Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Thing 17 finished completely, Thing 18 cont'd

Well... I received Thing 23's 8th email and it explained how to get the RSS Feed from Thing 17 to work, by taking out a piece of the URL I got it to feed through the google reader. :) I suspected that is what was wrong in the first place but everytime I took a chunk out it didn't work. argh.
Now we will see if I can get this video to embed into my entry.
I love Youtube. I use it to watch anime, funny movies, and of course have used it for 23 things instructions. I think it is a wonderful site. If you don't go searching for bad stuff, you usually will not find it popping up! Haha. Actually I have never seen anything profane on Youtube, but then I don't try to find it. I use it also for music videos to get my music fix.

Saturday, March 29, 2008

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Thing 17

Ok.
I started the first part of this thing quite well. ELM is a very cool resource. I went to the Student Infotrac page from the databases listed alphabetically and used a keyword search to look up 'youth smoking'. Then I went to the RSS feed icon, copied and pasted the URL into my blog. And for some reason, with all the new talent of RSS feeds I have acquired over this little project, it said it was invalid. Of course alot of other people are complaining of this same thing so I am not alone, it must be something with the Google blogger. But I do know how to set it up.
Part 2
I went to Academic Search Premier and set up an account and started my folder. I started my web page with the Page Composer. So "Kierstin's Corner" is now set up and I am ready to start adding any search pages that I find interesting, same with pictures and videos. I was wondering what a better webpage than my own would look like and found others to be really interesting. This could have lots of possibilities!
Part 3-Proquest
I went to Proquest from the databases on ELM, followed each step required. Searched first, then slowly set the parameters wanted. I found two really interesting articles about Facebook that fell under the 2007, full text, Washington Post parameters. I put them under my "My Research" tab and created a web page. Emailed myself and saved it to my H drive.
*Whew*!
Part 4- NetLibrary
At first was very confused. Partially because I didn't read the instructions so that I fumbled around, made my account thinking that maybe i would figure things out, and then finally read the instructions. So...I did a keyword search, viewed the eBook, made my note! And thought, ooh, this is keen! My thoughts were more on academic things such as reports, where hey, I could mark notes in books I'm using and find them easily. Very cool.

So I liked my tour of this. I think its important to understand the databases that Libraries have access to, and in case patrons ask I can inform them on the basics.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Thing 16

Awesome, awesome! I think this thing is the best!
As a student I fully appreciate these two handy tools.
I checked out both the University of Minnesota Project Tool and the Research Project Calculator.
I actually paged out one of my future assignments (bonus!). I would totally encourage students to use this and found tons of resources on my assigned topic.
I think these would be really beneficial to students and libraries for their own projects. Being that I am a library assistant we don't really have overarcing projects that often that would merit being mapped out, but you never know!

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Thing 15

Second Life...
It reminds me of The Otherland books by Tad Williams. A world within a world. I am so disjointed by it, that I wonder if it is just another escape for people. The classrooms and libraries are cool. But I really don't know...
I don't know if there is a role for Second Life in libraries. Unless you could use that as a virtual Library as talked about in Thing 2.
I really just don't know...

Thing 14- Library Thing

I signed up for Library Thing after taking the small tour. Thought the site was rather fascinating and made me start ruminating about what exactly I have stuffed in my bookshelves (usually double packed). What a great invention, not only could you catalog your whole book collection and catalog it, thus creating a 'library', you can share with others what you own.
For some reason the "book police" from 1984 comes to mind, I think we'd all be very easy targets. "Please don't burn my books, think of how my Library Thing rating will suffer!"
Woah. Ok, off strange trippy ideas.
So I added about 10 books to the catalog, and used both Amazon and the Library of Congress to search for them. Tip of the iceberg, I realize. Then easily enough they show up with their cataloging and also how many people have the same book. Ooh lala! I could join a group that is interested in the same book or join a bookclub to chat about the books. As they say on the main page, its 'eery' how many people may have the same interests and books!
Plus, I can set up my profile to display as much as I want to be shown and tell others about myself. I will set up my link so that all the people who read my blog can access my amazing collection of books. (Note: last sentence was very sarcastic). Anyway, I think this will stay in my mind as used thing. I like it almost better than Shelfari!
I think that's about it.
I think libraries could use this.

Thing 13

OKay!
I found these tools intriguing and very functional for any business or service that allows the employees access to computers or expects them to be on the internet. Personally, I hate start pages. I know, I know, you can make them all special with different colors or setups, have your favorite interests up on them, tell you the weather of your home town etc. etc. But as soon as I had made my igoogle, I was frantically trying to get it off my main page.
I have igoogle on my laptop.
I think the yahoo! calendar or Remember the Milk was awesome! I thought I might just like to use it, since I am a very forgetful person and really need a palm pilot or some electronic calendar device to keep me on top of everything I'm supposed to do. Apparently, and I am not quite savvy to figure it out yet, one can have their notices for meeting and whatnot sent to their phone! Woohoo! I thought that was the coolest thing ever.
The to-do lists were cool, although I am so lazy that I would procrastinate by making to-do lists instead of actually doing anything on the to-do list! I do that non-electronically all the time. :)
Anyway, for a procrastinating, forgetful, always on the run person, this "Thing" was the best and very informative.
Yes, I did try out Backpack.
Now...I will just have to make sure I don't lose my internet connection!