terri Blue

post blue2.0

2008-07-15T10:21:00.000-07:00

so I graduated Blue 2.0 and wondered what would become of my blog. Just leave it as the assignment and forget it or make it into something that is me. do I have anything to say? stories to tell? would anyone read it? would I want anyone to read it?

so it's yet to be determined....

possible attempt....

do you ever have days where nothing seems real....not even yourself? maybe real is like normal and no definitive definition exists. we allow society to define our "norms" but society is corrupt. Does that mean our norms are corrupt?

this is where my head is today. not a place you want to be, but if you've been there and want to hang with me, i could use the company. ;)

Podcasting and reaching the end of Blue 2.0

2008-04-14T09:05:00.000-07:00

I DID IT!!!! I finished my podcast and my Blue 2.0 assignments are complete! Thanks to Debbie for letting me use Reference's equipment and her insightful "words" and to Peter for helping me get the thing posted! And if you are curious about the bizarreness of the whole thing. I was given a list of words to insert in the podcast. I could probably have been more creative had I not been terrified of the podcast itself!

Blue 2.0 has been fun! I've learned a lot--which if I don't continue to use, I will surely forget. I have ideas to try out using different technologies we have learned. It's been a good experience and I'm glad I stuck with it to the end.

thanks, all!

Possible uses for Blue 2.0

2008-04-10T11:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I met with Jennifer and Cheri who so graciously agreed to help me resurrect the KLA Support Staff Roundtable. I gave them a brief history of my involvement and experiences and after a few sidetrack discussions (rants) of the librarians/MLIS/paraprofessionals paradigm,we brainstormed and came up with the two basic issues to be solved first--what do we want the support staff roundtable to be and how to we convince others to come on board.

One of the difficulties with meeting with our colleagues across the state is the actual meeting itself--travel, money to travel with gas prices so high, convincing supervisors that this is a good thing and then just getting away from the library itself--especially in small libraries--all play a bit part in what is to happen with the roundtable. It also plays into how we get the word out.

To get my often bizarre scenarios out of the way, I told them about a dream I recently had where I won this big shiny white Harley. I said we could all get Harley's and ride around the state spreading the news and making connections. After agreeing that would be awesome, we got serious.

And here is where our new Blue 2.0 technology comes into play. We were all very excited at the possibility of having meetings via SL, although we realized that it may be hard to get fellow staffers on board. And while teleconferencing had been mentioned in the past, this one may also be difficult in smaller libraries. BUT we could definitely use blogging! It's free, easy and should be accessible to everyone. Podcasting is another option that would allow us to maybe have meeting and record them and then podcast it to the group. We were all truly excited at all the possibilities!

Getting back to Second Life, I think it would be cool if KLA had a presence there--which would also give our round table a presence.

So, you see, the Blue 2.0 experience has opened a lot of avenues of exploration. It has definitely been worth the effort.

I am going to attempt a podcast tomorrow. We'll see how that goes ;)

ciao!

Social Networking

2008-04-03T10:21:00.000-07:00

The last two weeks assignment for Blue 2.0 is an introduction to Social Networks like facebook and myspace. My experiences:

Facebook: I have had a facebook account for a while. I think one of my students encouraged me to get an account and showed me a little about how it works. It's kind of fun to use. I like looking up friends and other people I know and checking out their profiles, etc. It's a good way to share information and photos with people that you don't see or talk to very often.

I do admit that I often forget about facebook until I get "poked" or have something thrown at me or any of the many other things available for people to "do" to you. And with Blue 2.0, I have a lot of new friends!

Some of the things are fun to do, but just like I don't like e-mails that tell you to send this message to 8 other people and see what happens, I don't like having to send something to a certain number of people before I can find out the earth shattering results of the quiz that will tell me what kind of kisser I am (or something like that).

I can see library uses for facebook--using groups as well as invites, posting on people's walls, etc. It's another way for us to connect and share.

http://here is a link to my facebook

Myspace: I think I had an account on myspace because someone had invited me. I found it the first time I tried after reading the assignment, but then when I tried again to pull it up, I could not find it again for the life of me. I had created an account with a bare shell of a profile. But since I can't find it using any of my e-mails, I created a new account with a little bit more in my profile. I may expand later, although I prefer facebook and don't see a reason to have both.

http://here is a link to my myspace

Classmates.com I have had this account for awhile as well. I get e-mails telling me when others in my time at Bryan Station have joined. So I go check it out. I like to see pictures and check out what my formere classmates look like now. I got some invites for a couple of gatherings--which I didn't attend. I e-mailed someone I hadn't seen in years and caught up with him. I have not chosen to update to the gold account so that I can see profiles, etc. If certain names which bring very fond "blasts from the past," I may upgrade, but otherwise I can do without the knowledge. :)

Ning Since none of these were new to me, I checked out the ning.com suggestion and ended up creating a page (again, just a shell at this time) with the Second Life Librarians (I know I'm not a librarian!). So that was fun. I haven't at this time created my own network. Perhaps that will come in time...after I take all the quizzes on facebook. hahahaha

http://here is a link to my ning Second Life Librarians page

P.S. I have been using my avatar's photo on these things because I REALLY hate photos of myself. I prefer to be behind the camera. So you will see Mal when you check out my pages. :)

P.P.S. The most frustrating thing for this post has been the links!

sharing photos

2008-03-25T06:45:00.000-07:00

Activity 1 for weeks 9 & 10 requires us to create and share photos. The suggested image hosting site is Flickr. However since I already have a Picassa account with lots of photos stored, I thought I would try that first. I also use Picassa to edit photos--mostly cropping, removing red-eye, ocassionally changing from color to black and white or sepia--nothing fancy. I tried putting together an assortment of those photos to share but became sooooo frustrated that I gave up.
So I did go to Flickr and set up yet another account. I feel like I've opened so many accounts during our Blue experience that my head just might explode!
I actually found Flickr easy to use and pulled a few random photos--work folk, family, etc. to share with anyone who reads this....is there anybody out there? (echo echo echo)
One might note that my favorite subject is Nate. I just can't haelp myself. ;)

http://here is a link to my photos

or if that doesn't work try this url: http://www.flickr.com/photos/25053576@N08/

let me know what you think

YouTube review

2008-03-24T09:05:00.000-07:00

Week Nine and Ten: Photo and Podcasting

So in keeping with the backwardness of my nature, I begin with Activity 3: YouTube. The assignment is to view library vids on YouTube, pick your favorite and write a review. Working in a library, it is natural for friends and co-workers to pass along library-related YouTubes that strike their fancy, that show our library or that are good, well-made vids on our "profession." And we even watched some at the last Blue 2.0 party! So I have seen many.
But for the assignment, I went to YouTube and typed in library as instructed and looked at several--some funny, some really stupid or boring and some that portrayed good uses of promoting libraries or instructing users. But I just kept thinking of this one I had seen quite a while back. It's my (so far) all time favorite. So I turned to my e-mail and found it (yea!) in a message from Benita Clarke.

The video is simply title, "Librarian." One can even sing along, "I want to be a librarian..." As merely a staff person, (the inner circle know that I am not a "real" librarian) I can envision myself in my new role. However, to the unknowing patron....I already am a librarian.

This video is just too much fun. It uses a little dark humor, music and maybe some secret wishes of what you might want to do to those patrons who just won't follow "protocol." So watch and enjoy!

nate

2008-03-12T11:50:00.001-07:00

This is a photo Nate took--being silly in the car. It wasn't a good picture to begin with, but for some reason I didn't delete it. So I thought I would play around with the image using some of the tools suggested in our Play Week. This is using LunaPic http://www79.lunapic.com/editor/?action=load and I think I did the heat and mosiac functions. So it was fun and I would like to play around with more of these images.

As for possible library uses, we could greatly distort(make it hideous and scary)a photo of Jennifer and put it on the overdue/fine notices. This would "encourage" folks to bring back books or pay fines...or else they deal with JENNIFER!

UK Island

2008-03-06T11:13:00.000-08:00

I'm still exploring the ins and outs of Second Life and having way too much fun. Today I went to the ALA Island. Along with all the fun things I have been doing, I want to explore other library islands. I have met a couple of people at the UK Island from different universities that have come to check out our space because their school is looking to do something similar. It's great to meet these other people! And nice that they are looking to us for ideas. I have offered UK t shirts to some visitors. I am looking forward the the grand opening and hope to help out in SL--if only as a greeter--no happy face stickers, I'm afraid.

Today Beth (Alice) sent this video. Mallori is in it. Hey, my 15 minutes (make that less than 15 and seconds instead of minutes), is in SL and not RL. Go figure..

still playing

2008-03-04T05:57:00.000-08:00

Our Blue 2.0 leaders have given lots of options to play with during play weeks. I hope to get to some of them this week. But I have been using Encore. I do like it when I am doing broad searches. For example, this year I am Nate's teacher's "library helper." I am supposed to get books on the 2 subjects for the month and bring them to school. Encore as well as the ThoroBrowser at Lexington Public Library are great for this. Using Encore, I can narrow the search to printed format and the Education Library where I know the books are more likely to geared toward 2nd graders.

I think our users, being also users of Goggle and other similar search engines will like Encore. And as long as we still have our Basic Search as well, I think we cover the best of both worlds.

more SL

2008-02-28T12:39:00.000-08:00

I have been having so much fun with SL! I went dancing (which I have done in RL in ages!). I have met some interesting people and enjoy being skinny! Miranda (Eri) and I helped Manni design a space (at the end of the UK football field with the gazebo). I also sat in on part of a meeting about the big SL "to do" scheduled for March 20. It's a really fun way to share information. I'm sure there is a lot of potential for the library to use this space in many creative ways.

As if one life isn't enough...

2008-02-22T12:17:00.000-08:00

I've now joined the ranks of those leading second lives via an avatar. My avatar is Mallori Nightfire. They've been talking about Second Life for quite a while around here. I haven't really been interested beyond that of a casual onlooker because I can't even do all the things I need to do in my so called "real" life. How in the world could I have time to do a second life?

But yesterday I took the plunge. I went through orientation, made a friend, went to help island and have been pretty much wandering aimlessly since. I haven't a clue how to do many of the things you can do (I probably should have read more of the stuff on help island). Unfortunately, Mallori is just as broke as I am and I have no idea how to get money (linden dollars).

I do admit, it's fun--and addictive. Since I left help island, I have only ran into one person (besides hanging with Ginevra for a bit). Some mean beer drinking dog growled at us. I'm thinking it's probably a good thing I don't have a computer at home or what precious little time I do have to myself would vanish...

snow day images

2008-02-13T06:39:00.000-08:00

snow days

2008-02-13T05:36:00.000-08:00

Snow. Soft, quiet, beautiful. A pain. But oh how I miss snow days. Remember how exciting it was when they called off school?

When I was little Lexington was divided into city and county. I went to a city school and my cousin, just across New Circle Rd, was in the county. She got to miss way more school than I did!

I'm sure mom must have liked it better when she got the news first--before we woke up. Then she could sneak in a little extra shut eye--or at least have some peace and quiet before we got up. But when we woke up early and heard the news ourselves, we were way too excited to even think of going back to bed. We just wanted to go out and play in the snow! Back then, we used to get some good snow.

To get ready to go out in the snow was a big ordeal. There were the snowsuits, several pairs of socks and bread bags put on our feet with masking tape around the top so the snow wouldn't get in. Then the boots. Sometimes we had bags on our hands, too. But we could play for quite a while before we got too cold or worn out and had to come in. When we came in you had to undo all that wrapping! And there was snow and puddles and wet clothes.

But the snow was great! Snowball fights, snowpeople, snow angels, forts if the the boys next door played with us. Then daddy would get the sled out and we'd take it to the hill at the top of the street, climb on and take off.

Once we were finally inside and unwrapped, we'd get hot chocolate to help us warm up. Real hot chocolate, not from a package. With marshmellows. mmmm

Ahhh memories.

I do admit if I had a snow day now, after the initial excitement I would definitely snuggle down under the covers and go back to sleep. If it was a really good snow, later I would go play with my grandson. I bet I would get cold and worn out way faster than he would!

2008-02-11T08:57:00.000-08:00

Online Software Suites--so instead of using MSWord, we can type documents using Google Docs (ahh be careful your fingers are in the right spaces, I won't tell you what I just typed by a mere slip of the finger).

The first thing I check out is the font selection. I'm big on fonts and images. Ways to make the boring maybe a little less so...if that's possible.

Seems easy enough. Nice to know there are alternatives to Word.

blah blah blah

intrepid designs of nightmares flicker beneath the stars

waiting, anticipating sleep's benign desires

Okay...it's Monday. I'm so very sleepy.

delicious tags

2008-02-11T08:17:00.000-08:00

This section of our Blue2.0 experience is "Tagging, Folksonomies and Online Applications." First assigment: creating a del.icio.us account, post and tag websites and post a link here. Pretty easy so far. So for the curious, here's my link http://del.icio.us/tlbrow00

on to the next assignment...

wiki

2008-02-08T12:19:00.000-08:00

Back to business. I have contributed to our Circ wiki. I think it may be something we can use. Things I don't like about it: fonts are too limited and images are difficult to use. Could be user errors as far as the images go. I put an image on our wiki. When I pull up the wiki from my logon, the image is there. When it's pulled up elsewhere, no image. oh well.....

it's the small joys....

2008-02-07T11:38:00.000-08:00

I have this side job working for a local company that provides voting machines, etc.--currently in KY, TN and AR. So on election days, I go hang out in somebody's (county clerk or election commissoner) space and listen to gossip, eat and watch the hustle and bustle of the election and hope that all the machines work without problems (my job is to fix problems). This time around I went to Clinton TN. A little bigger than places I've been before, but not too big. I could ramble on about the day, but I won't.

Instead, I'll tell you about my favorite part of the trip--the pillows. I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express. They have this new look--no floral/funky design bedspreads. Just nice white sheets (triple sheets?) and a blanket folded close to the end of the bed. The bed had 4 pillows. The bottom 2 were marked firm. The top 2 soft--said so right on the pillow case. I kind of scrunched them all together in the middle, crawled beneath the sheets and laid down. Laying my head on those pillows was heavenly. I could have slept for days. It was quiet and dark--no animals running around (2 or 4-legged), no skylights, just dark, quiet and wonderful pillows.

Okay, so I hadn't had much sleep for a very long time and I had worked the 3rd shift for Brenda Sunday. Maybe that enhanced my love of the comfort of those pillows. Or maybe I'm just nuts!

But to you, dear reader, I say embrace the small joys wherever and whenever they come!

icky wiki

2008-01-30T08:20:00.001-08:00

Our next assignment is creating a wiki. I think several of us are going to work together to create a "Circ" wiki. I'm exited. It has lots of potential for both staff and students.

But then, it was the end of the day, I was tired and hungry and my "creative" juices starting flowing. So I shared with Jen B, but she told me I was creeping her out. (hehe) You see, my theory is that circulation is the "heart" of the library. So I had the idea that our wiki would consist of this big heart--not the pretty love hearts, but a real heart like the one beating in your chest. Then we could have little chamber doors in the heart that you would click and enter to get information. We could even make the heart have sound and movement and "beat"when you clicked on it. Then I got to thinking more and I thought we could have little "people" greet you at the doors. Like you could click on a FAQ chamber and a little Edgar Allen Poe would open the door and point you to the FAQs. I can picture it all in my head--the colors and everything. It would be such a cool wiki! But alas, tis not to be.

I didn't post a real heart so I wouldn't creep anyone out. ;) I found this image through Goolgle on another blog: http://eishazinnerworld.blogspot.com.

rss

2008-01-28T10:45:00.000-08:00

The latest assignment has us learning about rss. Although I realize rss is yet another acronym, when I try to pronounce it, it came out something like what a pirate might call one's behind.

I now have a means of keeping up with all the blogs I want to read on a regular basis, should time permit. I do admit that I have enjoyed checking out the blogs of fellow library learners. We have some very creative beings in our midst. And then, there are those like me who have little to say, or so it seems... I have added a couple of fellow travelers on the Blue 2.0 road so that I may track their journeys. I have more to explore in this venue.

weeme

2008-01-16T09:28:00.000-08:00

so now I have this AIM account with pending buddy requests. I was playing around and made a weeme to greet folks should my buddies accept the offer and actually talk to me. I couldn't find light orange for weeme's hair but she gets to hang out on the beach and eat chocolate, so she's happy.

I've been trying to go to fellow Blue 2.0 blogger sites and leave messages but have been having a hard time posting. aahhhh technology. sometimes it just doesn't mix well with aging cranial processes. but I shall be tenacious and keep trying since I know there are those of you delighting in my experiences. just waiting for the next post. :D

the photo for today--beyond the gate....

AIM

2008-01-16T06:23:00.000-08:00

I have to admit my venture into IM was a bit frustrating, but I've managed to get an AIM account and invite a few Blue 2.0 folk to be my buddy. I need to play around with the whole thing. It's a bit overwhelming. I have a yahoo instant message that pops up when I log on to my computer. It's easy to use. I've even used the emoticons and audibles with messages. But I haven't ventured into the whole textspeak or whatever it's called--you know "lol" and "bff." I suppose I'm just a dinosaur who prefers real words. AIM seems more complicated--at least at this point. So maybe I'll look at meebo next.

2.0

2008-01-14T08:21:00.000-08:00

so this blog is part of a program designed for library staff to learn about new and emerging technologies. As we learn, we blog.

Creating an account was easy enough. I will go back at some point and update my profile--share a bit about myself, I suppose.

I think that it might be nice to have a blog for circ students. They can use the blog to ask questions, make suggestions, vent, and even find someone to cover their shift should they need to be off.

So, dear reader(s), may this learning tool be a journey worth taking!

beginnings

2008-01-14T07:33:00.000-08:00

So today I begin a new adventure with words. I post my thoughts out there for others to see--kind of like hanging laundry on a clothes line....so welcome those brave enough to stop by.

I posted this photo from a crazy hike in August of '06. Just so my words wouldn't have to hang out here all alone.