I was playing around with some of the other web tools and thought I would see what iGoogle was. A homepage you can customize, brilliant! I played around with it for more hours than I care to admit. I added stuff, deleted stuff, moved it all around. It's fun and I like being able to adjust things to where they suite me best. I also like have several of the features I added all in one spot, very convenient. I added a date and time gadget at the center top. I have my email, my Google Calendar, a to do list; all my organizational necessities. I of course had to have a weather gadget, very essential for me. I threw Google maps up there and the NY Times news. Of course everyone has to have a few fun feartures right? I added GRE word of the day - adding to my vocabulary seems necessary, as well as a recipe of the day because I love food and cooking. Who says you can't have buisness and pleasure all in one spot?
This is a feature that will save me time because it has many features all in one place where before I was going to several locations to look at each thing. Plus it's still the google page and I can get to the other tools like Google Reader which I try to look at daily. It seems like a productive tool and if you are pinched for time but like a one stop place for news, weather, email, and a look at your to-do's for the day this seems like a great tool! I made it my homepage so it is the first thing I see when I get online. Plus if I get bored I can always switch things up! This is something any professional could use to stay organized and save time and be efficient in my opinion.
Thoughts about new technologies I learn about. I'm trying to be less afraid of technology and learn to utilize it a little more.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Friday, July 22, 2011
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.
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.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
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
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
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