Public Computers - Egads!

To finish off the 23 things training, TS staff had to go over to the library and use the public computers to print off our certificate of completion (it is posted on Google Drive, which is not available from our work computers).

Using the public-use computers is a learning experience in itself! I feel quite sympathetic with library users who are frustrated with our computers. The version of Internet Explorer is outdated, and the restrictions around installing new programs or updating existing ones are very limiting. I tried to check my email, and it took me 10 minutes to get my inbox open! This is a 10 second operation on the wifi at home….the inequity of access to internet, within the same city, is quite startling.

Anyhoo, back to the 23 things…

My favourite “thing” is twitter. Out of all the 23 things, it is the one I was already using on a regular basis, and I will continue to do so. It is great for keeping up to date with local and niche headlines and for connecting with interesting and funny people.

The “thing” I found most useful was to review the copyright and citation in relation to images found online; it is certainly a skill I will continue to use.

I was really impressed by the NB Libraries app, and very disappointed that it is not available for my Windows Phone. I think that that is one “thing” that I would have used often for both work and personal use. I already enjoy using the bibliocommons “shelves,” and will continue to do so through the web browser interface. For work, the ability to search the catalogue by scanning ISBNS would be great when doing on-site purchasing!

I am glad to have completed NB23. I appreciate having had the experience of writing a blog, but I don’t think I will continue on with it.

Cheers!

Thing 23 - Stumbleupon

Stumbleupon strikes me as the ultimate in random websurfing. In my opinion this thing has the least potential for productive activity out of all of the things we have explored. It sort of reminds me of the “random article” button on Wikipedia. I find that these days, twitter and facebook often serve the purpose of pointing me to new sites and articles, via your friends. If I ever need to pass some time on the internet, and my social networks aren’t doing it for me, Stumbleupon is where I will come to randomly discover new things.

Things 20 - 22: NBPLS apps

NB23 Week 9
I have been using the Overdrive app for many years now. I have tested it sporadically on different devices from a PC, to kobo, to smartphones and tablets. I currently have it downloaded on my Windows smartphone and Windows tablet.

I have not yet taken to pleasure reading on the screen. I will admit that the major reason for this is because I tend to want to multitask when I am looking at a screen, and I end up jumping around to different things, rather than remaining just focused on reading. I do, however use Overdrive on my phone (almost constantly) for audiobooks. If you call out to me in public and I don’t respond it is probably because I am walking along with ear buds in, listing to a great book.

I was so happy to find that Overdrive was available as a Windows app, because the major drawback for Windows mobile devices is the lack of selection in apps....

You: “Hey have you tried ***insert name of new app everyone is talking about***?”
Me: “Nope, it’s not available on Windows (at least not yet)”.

Case in point: the BiblioNB App. It is one of those apps for which a Windows version has not been developed. I have played around with the app on the iPad, however, and I am very impressed with all that it does. In fact, I think I prefer the app over the NBPLS website! My favourite part of helping coworkers with this thing is showing them how it can read an ISBN barcode - very cool!

In helping coworkers to do these app things, it was once again made evident that what we need to be learning from all of these “things” is a general comfort and aptitude for navigating the digital world and using internet-based tools (not necessarily how to do these specific things). It seems to me that there is a fundamental shift from the way tasks were done in the workplace of the past to the way tasks are done in the more fluid and changeable digital world. Many of my coworkers want step-by-step instructions; they want to be told, “click here” “click there”, and they expect it to be the same every time. We have tried to accommodate this expectation with, for example, the various deviceinfo sheets that the MPL reference team has created. However, updates and changes happen so frequently it could almost be a fulltime job to keep on top of updating the instructions! As we discovered when returning a book through the iPad Overdrive app, the instruction needed to be updated. The smart people at the MPL reference department knew, of course, that rather than updating these instructions, the more efficient solution is to remove these detailed instructions (users can rely on the app's help menu, if necessary).

I hope that one of the outcomes of the 23 things training is that, these workers will liberate themselves from step-by-step instructions, so that they are not stuck when the instructions are unavailable or out of date.

Things 18-19: Sharing with Scoop.it

NB23 Week 8
I resisted signing up for scoop.it for quite a while, because I did not want to start up yet another account that I might never really use (somewhere in the digital soup I have unused accounts for Library Thing, Read It Later, and many other forgotten web tools). When I started reading Robin's Library Links quite some time ago, I did not see any need to start my own account, because I had no intention of "curating" a topic. As I began to find more and more scoop.it topics that interested me, I saw the value in starting an account so that new posts in all my followed topics would be sent daily to my inbox. While this is very convenient, I was a little wary of it as well. I could feel myself becoming more and more lazy, just reading the articles scooped by others, rather than seeking out news from a variety of sources myself.....
That being said, I am happy, overall, with my scoop.it experience and it has pointed me to some news and information sites that I would not otherwise have known about. I even started curating a couple of my own topics . I didn't think that this was something I would do, because I did not think that I would have the time or energy to properly curate a given topic in a way that would be meaningful and useful to others.
However, instead of curating for an audience of followers, my aims in "curating" these topics are to focus my own reading online and to keep track of the articles I have found interesting.....and if others find it interesting to read and follow what I read, so be it!

Things 16-17: video and podcast

NB23 Week 7
Yay video and podcasts! I have to admit that, over the past couple of years, I have been doing a lot more professional development listening than reading. When I am lucky enough to have time to actually process new books, I take advantage of the physical processing time (the time spent applying labels, stamps, and tape) to listen to podcasts. As I mentioned in an earlier post, my favorite library podcast is Circulating Ideas. Occasionally, I also listen to archived webinars that our awesome Public Services Librarian sends out. And when all else fails, there are always the CBC radio podcasts.

For this assignment, I decided to branch out to library-related video podcasts, and I tried an episode of TWIL (This Week in Libraries).

I enjoyed this interview with Jason Scott (one of the guys behind the Internet Archive) and Chris Wild: the Retronaut.

Things 11-15: Images

NB23 Week 4 & NB23 Week 5

My 23 Things take on the First World Problems meme (courtesy of memgenerator.net)

I think I am already somewhat familiar with all of the 23 things we are being asked to do in this training program. However, I like having these little assignments, because it makes me use web tools that I know about, but might not have had a reason to use yet. And actually, I am finding it much more challenging and rewarding to help other people discover the 23 things!

I created a word cloud using the text from the "standard operating prodedure" for how to physically prepare items for the library collection. It was a fun way to introduce word clouds to other staff in Technical Services, and it makes a cool little visual to hang in our department!

NBPLS TS Physical Processing SOP word cloud via wordle.net

 

Another thing we looked at during the two "image" weeks was Pinterest. In some ways, Pinterest seems to be the epitomy of the websurfing vortex - that thing that you get sucked into when you surf the web for hours....something I generally resist doing. I have been trying to use Pinterest for a while, but haven't become an addict yet :) I never seem to post more than 5 or 6 images to any given board. Sometimes I want to post a site that is not highly visual and I get frustrated when there is a site I want to pin that doesn't have any interesting/relevant images! I have also been turned off by sites that don't allow pinning...grrr.

 

For Pinterest I did do the bonus thing, and pinned an image from my own blog...It was kind of a circular process: first I used Pinterest to gather ideas for a Harry Potter themed party, and then, I wrote a blog post about the party, and pinned my own blog to my Harry Potter Party Ideas board.

 

There, *phewf* I think I am caught up....now on to multimedia, before the end of the week!

 

Things 7-10: Bibliocommons

NB23 Week 3
I have been making use of my Bibliocommons account for a couple of years now, but I have not really engaged in the "social" aspects much. I find the "my shelves" feature to be very useful in tracking my reading. I  especially appreciate having a place to keep the ever-expanding list of books I would like to read. In addition to my shelves of personal reading, I started a list of books that I have read with my son at bedtime, but I have yet to make a list that I thought would be of use or interest to others. When faced with the challenge of making a list for 23 things, it did not take long for me to settle on a topic. One factor that never fails to bump a title to the top of my reading priorities is an impending theatrical release. I am sure that I am not alone in that, so why not a list of "based-on-the-book" movies coming out in 2014?! I did not get far in my list-making process before I found that Moncton Public Library beat me to the punch with this list of 30 titles! Well, since that work is done for me, maybe I can go and get reading.....but first, I will probably check my twitter feed.
I realized that I am engaged in social reading in other ways. Looking at my twitter feed, I would say over half of it is book-related. I follow accounts that promote books and reading, such as @49thshelf and @cbcbooks. I also follow authors that I enjoy, and I have been participating in a twitter book club! Part of the wonder of twitter is supposed to be that I could have conversations, based on common interests, with people from all around the world; people who I may never have otherwise met. In reality, however, I most of my twitter interactions involve people I know in person, in the local area. We have a twitter book club, most of the members of which work in the same building! We all read the same book and tweet our comments to each other. Traditionally such a group would need to be organized enough to finish reading a book by a specific date and all get together at a time and place....I know that that would probably never happen with us, even though we work in the same building, so it is great that we can get together on twitter!