Yes, I realized as I got started on the 21 Things for Children Librarians that my last post was almost a year ago. Granted it’s been a very busy year for me, and the grief of losing my dear Skippy cat last year was enough to keep me offline much of the time. And, now it’s the crazy antics of my new recruits, Junebug and Skeeter, that keep me busy in the real world. Well, that and work of course.
So, 21 Things – well I got included a little late, so I’m going to breeze through the past several weeks and touch on the things I can. Then I hope to get in deep from here on out. Here we go!
1. Create a Blog – Got that, here it is!
2. Learn about Library 2.0 – Actually was lucky enough to take a class with Michael Stephens on the subject. At the time I was enlightened by learning that it’s not about technology, but rather about customer service. I like that.
3. Post a blog about Technology – Okay, so I checked out the list of recommended sites, and was reminded of a site one of the teen volunteers I worked with a few years ago introduced me to, and I still love it. Sketch Swap – check it out, it’s fun!
4. Sign up for Google Reader – Already got that, and added a few new blogs. I even have folders!
5. Delicious – Got that too. It’s over on the sidebar of my blog – here’s a link. Still need to work on bundling my tags. I got started a long way back and just ran out of steam…
6. Tracking Your Library – This is why I’m here! I knew about Google Alerts and have used them both personally and professionally, but I didn’t know about Social Mention and Addictomatic. You will soon see a blog post about these after I try them out.
7. Wikis – These I know, and have tried a few different host sites. I like WikiSpaces and PBWiki (which is now PBWorks I see) was okay too. We use a wiki at work every day! However, I can’t show it to you or I’d have to kill you. OK, not really, but I doubt it would interest anyone.
8. Firefox – Use this all the time, even at work! I love all the add-ons too. I have one for delicious and another one for twitter. They are very handy tools. I have to say though, for speed Google Chrome rocks!
9. Embed an Image – See below. (You’ll also find movies embedded down there somewhere.) I like to do this when I can to give some visual interest to things. It can also be easier than trying to describe something in a short post. Not that this is a short post…
10. Online Image Generators – Here’s another reason I joined 21 Things! I love to hear about cool new stuff like this to share with the kids and play with myself. I’ll have to spend some time with these and post my results later.
11. Tagging Photos on Flickr – I love the reminder on using controlled vocabulary. I often get in a hurry and don’t pay attention to that and end up having to go back in later to make it easier to access through tags. Since I’m several weeks behind I am not going to complete this project, but will spend some time over the next couple of weeks uploading overdue photos of my own and tagging them properly for some good practice.
12. Twitter and Facebook – Have both of these, but don’t use them as much as I used to. I had a huge online social media rush with MySpace, and then started to crash out on Facebook, then Twitter was really an afterthought… I will try to get back on more, but I find a lot of time gets wasted when I get too involved so I have absent much lately. My twitter – ariafury. Tagged is a site I have been seeing the kids on for the past couple of years. When I mentioned it to a coworker he refused to believe the site existed, but here it is!
13. ALA Connect – So, one day a colleague emailed me and told me I still work at CPL according to my ALA profile. I was like, what? How did he see my profile? So, I checked it out and fixed it but haven’t done much else with it. I suppose I should do that this week and post about it. I do like LinkedIn and have many colleagues on there. I wonder if it’s similar?
14. GoodReads and Library Thing – I’ve tried both, and I stuck with GoodReads. I haven’t added a widget for it to my blog, so maybe that’s something I should do for my 21 Things experience! I often get behind with posting my books, and then spend a couple of hours catching up… Maybe I should make appts or something to keep up with all my social media stuff better.
15. Instant Messaging – I have been a fan of this since the early 90s with AOL, then ICQ and now there are so many I can’t even name them all. I love meebo though. It’s a great way to monitor all of them, and get around having to download standalone IM programs like yahoo and msn. Although, like all the rest of my social media this too has fallen by the wayside. I don’t like getting caught in long ‘how have you been?’ chats when I’m trying to escape from my computer… More and more I prefer texting – who woulda thought?
I’m caught up! FINALLY! This felt like hours, but it was only like 2.
Tomorrow I will post yet again with more belated stuff after I have a chance to really check it out and play around with it and it’s possibilities.
I apologize for this huge long blog post. It’s quite awful of me really, but had to get it done.
Welcome (it’s me, Kelley- I posted a comment on your last year-old post before I realized it wasn’t my ‘real’ name attached to it. So that was me. Very moving post for sure!)
So, welcome! I’m so glad you’re joining us and it’s great to hear all the cool things you’re already doing with this stuff!
Isn’t Michael Stephens the best? I’d LOVE to have had a class with him for my MLIS – I imagine he’s pretty darn inspiring!
Omygosh – I love SketchSwap! The picture I drew was totally kindergarten and the one sent back was super good! Felt like such a dweeb! Thanks for introducing it to me!
Wahoo for Google Reader and folders. I think Google Reader is my real BFF.
I added you to my Delicious network – I’m afewsocks on there.
Glad we could introduce you to a few new tracking tools. I have yet to figure out how to use Google Analytics for my professional blog. Grrrr.
So cool that your POW uses a wiki. I’m guessing it’s just a staff wiki. But it’s so good for that kind of stuff. I also think a staff blog is pretty great.
I heart Firefox and specifically, colorful tabs. oh joy!
The Image Generators are huge time-sucks! I use them pretty often in my work. We had a short discussion on the blog about Copyright and I proudly shared my living-dangerously attitude (ie: who cares!)
I have over 3,000 UNTAGGED pics on Flickr myself (slaps hand) Bad bad bad. On my massive list of things to do is to do that bit by bit…someday….
I’m intrigued by the Tagged site – have bookmarked it and will check it out later! Thanks!
I probably wouldn’t really be on ALA Connect if I weren’t on a committee. I’m not entirely sure of its use outside of committee work myself. But it is kinda fun to be on there and see what’s going on.
Thanks so much for the long update! It’s helpful to get a sense of where you are with all these kinds of tools. We tried to model the program for all kinds of levels so I hope you don’t feel under-challenged. Sounds like you know just how to challenge yourself though!
Interrupted but not for long– go L.I.!