Too Many Things To Do!!!

Like many people I sometimes have a hard time remembering when things are do or what things I am supposed to be doing when.  I have all sorts of ways I try to use to keep track.  I have always used a day planner and a regular calendar to keep track of things.  I write things in both places so in case I don't have access to one the other.  At work I have an Outlook account and I have recently started using the calender there.  I really like having this calender because it i something I look at everyday to check my emails and it sends me alert notices when things are due or when meetings are scheduled.  This is a great feature because sometimes I sign up for webinars or schedule meetings weeks or months in advance and wouldn't remember otherwise.  The only downside to this is that I only have Outlook on my work computer, not my personal computer. 

Thing 19 is about online productivity tools.  They had a list of several different tools but the one I decided to check out was Remember the Milk, a to-do list manager.  With this I am able to go in and set tasks and due dates.  I can even enter how long a task should take.  One feature I like is that you can set a priority to each task and it is color coordinated.  They also have different category tabs such as personal, study, and work.  Keeping the different category tasks separate is a nice feature and keeps things nice and organized.  It also had an option to add it to a calender, and since I wanted to do something about being able to access my schedule on the computer at home I set up a Google calendar and added the Remember the Milk calendar to that.  Now if I wanted I can keep my Outlook calender restricted to only work tasks and appointments and use Remember the Milk for personal and school tasks.  If I need to access work information from home though I now have a way to do that, I just have to add it to the calender.  It's very simple, and even offers keyboard shortcuts. 

Since libraries are all about organization I think this is a great tool to help people stay organized.  Sticky notes and lists posted all over the place can get messy or lost.  This is something that is neat and can keep you on track.  It also has a feature where you can share your to-do list and calender with others.  If a library wanted to make a public events or meetings calender they could do so and share it with everyone in the library.  That way everyone would be able to easily look up what was going on.  There is always so many things going on, events and meetings, so having a public way to share all that is nice.  It could save time too because you could  just look at the calender instead of trying to track down a person who may not be there.  It is a place you could look up when and where an event is for a patron even.  I think even more than a public sharing tool, if that seems like a big step, using it as a personal professional tool to help stay organized it is a good tool to use.  Outlook has a great system, but if you don't have an Outlook account this is a great alternative I think. 

Library Thing - Something Fun

I decided that the next thing I explore will be something fun since I wasn't to thrilled with Technorati and got more frustrated with it then anything.  I chose Thing 14 which is exploring Library Thing.  Library Thing allows me to catalog books, only it does most of the work.  You can do it manually if you want or need to though.

This I thought sounded fun. It is a way to keep track of the books you own or have read.  They even have a category for books you have read but do not own - which is where all the books I have in there so far are since I usually check them out from the library. It was super easy though.  All I had to do was create an account and then add books by typing an author, title, or ISBN.  It comes up with a list of books and then you choose the right one for your library, and if you don't see the one you want you can add the book manually. I may have to do that if I add some of my books I have at home that I actually do own.  That might actually be kind of cool.  Once you choose a book it does all the cataloging work automatically, but you do have the option to edit if necessary. 

There is also the social networking part of Library Thing that I really like.  Not only can you share your books and interest but you can see what others are reading and saying about books.  The best way to put it is this is like being apart of a really big book club.  They even advertise themselves that way.  There are even groups you can join and talk about different topics and follow different conversations.  One that I looked at was Librarians who Library Thing.  This could be something great to use for people working in libraries!  The conversations were not just about books but library issues too!  What a cool way to communicate.  One of the conversations was a student conducting research and trying to conduct a survey of the people in this group. Any librarian or even student could be a member of Library Thing and find it very informative as well as find and meet people who share common interests.  I love the idea!  I even added the Library Thing widget to the blog here.

As for using Library Thing as a cataloguing program in a library, that I am not so sure about.  It seems simple and easy enough but I think mistakes could be made much easier.  I think I would feel safer using the methods already in use.  Though if Library Thing was used as a widget on a libraries blog or homepage, it might be a good way to advertise new books, or a recreational reading section in say an academic library. It would be something quick and easy to maintain and display.  At my library on our current homepage (although our website is undergoing a face change) we have a link to new books.  It might be something worth adding to our new page as well but using Library Thing instead of just a link with a listing of the books.  It would be possible to use the social networking part of this too, and see what kinds of books library users are reading and maybe get ideas to add things collection that way.  c

Technorati

After checking out Delicious and tagging the next thing on the list (Thing 6) was blog directories.  I went ahead and tried out Technorati, which was the original blog search engine.  I created an account and did some searching to try and check it out.  Personally it was nothing all that impressive to me.  I'm not sure this is necessarily something I would use often, unless really looking for a blog about something.  Even then I may go to Google first just out of preference.

The concept behind Technorati is pretty cool though.  It is basically a place where people can register their blogs and then people can search through them for topics they are interested in. It is also a good way to get your blog out there and maybe gain a few followers.  They are categorized in different fields which the author can choose when setting up their account.  For example when I went to register this blog I registered it under Technology and Info Tech.  If you are doing a quick search and want to find something recent that has been blogged about in the field of technology you can do a search in Technorati.  It also provides you with links to other sites that are similar. 

If you are interested in finding blogs about libraries you would type that into the search box and click blogs or post depending what you are more interested in.  Then a list of results will come up and you can find one that works then from there it will link you to other related sites.  It seems like a quick and easy thing but when I did a search it came up with a lot of material that I found to be irrelevant.  There was one blog that came up that had "library" in the title of the blog, but it was about fashion and had nothing to do with libraries. 

By looking at some of the tags people have put on their blog may also give you other ideas of what to use as search terms.  The terms are supposed to be folksonomies which are words we use in everyday language, which might be different than what a cataloger might use. I know personally I have had trouble with search terms while looking for a book or an article.  I have had to try several different ways to say one thing just to get results I am looking for.  I always found that to be annoying.  Floksonomy tags seem to make that easier on the searcher, becaus ethey are more commonly used terms. 

I think that it could be used in a library for a quick and dirty search maybe to get some good current information on a topic where if you did a google search it may not necessarily be new.  But if a student had a paper to write on a current issue this could be a good tool to help them get a start and see what is relevant now on their topic.  It also gives you the opportunity to see what online conversations are going on about a certain topic.  To keep up with current events I can see this being useful.  That is true in means of helping students with a paper or even trying to find out the latest about library issues.  Say you wanted to know more about current e-book policies and what other people were saying and thinking, this would be a good place to start a search for that. 

I'm not sure if this is my cup of tea, but I won't give up on it just yet. 

Delicious

    Alright so Thing 5 on my list is tagging and social bookmarking with Delicious.  I had not heard about social bookmarking or Delicious until this LIS 5020 class.  The idea of social bookmarking is that it is a website where you can keep track of your favorite websites and such like if you were to bookmark them or put them in your favorites.  The difference is they are not tied to one single computer.  You can be on any computer and as long as there is Internet access you are able to get to your bookmarks.  I love this idea because this is something that used to drive me bonkers!  I would have some things saved on one computer at work and then I would go home and get on the computer and I wouldn't have it saved in my bookmarks there and I would have to go looking for it.  Now that will no longer be a problem thanks to Delicious, and I am pretty excited about this concept.

    Tagging I knew about thanks to Facebook and tagging people in photos.  I never actually tagged anyone in a photo, but I understood the concept.  On Delicious you can tag a bookmark with different relevant words that describe it or that will help you or someone else find it.  I think it is a pretty cool concept because I can tag something in a way that will help me remember what it is and find it as opposed to something someone else might say which wouldn't cross my mind.  It makes it more personal and unique.

     According to SLA's 23 Things program I should have first gone to the Delicious page and searched some tags.  I of course did this much later in the game.  I find that the best way to learn is to jump right in sometimes (not always because it can be confusing and overwhelming).  The first thing I did was create an account. After that I decided to try and import the my bookmarks I had in my favorites folder into Delicious.  That worked out smoothly, and I was even able to delete the ones I no longer wanted; some good spring cleaning I hadn't yet gotten around to.  I then went through and tagged everything.  I tried to keep it simple but so I could still identify everything.  After I did that I tested my tags and was able to find some of the bookmarks I was looking for without a problem.  I even retried this a few days later after it wasn't so fresh in my mind and still had no problem. 

    I did like that I can choose whether I want a bookmark to be private or public.  For the most part I kept my work related items private and my school and personal items public.  I figured if I keep my school items public it might be easier to find other people who are learning the same things and maybe I will even find sites that help me out.  That is the point of the "social" part of this bookmarking site anyways. 

   When I first set up my Delicious account I was on a computer at work and it has lots of restrictions on it for security purposes.  One of the things I could not do was set up the add on button on my toolbar.  I later tried this at home but ran into a problem.  I have the latest version of FireFox on my laptop and when I tried downloading the add on it said that it was not compatible with that version.  I was able to put it on using the newest version of Internet Explorer.  I used another computer at work that is not as locked down and was able to put the add on to both FireFox and Internet Explorer.  I like using it on FireFox much more because the tag button is also there but is not on Internet Explorer.  The tag button on the toolbar makes bookmarking a page so much easier and automatic which I really like.

    Delicious could be a great tool to use in a library.  For one it is a great way to share and find sites that other people in libraries are looking at and using.  you might find something you like and that could be useful to you or your library.  Also it is a great tool if you work in multiple locations and multiple computers.  For example I would have things saved on my office computer bookmarks that would not be in my bookmarks on the from the  desk computer, where I spend half of my day.  With Delicious all I would have to do is bring up the site and all my bookmarks are there.  If librarians are teaching a class they could pull up their bookmarks in any classroom just as easily as they could their office or the reference desk.  Even if you are away from the library, say out of town for a conference, you could still access your bookmarks and add more from things you may learn about at the conference.  It is a fast way to share information with everyone back home at the library before you get back and can tell them about it.  The options and advantages are incredible, it really depends on how creative you want to be.