Week 15 - Wiki's

Wiki's are very useful to coordinate work and information for groups of people. I edited the Wikepedia site for the Colby, KS page. There I added some information about the Pioneer Memorial Library. I added the historical perspective and the fact that the library is a vibrant place that is supported by members of the community from its very inception until now.

I have also taken a class in Information Literacy and working with class room teachers. There we had to add reading materials, bibliographies, and reviews of the materials we read as individuals to specific subject pages. It was very helpful to learn about materials others read and what they learned so that I could glean from them.

I also added a brief page to the 23 Things Participant page. It was great to learn how to navigate Wetpaint's software. I had used PBworks previously. I do not remember having advertisements on that site, but then it may have been a paid for expansion of the free software.

I signed up for a wiki for myself I may decide to use this for book reviews and such and then add the information to this blog. Depends on how much time I have!

Week 14: Library Thing Etc. (Shelfari)

Have selected Shelfari to work with as a social book sharing. I've experienced Library Thing in the past, but never did much with it. I have more than 200 books in my library, and do not want to be limited to #'s. Shelfari has some great options. If you become a member, please view the few books I've added. My account is MelanyW. I have sooo many to add, plus all the ones I've read that the library owns.

Once I get through with 23 Things Kansas, I hope to expand to the 45 things, but work on adding my book reviews and such to this blog. I might improve some of my descriptions in the Shelfari by adding my reviews there. We will have to see what is best.

I still want to find out more about adding Library Thing to the library catalog. I need to examine what some of the draw backs might be if we did that. I was impressed that a publisher might send a person a book to review. I know this is done, but be aware that if you receive these books, then you may have to claim them on your taxes as a benefit or income. Ask your tax accountant.

Week 13 - Using Animoto: Slidesharing to Video

I have just finished my first Animoto slide sharing experience. I had some pictures from our Snapshop Day on April 13th. So I took some of these pictures, a couple of slides that I saved to JPEG so they would work well in the video, and made a movie trailer.

It works best if you have all the pictures you want to upload placed in a single folder, then just add them all at once. Choose the music ahead of time so you are ready as well. Then after you've uploaded the photos, upload music and then add a description of the video. Once you select to save the work, you will need to wait a few minutes for it to create you video.

The only thing that I was really surprised at was the length of time it took to download and complete the video. However, I was using wireless! But the end results came out pretty good.

See what you think: http://animoto.com/play/6XnyEoYQQ6EYweYt1DHIdQ

Week 12 - Screen Casting - thoughts

I just love the ability to make screencasting presentations. Though it takes a little effort to make a fairly nice presentation, it is still amazing. To think that we can avail of such technology and software is what blesses me!

My first attempt to make a screencast was to produce instructions about placing items on hold at our library. I decided that it would be a really good idea to use a phantom patron and not my personal library card! But then I became really busy and did not get back to the work.

Just recently I had all my information together, but also found that I should do the recording in the library so that when I flub up I could erase the information from the phantom patron's card, since at home I did not have access! When I was at the library I had another hurdle. Our library system catalog looks different from our patrons online catalog, so I needed to use my laptop thru Wi-Fi.

After I recorded the instructions, it took me some time to understand where my embedded file was going when I saved it. Sometimes I'm a bit slow on the uptake! I went and read the instructions and realized -- Oh ! Sign up and then sign into screencast.com. And there were my embedded files. So in the post below you will find my screencast. Though they said you could not alter the size, I was successful by merely changing the size in the HTML part of my blog post. Note however there were three places to change it! But oh how I love victories!

Week 12 Screen Casting embedded screencast

Here is the screencasting of "How to Place a Book On Hold @ the Pioneer Memorial Library"

Week 11 - taking a break

Taking a break for Week 11 - first it's KLA conference then a full week of National Library Week. Both are fun, but lots of work!