Thing 9 - more Twitter

I'm obsessed with Twitter, not quite sure why. I still don't see a business case for it but am enjoying the learning, evaluating and discussing.

The July 2007 issue of Wired Magazine has a commentary by Clive Thompson on the social aspects and benefits of Twitter. Interesting reading. He makes some valid points. "How Twitter Creates a Social Sixth Sense."

Thing 2 and 18 together

I just noticed that Blogger says you can post to Blogger from Google Documents and Spreadsheets. This is merging thing 2 with thing 18, very convenient.

I'm just guessing here that all I have to do is click the Publish button and it will ask which of my blogs I want to publish it to. If that fails there is always Help.

I had been writing drafts of my blog posts in Google Docs and Spreadsheets, so this will be very convenient. Course, I've finished 22 of the 23 things so may not be posting more to the blog.

Time to hit that Publish button and see what happens.

Thing 22 - teach someone else

Today I hosted a session on blogs and Blogger.com in our computer lab.

After demonstrating how blogs are laid out and how to navigate within one I asked for a volunteer from the audience. I can’t quite recollect if I warned them that the volunteer would be creating their first blog for everyone else to see on the big screen. I probably left out that part during my request as our state librarian quickly raised her hand to be the guinea pig. I had her up and blogging in a matter of minutes and everyone else was able to see how easy it all was.

I will be conducting a repeat session tomorrow morning but doubt I will have such a willing volunteer. Thank you Susan for being such a good sport.

Thing 21 - Podcasts

So much content, so little time.

I subscribe to a couple of NPR podcasts but haven't had the time to download or listen to them. In the past I've downloaded podcasts coming out of areas I'll be traveling to so have used Podcast directories and search engines.

Before a vacation to Hawaii I caught a few episodes of 808Talk coming from Honolulu. Heard some great music and interesting discussions of local issues.

If I had the time I'd subscribe and listen to author tours and how to programs and music and commentary. There is so much great content out there.

Twitter only sales

Businesses seem to have embraced Twitter. The Dell Outlet has a Twitter presence. Become Dells' friend and you'll get limited time offers on refurbished equipment.

Is the concept applicable to libraries? I'm not sure. We don't want to restrict "this offer only to those that can see it" but maybe it could be a way to promote new books. "Just in - -- Bestseller, reserve it now" I'd probably friend my library if they did something like that, but is it worth their time and resources?

Thing 20 - YouTube

After lunch I watched Karen Schneider's YouTube video on LOCKSS and it got me thinking, I have a video file on my PC. I had just received my digital camera as a birthday gift the day before a trip to Hayward to see the Kirtas book scanner. The camera has a movie mode. I took a little video of the book scanner in action. It wasn't until I got back that I realized that the camera also records sound, else I would have narrated the workings of the scanner.

I searched YouTube to see if anyone else had posted a video of a working Kirtas scanner. There was one video taken at SLA this year.

I just joined YouTube, went to the upload page, browsed to where the file was, filled in a title, description and tags and let it upload. Once uploaded YouTube provides the code which can be used to embed the video on blogs or websites.

On Blogger I started typing in "Compose" mode, then clicked on the Edit Html tab and pasted in the code provided by YouTube. Here is the result (not appearing yet, seems to take a lot of time for YouTube to process, or maybe there was a problem with the file, but regardless, it was easy to do) :

Thing 19 - My Google map

I started to do this exercise, signed into Google maps, went to My Maps and darn if I hadn't already created a map for my library. I don't remember doing it and it was only a month ago. Oh well, it's really easy. I guess I might as well add a picture of the building and add some more content. I do notice that now the outline of the building appears, pretty cool. I believe when I created the map all you could see were the streets, no buildings.

The map of where I work can be found HERE

This Thing was very easy. I just followed the step-by-step directions on Google Maps