Project Play Week 9

I like how easy it is to share ideas with a Wiki. If I had known about this when I was going to school it probably would have made some assignments a lot easier! It reminds me a lot of Google docs, except that the users in Wikis have the choice to make it public or not. It is so much better than sending emails to a group of people and then getting a response and trying to coordinate meeting times, assignment details, etc.

I really like thecommoncraftshow videos by Lee LeFever! He has made things so simple to understand. I think the videos add a lot to my understanding of the topic we are talking about.

I'm not quite sure how to use a wiki in the library yet. I work in the children's area and it is difficult to know how to use it with kids.

I had fun playing around with Wikipedia. I added a link to our library's homepage and then I decided to take it off because our website is difficult to use. I didn't want to direct someone to hard to use information. I know it frustrates me when this happens.

Wow! It's hard to believe the semester of Project Play is almost over - it's gone by so fast!

Project Play Week 8

I'm caught up - at least for now anyway. :) I've even added tags to my old posts and I added some while I was playing around with Flickr and LibraryThing. I think it does make things easier to locate.

I like the idea of tagging, it isn't too unsettling to me. Working with children, I found it difficult to assign Sears subject heading to materials. It used formal language - which was fine if I was searching for something, but was more difficult for kids to come up with the right key term to enter in. I like being able to include the language that the children are using. It makes it easier for them to find what they are looking for.

I will most definitely use it for craft websites. It would be so nice to just have a list of the sites I use all of the time to find craft ideas that aren't buried somewhere in my favorites. Or to keep track of craft ideas that I want to use in the future. I found a really cute bug craft on accident yesterday that I want to use for this summer.

I think the “massive amounts of participation” help people to find things they are looking for easier. Most people don't think of more "formal terms" when searching for something (like subject headings are). It would be nice to see what terms that children choose to use when describing a good book.

Project Play Week 7

I've been looking at LibraryThing. I can't wait to add more. I have so many children's books, I don't even know what I all own anymore. So far I've added 10 books - mostly kids books, but like a true librarian, I want my cataloging to be exact so I need to wait until I get home to do most of my collection because I have so many that have been reprinted by Scholastic. If you want to see the 10 books I do own look at my LibraryThing account.

Here is the link to my LibraryThing account: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/Tifi_Librarian

I really like how easy it is to add titles to LT. What's even better is how it adds the covers of the books! I like the quick visual pics of the books I own. I also like how I can add my own tags - it makes it easier to keep my books in categories. I dislike that it only allows 200 free books (I know I have way more than that at home), but I understand they need to make a profit too. It would also be nice to keep track of all of the books I have read - not just own. Librarian are avid library users! It would make it easier to recommend the newer books if I had the titles on hand. I know I think all the time this would be a great book to recommend to this patron, now if only I could remember the title.

I used the Unsuggester with the book The Library Dragon by Carmen Deedy but not enough people owned that book. So I used Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus. These were the top 5 results:
Diary : a novel by Chuck Palahniuk (expected 21.8, found 0; unsuggestions)
The man in the high castle by Philip K. Dick (expected 20.7, found 0; unsuggestions)
Winter's heart by Robert Jordan (expected 20.4, found 0; unsuggestions)
Count Zero by William Gibson (expected 20.3, found 0; unsuggestions)
No logo : taking aim at the brand bullies by Naomi Klein (expected 19.5, found 0; unsuggestions)
I know this includes every title in LT, but it makes me want to know what the most unsuggested children's books are for this title. :)

Until later--

Project Play Week 6 continued

Okay, so I'm still behind, but as long as it gets done! :) I like Flickr and think it's a great thing. It will save me some much needed space on my hard drive. I can just upload the pictures onto the web. Then I can view the pictures from any computer that has internet access! Yippie! The problem is now just getting the pictures off of my camera - I haven't done that recently. I really like how Flickr allows you to choose if the picture is public or private and who you would like to share the picture with. That is really neat. I know in this day and age not everyone likes to have their picture shared with the whole entire world - (I don't!). It will let me easily share pictures with my friends without everyone having access.

I like the idea of being able to post programming and display pictures on Flickr. The only disadvantage is that everyone in the pictures needs to have given permission for the picture to be used. That means for children, parents have to sign stating that it's okay. Sometimes it's really hard to track down what adult belongs to what kid and have them sign a form after a large program. I wonder what other kinds of policies libraries are using in regards to photos of library patrons. There's got to be a better way of being able to do this.

Project Play Week 6 -- Cockatiel

I have a pet cockatiel. This picture was just too cute to resist!

Cute Rambo
Originally uploaded by volar

My cockatiel is a pied cockatiel and is yellow like this one.

Happy Yellow Feathery Friday!

Originally uploaded by birdyboo