Spring Awakenings

Christmas, New Year's, another birthday and my first trip on an airplane in 7 years. It's been an interesting 4 months.
Work has been crazy. If you haven't heard, the Miller Branch of the Howard County Library has gone through a customer service redesign or as I like to call it, a move forward into the 21st century. More information is available on the Internet than ever before. Libraries have tried to evolve. They have installed computers, subscribed to information databases and shed the shelves of big, old, dusty reference books.
Now, customers have evolved right along with information. They do more of their own research, check availability of materials, reserve materials online, renew online and in some cases check out their own materials and have minimal interaction with library personnel. They have new expectations of their libraries and the staff.

A customer service redesign was way overdue. Check in later to see what we've done.

Number 24

In depth look at Linux from the beginning. Who knew it was named after some dude in Europe.
I haven't seen anything this riveting since "Future Shock" when I was in the seventh grade (that was in 1974....... I don't get out much).
All joking aside, there were some decent insights into the reasons behind the Open Source revolution.

Number 23

That's right! Number 23, I've completed my 23 things.
I have found this to be a great way to tie everything together. It seems that many of us dabble in pictures, bookmarking favorite websites and finding all kinds of neat places to go and new things to do on the web. 23 things brings it all together and propels us to learn more about everything we've heard about.
I enjoyed discussing with other people how they did the different exercises. Reading the blogs was especially enjoyable because it gave a glimpse into the personalities of people we work with but don't relly know.
I would participate in anything that expands our knowledge of technology. I've heard too many say "I'm just too old for learning something new". Puhleeese, we learn until the day we die, if you don't want to learn about computers or technology that's fine. Personally, I think you're missing a lot.
23 Things has been a lot of fun. Will I use eveything I did on 23 things? Probably not, but I'll use more than I would have thought. See ya around

Number 22

If you know me, you know that reading is not a high priority of mine. Listening, however, is. I've like using NetLibrary. I especially like the accessibility of the Complete Works of Shakespeare. It's very cool to listen to a book or play while I'm doing other stuff on the computer.
The process is really easy. If you want to listen to it on your computer, you can use your WindowsMediaPlayer or RealAudio, or you can copy the file to a WMA format MP3 player and listen to it anywhere. Cool stuff!

http://www.hclibrary.org/training/eresources.php

Number 21

Podcasts and podcasting - I've been listening to podcasts almost since their inception and I've been producing podcasts for about three years.
To me, podcasts are another way to enhance the web experience. There are podcasts and video podcasts of just about anything you could want. All of the major news networks offer podcasts of their leading stories. Washington Post radio offers archived podcasts of the Tony Kornheiser Show.
HCLibrary has podcasts and video podcasts as well. The 2006 A+ Celebration uses a highlight podcast that is about 9 minutes in length and then 12 separate podcasts for each individual speaker.
In February, we posted a 23 second time-lapse video of the transformation of the East Columbia Branch into a jazz night club for 2007 Evening in the Stacks.
Podcasts have become an essential component of multi-taskers. You should always have a podcast on while you are surfing, watching TV and talking on the phone.

http://www.hclibrary.org/partners/apluspodcast.php

Number 20

I made this video for Book Club Bonanza at the Miller Branch on Thursday, August 23. It is posted to myspace because youtube has a 10 minute limit. The script was written by Michele Happel and Ginny Leslie and I did the video and narration.

Book Club Bonanza

Add to My Profile More Videos





This video is a classic! These dudes still crack me up.

Number 19

Pandora.com is, to me, one of the best websites ever. Imagine, if you will, designing your own radio station. That's what pandora is, a web based radio that plays only music you want to hear.

It works like this, you pick an artist and it will randomly choose a song by that artist and play it. Then every song you hear after that will be in the same style, era and genre of the song you first heard. You can set up "radio" stations like Eric Clapton, Todd Rundgren or anyone you like or any song you like. It benefits the artist because it plays song you don't ordinarily hear by artists you don't ordinarily hear. Very cool!