhounds. This particular article went on to mention that “limited involvement with leishmaniasis focused on infection in American Foxhounds, which was subsequently shown by investigators at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to be endemic in 26 states and southern Canada. ” The infection was of the same strain found in Europe 3 decades prior.  Evidence showed that the  cause of infection could be both perinatel and through dogs fighting, sugestions that the brown dog tick, Rhipacephalus sangineus, could be instrumental. And, although the sand flea was prevalent in the area where infection was known, there was no evidence linking the sand flea to infecting either human or dog.  Article citation:

Vector-transmitted diseases in companion animals: trends, risks, controls.(news)

Linda Marie Wetzel. DVM Newsmagazine.  April 2007 v38 i4 p10(2).Foxhound collectibles from hit Prices 4 Antiques:

Step # 4 RSS

I signed up with bloglines for an account.

I have added Shifted Librarian, Dictionary.com Word of the Day, Scientific American, CNN World News, CNN Top Stories, CNN U.S. News.

I’ve looked at Debbie Winarski’s PowerPoint presentation, and emailed it to my email account so that I can share it at a Dept. Staff meeting.

Having the aggregator be in bloglines.com means that I need to specifically open that blogine to read it, rather than gathering it in my email.  After I completed the bloglines step, my email RSS feed was empty.  When I logged out and logged back remotely, I could no longer get to my folders other than what was sitting in my email inbox.  I could not check if the aggregator had any of the sites in it that I added in bloglines.  Amber came to my rescue and loaded Office 12 Outlook for me (our Tech Assistant was with a Patron) and so I now have my folders and can add a post-it note for my login and password for bloglines.  Yippie! Thanks, Amber!!

I can see this being useful to a library department for keeping up with library-wide news, ALA and ILA news, so that in our business, we don’t forget to keep aware of what’s coming up or going on around us.

Step #7 IM Chat..Meebo

Stayed longer on Saturday, May 8th, to complete the YouTube step and am already signed up with a Meebo account.  My Meebo name is “Libraries4u” so send me a “hi” if you see me logged in at the PRPL site.

 

Step #3 Part III YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8EqGaRMUi4&NR=1

Can’t resist..we need to attract the youth, and get them involved with the public library entity.  Well..here’s a way that one Teen Librarian accomplished that goal!

(watch out for gum, btw)

 I posted a positive comment on this video’s page, also.  Yippie for Teen Librarians!

Step #3 Part II YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrtYdFV_Eak

Never been to this public library, but … why do all these folks seem so familiar?  They must be kin!  It’s like finding more cousins!!  Cousins who can rock!

YouTube is a good way to get a Library’s name out to the techsavvies all over.  I want to visit this cool St. Joseph County Public Library, as well promote our libraries this way!  Just a world-wide way to highlight the great thing that a public library is!

And…I created a YouTube account and posted a positive comment on the video’s page!

Step # 3: You Tube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAxm29IKXC8

Savannah’s Playtime.  For those of us who love dogs, foxhounds especially, this 3 minute video will encourage an escape into the dusty field of playful doggies.  Warning: includes persuasive barking.

Step # 2 Flickr widget added

Just added a Flickr widget and picture to my blog!  Thanks, Debbie!  I was not sure which was the url, so I played with a few until I found the right one!