Garlic Eaters Anonymous

7 Up

2007-11-30T08:10:00.000-08:00

The games up, folks. I completed #7 and I'm finito! Podcasting is easy and can be very useful. I listened to a couple of the libvibes, daily news reports all library-related. For example, the news of the rioting Parisian students burning down a public library (that had just added new DVD and CD collections--how sad!), and the progress of the Google digitization project (7,000 books a day are being scanned!). I also listened to a story on NPR's stories on stage. I often miss NPR broadcasts but I've never taken the initiative to learn how to podcast. Now I know. As for libraries using podcasting, well I guess the answer is that it makes sense since people live in front of their computers and if they have the choice to listen to updates or stream for author interviews & such, many people will probably do it.

More on #9, some on #10

2007-11-23T12:42:00.000-08:00

Googletools is great. I started a calendar and love the translation options. Much to explore there.
As for Skokie website, it is very extensive. After 4 years of working here, and with continual changes and upgrades, I'm still making discoveries. Since I mostly use the catalog, I do sometimes find myself wishing something or other was a little different, for ease of use, however. For example, it would be so nice if, instead of an "audiovisual" search, you could specify, right from the start, sound or visual search, a la Worldcat. It would also be enormously helpful if the original release date were included for movie listings, what with all the remakes and subsequent confusion. I know there's a reason for not doing this, I just wish there was a way around it. Two dates? And when you're searching through a long list and go into the record for one, and then back to your list, wouldn't it be nice if you could go back to where you left off instead of the beginning of the whole darn thing? I don't do web design, so maybe I'm asking for the impossible.
I downloaded a book onto Sharon's office computer when we first started with it. I haven't again, mostly because I have a Macintosh at home and can't. It's very frustrating!
So, none of the people I sent my googledoc to have responded. Is it me?
↔ ! X ♀ ♪ ☺ ☻ ♥ ♣ ♠ • ○ ♂ ↕
Someone posted the way to access these symbols on delicious. Very cool! Thankyou, Whoever.

waiting

2007-11-21T18:52:00.000-08:00

I sent a googledoc to three people. Will they take part in the editing of it? Will they know they can? Will they care?

8

2007-11-21T16:57:00.000-08:00

Library Success: Best Practices Wiki is a good one, a resource for readers advisory. I've used Wikipedia many times but never edited an article. The only example I've run across of anyone questioning the content was in an article on the 1979 Iranian revolution. Notes said something like "the content of this article is being challenged," or something like that. I imagine that happens a lot with interpretations of history.

delicious

2007-11-20T13:49:00.000-08:00

good idea for organizing bookmarks. personally, can see using it when I'm researching something and spend several days returning to websites, sometimes forgetting what's what. good way to keep things handy, too, for travel plans and more.
as for library work, award sites, radio stations for all those author interviews, upcoming releases and more could all be organized.

5. Pikchurz

2007-11-02T12:17:00.000-07:00

Learned about Bluetooth from Ruth in Youth lab. We connected her laptop to my cell phone and sent a cellphone picture to her which she then emailed to my gmail acct and i was then able to download it to upload it on Flickr. I was flustered, so I forgot that the photo I had meant to post was one of my daughter helping a little boy with his reading for Booking with a Buddy last summer. Instead, my cat's got his mug on Flickr. (Next stop, Fancy Feast commercials!)
But what we really need is a photo doc of the ever dynamic Youth Services offices (I love it). Quick! Before they clean up!

but...

2007-10-12T09:44:00.000-07:00

I forgot to say that I find Goodreads awkward to use. I do not think it's designed well. So often websites will have 3 ways to do one thing and no way that you can find at all to do another. Have been unable to upload a photo onto my profile, for example, and find it v difficult to navigate back to my own page.
Speaking of photos, have been having trouble posting photos on this blog, too, after smooth going in the beginning. Now, every photo I choose seems to have copyright or size or some other issue prohibiting its appearance in my blog. Have I been blogenated?
Blog - the thing itself
blogger - one who does it
blogenate - to have one's blog blocked, blacklisted, or erased
blog-oed - blottoed by a blog
blogated - when you've been blogged by someone
blogacious - like a really swell blog
bloggened - unpleasantly overwhelmed by a blog; may result in headache
oblogged - feeling indebted (willingly or unwillingly) to a blog
blodgened - like blog-oed, hit by a blog
time's up

Thing 4

2007-10-12T08:42:00.000-07:00

goodreads is kind of fun. like librarything, which I also looked at some time ago, it can absorb you. there's a lot to explore on there and the reviews other readers write are intelligently and thoughtfully written. i'm going to have to take a little more care with mine! don't know if I would have the desire sometime to post some of my writing. maybe....

i have NO DESIRE to do facebook or myspace. i tried it out one day, okay two days, and after receiving shouts from my two teenaged nephews (whose sites i did NOT want to see--what we can't see we don't have to know about, right?), i scrambled to get out of there. oh sure, i know some parents join for the exact reason that they want to see what their kids are up to. i'm not that curious! the alternative, where the rugrats won't be found--eons--just plain doesn't appeal. what would i do it for? i can find no reason. i already spend too much time at the computer. to me it's like t.v. watching: don't need it, don't want it.

For a Good Time, IM Cecilia!

2007-10-10T18:13:00.000-07:00

Cecilia and I IM'd through Googlechat. We discovered that it's better to be doing something else at the same time, rather than sit around waiting for the other person's response. Patrons must be helped, afterall. Now here's a thought: if each department had someone on chat, we could ask them questions about the patrons, without the patrons knowing! For example, last night I had a disgruntled patron with a complaint about a reserve item. If I could have IM'd someone in Circ about the reserve without the patron knowing, I might have. I mean, it might have clarified the situation. I don't mean I'm devious.

IMing

2007-10-09T18:41:00.000-07:00

looks like illinois is in the forefront with instant messaging--that's cool. read the library journal article, enjoyed the humorous blog about acronyms. i now see how this as a very useful tool for reference. instead of playing phone tag with someone or trying to explain to them what's available, with IM they can see it, with the URLs you send them, and you can have the quick exchange of information. less wasted time for the librarian, i would think, gathering stuff that is really not what the patron is looking for.

despite various expressions of frustration, this process is actually proving to be quite straightforward and easy.

Feeding the antigeek

2007-10-06T13:41:00.000-07:00

I added a feed to my blog here, the sunday new york times book review. what i'm wondering is if the titles will change with each week. this is all still so mysterious to me. i also connected to three feeds but i'm not clear yet where i access them. i haven't watched the tutorial yet. i feel distinctly nontechnological. hopefully that will change. i tried to feed into a coworker's blog but was told there was no RSS thingy.

which brings to mind: calling these exercises things is really funny. it's a sort of concession to the nontechies among us who know no compu-speak, eh? (look at me acting like i do. ha!)

no, no picture for this one.

2007-10-06T10:24:00.001-07:00

Sell yourself!

donkey woman

2007-10-06T10:12:00.000-07:00

I do not apologize. Someday I will have (or be) a donkey.

Easier Said Than Done

2007-10-05T15:00:00.000-07:00

Why is it that someone's directions, that work for them, do not work for me? Ruth is trying to help me and I'm not able to get from point A to point B. Is this an example of the world looking different depending whose eyes? Is there no one reality? Am I just incompetent?

Green

2007-10-03T15:35:00.000-07:00

So, about this 10 Things thing, so far I think it's pretty cool. I'd never have been doing this otherwise. And yes, I think I could waste a lot of time here at work blogging and reading other people's blogs, or maybe not. Or maybe it won't be a waste. I definitely think I will pick up some new computer skills.

But of course I'd like to ramble on about other, completely unrelated things. Things 11, 12 and 13, for example. Betcha don't know what they are, do ya?

Thing 11. Being completely unrelated to anything technological, today I planted autumn joy stonecrop, ornamental grasses and a green!-flowering helibore. My three cats (never before known as Things 1-3 but that was then) observed but did not really help.

beginning again

2007-10-02T15:38:00.000-07:00

October 2nd

I have put Voltaire and Mary Oliver aside for the moment and begun reading The Samurai's Garden in anticipation of Tsukiyama's visit to the library next week. I am almost finished listening to Straight Man by Russo and Postmortem by P. Cornwell. Russo has made me laugh out loud once or twice. Cornwell's descriptions of sadistic killings are too much for me. I want to know who the killer is so I stick with it, and I enjoy the suspense, but man, the graphic details are horrific. Who can eat a steady diet of this stuff?! Give me garlic any day. Which makes no sense, I realize, since books and food are two different things....but....both are part of a healthy diet, so to speak.