Week 11 - Podcasts

I hadn't ever subscribed to a podcast before; it was fun to try something new! I subscribed to the "Vegan Freak" podcast (about living a vegan lifestyle) through iTunes. I haven't listened to the whole thing yet, as it was about an hour and a half long. However, the whole process was pretty simple and painless!

Week 10 - Firefox

I've been a pretty dedicated Firefox user for a few years now. I still use IE at work though.

17. I use tabs in both Firefox and IE all the time. I tend to have multiple sites open at once, so this is very convenient. I will admit that I like the way IE has a small blank tab next to your open tabs, which you can click on to open a new tab. In Firefox, you have to go to the menu to open a new tab (the first time - after that you can right click to open additional tabs).

18. I downloaded the adblocker. The download was very fast and simple, and the program was effective.

19. It looks like Ctrl +/- works in both browsers, but I hadn't known this before I saw that Firefox listed them as a shortcut. When using IE, I'd always gone to the menu and chosen smaller/larger manually. That's how I first went about looking for this function in Firefox.

Week 9 - Flickr and YouTube

This one is a bit late, too. Sorry about that!

14. I took the Flickr tour. Even though I've had an account there for a while now, I didn't know that you could edit pictures in Flickr! I searched and found some gorgeous pictures of weedy and leafy sea dragons.

15. I'm uploading one of my own images from year ago or so. It's of the detail on a bridge in Paris. You'd never notice all of the faces without actually being in a boat on the river.

16. This youtube video is one that our library put together to celebrate National Library week. Our children's librarian, Robin Gibson, was the creative genius behind this project.

Downloadable Resources

I'm a bit late with this post. I wanted to try a downloadable video, since I've downloaded ebooks and audiobooks in the past, and I didn't find the time to do this until the weekend. I didn't find the process to be too complicated. There were pretty clear links to everything that I needed to download. It did take several steps (I had to upgrade my Windows Media Player in addition to downloading the Overdrive program), but it wasn't too bad. Downloading the actual file was a bit more frustrating, as the download timed out the first time. It worked just fine on the second try though.

The thing that I liked best about this week was the chart that describes the specific details about each different type of downloadable resource. (I've probably confused patrons in the past when I've tried to explain that there are different kinds of ebooks and that you sign up for them in different ways.) I put a copy of this chart back at the reference desk and I'm sure that it'll be very handy when I explain eResources to patrons in the future!

Wikis

I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to edit the wiki page for this week's project. I remember having to create a wiki page for a project in grad school and it was much more confusing. You had to type out the html or whatever type of formatting was being used (I don't remember the details). It really wasn't too bad once you got the hang of it, but the PB wiki site makes things so much easier! It was just like typing any Word document. I'm definitely more open to the idea of using (as in creating/editing) wikis in the future now!

RSS Feeds and Delicious

I didn't have much trouble with this week's assignment. I've had an RSS feed for a while and use it as my primary news source. I subscribe to feeds from several newspapers (covering national, world, and local news), as well as a handful of library blogs. I also use it to keep track of fun sites, such as Cute Overload, Cake Wrecks (hilarious), and Unshelved (a webcomic about a public library). I've found it to be very useful. I don't have tv at home at the moment and hate to visit a bunch of different sites to get the news, so this a great way for me to do that.

As for Delicious, I've encountered it before. I had to create an account back in grad school. I found that I didn't use the account very much, only accessing it from my personal computer, where I could just as easily use a regular bookmark. So, I still don't find it very useful, but I can certainly see how it could be useful for people that have multiple computers or split their time between locations for work. (Technically, I do spend some time at two branches, but they each have sufficient bookmarks on each computer that I haven't need to use Delicious.)

First Impressions of 23 Things

So far, I'm feeling very comfortable with our assignments for 23 Things. I have used blogs (specifically Blogger) before. I created two sample blogs for presentations back in library school. We also use Blogger at our library to create themed book lists and lists of our new books. We found it to be one of the quickest and easiest ways to get these lists posted. I've also made a personal blog to keep track of my marathon training progress, although I haven't updated that one in quite some time!

Here are links to our library's new books and book lists blogs, if anyone is interested:
http://ntrlnewbooks.blogspot.com/
http://ntrlbooklists.blogspot.com/
(Just a side note: These aren't my work alone. The other reference librarian generally posts the new books and I generally post the book lists, although we both have access to both blogs.)

-BrieAnn