Kids Sites and Facebook

Glubble seems like the only interesting site listed. Unfortunately, children these days don't seem to care about kid-friendly sites and would rather have full access to videos they shouldn't be watching and visiting sites they probably shouldn't be on. For a lot of them, they don't have boundaries on what they view on the internet because they are not taught internet safety.

The article about ACLU's attempt to make Facebook users realize that we basically have no privacy on the social site is pretty interesting. Here's my problem with people thinking this is the worst thing in the world: Facebook is a social site. There is no privacy from the get-go. The only privacy you have is setting your profile to 'private', but that only limits people you don't want to see what you're doing. Your friends have full access and can share your information with anyone. Plus, with the quizzes, your information is used for advertising. It's used to get statistics about what should be advertised on Facebook. Big deal. Not that I care to look at advertisements while I'm on there, but I certainly don't care if they're there.

The only privacy setting on Facebook that I find to be great is the blocking feature. Once you block someone you never see what their posts are, or what their profile picture is and they can never see yours. But if you really think your profile is private from everyone, just by clicking 'private', then you're just being silly. And people who are appalled and surprised by the ACLU article need a reality check.

Searching...

I am certainly a creature of habit. It doesn't matter what new search engines pop up and how great people make them out to be, I will always be a Googler. Not that I don't try them, of course, but I always end up using Google.

What I like about Lexxe is that there are no ads to distract you while looking at the list of results. It's a very clean and specific search engine. I typed in 'draw manga' as my search and 100 results were shown, compared to Google's 2,090,000 results. The Cluster on the left side of the results is interesting too. It puts results based on your search into more specific groups like "Draw Manga books', 'Draw Manga Hair', or 'Anime Style'.

I instantly took a dislike towards Hakia. Once you've submitted your search, the engine turns up the results and puts them into categories that make it hard for your eyes to handle. It puts the web results on the left side, images in the middle with news results and user generated content underneath, with sponsored links on the right side. It's just bad organization.

I don't like Quintura's link cloud that is always on the left side of the page.

Bing is my second favorite to Google. I've played around with it before. Again, it's a relatively clean search engine and I like the related searches and search history on the left side of the results.

Information at Your Fingertips

I do not have a web-capable phone. I only recently (since Christmas) have I gotten a phone that can take pictures. Though, that doesn't mean I don't want an iPhone or even an iTouch. I'm on a family plan and refuse to get my own plan for a phone. It's the one bill I don't have to pay and I'm trying to hold onto that for a while.

I think it's great that there are smart phones or devices that can access the internet pretty much anywhere. I love the idea of having information at my fingertips. Maybe it's the Web 2.0 librarian in me, but I don't think being able to see which movie an actor is in should be deemed as 'App-noxious' as the article states.

As for use in the library, the idea is good. We've used the iTouch to record Customer Interaction Statistics as a test drive. The iTouch also let us use the card catalog while in the stacks with patrons without having to run to the nearest Info Spot. Perhaps with phone capabilities of some sort, and money of course, we could get rid of our Voceras and use the iTouch as an all-in-one reference device. Some can dream, can't they?

Social Networks are for Lovers!

I started social networking with Myspace.com. I was moving to Orlando and a bunch of my friends wanted to stay in touch (because who uses phones, e-mail, or 'snail mail' anymore, right?). I reluctantly agreed. After Facebook started allowing people to sign up without a college/university e-mail address, I decided to join to be able to share pictures with people I went on a trip with. After getting over the learning curve of Facebook, I never went on Myspace again.

Facebook is a beneficial way to connect with people outside of the OCLS website or actual standing libraries. I have Orange County Library System as a friend, and receive their updates and announcements in my news feed. I don't necessarily think that using a social network would benefit Library Central department or DRI, but I can see how it would benefit other departments, such as Children's or CRC, that can give updates and announcements about upcoming programs and classes.

I made an account for Linked In, but found it unnecessary for me to have. And though Facebook is more for friends as opposed to being professional, I need/want only one social network at a time. And don't even get me started on the horrible fad of Twitter. The name itself is annoying.

Here we are again... Learn 2.5

I tried Second Life about 4 years ago. I explored a bit but it definitely isn't my type of game. The more I read about SL and libraries, though, the more I get interested. I've been thinking about joining again, just to see exactly what libraries can offer through the game. My first impression of SL was that it was taking away from the daily social interactions between people. You can pretty much do everything. Buy a computer, attend classes, work... all through an online game. It's interesting and scary all at the same time.

I have also heard rumors that the reference questions that libraries get in Second Life refer mostly to the virtual world itself. I can see how having a library in SL benefits it's citizens. They have a place to go to if they need help with answering any questions they may have, or to find research for a paper they must write, exc. Just like we have a place to go to in RL (that's MMO speak for 'real life,' haha). The more technology that comes out, the more we sit at home on our computers and in front of our televisions. Why not have a library that can reach everybody, instead of just one community?

The Dark Forces of the Internet

I have recently experienced a complete computer crash due to viruses and spyware. I was using my computer as normal, didn't go on any new sites or used something new, and all the sudden an antivirus downloaded itself onto my system and scanned my computer. It said I had many viruses and what not on it, but to get rid of them I had to buy an antivirus. Knowing that I didn't have to buy an antivirus to get rid of them, I went online to download AVG or Avast!. When I went to the webpage that would allow me to download them for free, or any other free antivirus, the page wouldn't load. But if I were to try to access a page that had antiviruses I had to pay for, the pages would load like normal and prompt me to purchase the antivirus. My friend told me that some of the antivirus companies make viruses so that you have to purchase one to get your computer work as normal. I've had the computer for over two years and never had an antivirus on it because I'm very careful about the sites I access and e-mails I open and answer. My friend worked on it for three days, got rid of all the viruses, but couldn't access the internet even though the connection was perfect. At that point, I told him to do the emergency recovery of my system so I could be done with it. I lost all my documents, except for my pictures.

The lesson learned from that fiasco? Buy an iMac. And that's just what I did.

Oh, and I now have an antivirus on my computer. Though, a free one.

Life Long Learning

The Hollywood Librarian looks really good. I tried to buy the DVD but they aren't selling them for the time being until the spring. Once it is released again, I say OCLS shows it to the staff. Maybe at Staff Day?...

At first glance, LifeHacker is junky and unorganized. There's too much to look at in a short amount of time. You would definitely have to have an extreme amount of time on your hands to sift through all the posts to find something you'd actually thought was cool and wanted to do. At second glance, LifeHacker is STILL junky and unorganized. Even after making the website display only DIY posts, it's still a lot to look at. If I ever decided to go to this site outside of this Learn 2.1 module, I'd have to know exactly what I was looking for, and put it in a search.

The Personal Growth websites were all amazing in their own right. I was pleasantly surprised with Berklee Music Lessons and Instructables. My favorite site was HowStuffWorks. There are many topics to review and they are broken down in an easily accessible way without having to sift through a lot of information you weren't looking for. This is also a website I can use as another resource when helping out patrons.

Web 2.0 and OCLS.

The Wii video was pretty neat. I was surprised to find that it was one of ours. Whoever made it did a great job!

Orlando Memory is a great way to share experiences with other people from Orlando. Though, I think the only people who are using it are employees from OCLS, I hope that it spreads to the rest of Orlando. Reference Clerks are wearing pins while working to try to get the patrons interested in what Orlando Memory has to offer. Making sure that OCLS offers a place where people can come together online, as well as in person, is what makes Orlando Memory so great.


I've already expressed my views on Orange Seed already, so I won't repeat my thoughts. The wiki is a nice way for the employees to express their ideas.

2.0 Continued...

The Big Brother video is hilarious. Once google started adding street view to their maps I was kind of iffy about it, but essentially it's a good idea, especially for people like me who know their way around by the sites rather than the street signs.

I checked out the book winners of the SEOmoz's 2008 Web 2.0 awards and clicked LULU. I have seen the site before, a friend of mine self-published a book from the site, but I had totally forgotten about LULU. I think it is amazing that you can self-publish your own book and have it available to purchase. Now I need to write something!

I was so excited to see that Threadless.com was chosen as the number one site for retail. I have participated and shopped from that site for years now and it's really starting to get the recognition it deserves. Though I haven't designed a shirt to display on the site, I actively participate in the scoring of other entries. I find it hard not to purchase a shirt from the site at least once a month. Eek!

"The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order." - Whitehead

First off, the video we watched for this lesson, Has Higher Education Changed?, was wonderful. As someone who just graduated last May, I can definitely relate to the message, as I'm sure most of us can.

When Radiohead's In Rainbows was released for downloading, I was one of the many who took the opportunity to download a full album from a favorite band for cheap. I think I ended up paying $5 for it because I felt bad about not supporting a good band. Though, I am a pirate when it comes to music, movies, and TV (and in many other aspects of life). Don't tell the cops.

I read our mission statement again and I do particularly like this part:
"The Library connects our changing community to the evolving world of ideas, information and technology."
I feel that this sentence is exactly what OCLS is and what we continually strive to be.

I read most of the DaVinci library article. The part I found to be interesting was the 'Recommendations for Libraries' section. OCLS does, or attempts, these ideas already.
1) We have patrons evaluate the library with the online survey and the 'Evaluate your Library Experience' paper survey.
2) We attempt to introduce new technology for the staff and for the patrons. With the subtopics of that suggestion, we already have a technology committee and we have guest lecturers that integrate technology and the future of libraries in their speeches. This is the exact topic our guest speaker will talk about on Staff Day.
3) OCLS is involved with Orlando Memory and also has a committee to help come up with ideas on how to get the patrons more involved.
4) The main library, especially, has creative spaces. The one that really comes to mind is Club Central on the first floor. This area is designated for teens only and it's a great place for them to work and play.

Open Source

Open source isn't new to me. I've known about wikis and Yahoo!Answers for a while now, but it's still a very interesting topic to read about. There are so many things we can do with open source information. At the library, we could use wikis to share information with each other. Not just from department to department, but from branch to branch as well. A great idea would be to turn Orange Seed into a wiki so that anyone could post an idea and see what kind of reaction it would get. That would definitely show which ideas people would be open to compared to the ones are now shown on Orange Seed.

Instead of posting a question on each of the answer websites, I typed in a topic, "Philip K. Dick" to see what sort of questions and answers there are about this author. Yahoo!Answers had the best topics. The one question I choose to explore was "Why was Philip K. Dick heralded as a great science fiction writer?" Answerbag had this question "What do you guys think of Philip K. Dick?" and askville didn't seem to have to many serious questions concerning the author beyond "What is your favorite Philip K. Dick story?" Yahoo!Answers seems to be a bit more intellectual with the questions, as well as the answers that are given compared to Answerbag. In fact, the question I stated coming from Answerbag was the only one having to do with the author, the other questions that came up were a bit inappropriate. I did not find this on Yahoo!Answers, there were pages and pages of questions that were relevant to Dick. If Answerbag wants to become more popular that Yahoo!, they've got some work to do. Primarily with weeding out the inappropriate material.

I have googled my name before and have never found anything remotely close having to do with me. I googled again, and sure enough, absolutely nothing. And man, does that make me happy.

Health, Wellness, and Technology... oh, my!

This weeks lesson was great. It gave a lot of wonderful information. I know that for me, exercising is not labeled as 'fun' and I usually get bored (but mostly lazy) when it comes to exercising. This week's blog gave me some ideas on how to make it more interesting. Wii is definitely awesome, but I never considered the games as exercise. They do have a new 'game' out called Wii Fit that I have been wanting, but just like the console, it's impossible to find. I have also been intrigued with the Nike/iPod connection since it came out. Unfortunately, I'm not much of a runner, so I highly doubt I'll put the concept into use.

I haven't yet, but when I get home I'll probably check out the MP3 based workouts and see if any would work for me.

Until next time...

Learn 2.1

Well here we are again. I'm excited to get Learn 2.1 rolling. I enjoyed learning Learn 2.0 last year and I'm hoping that Learn 2.1 will have the same, if not more, to offer.

I'm not much of a blogger, but I do like to explore other blogs from time to time. The video that Tom put up, "Blogging in Plain English," was neat-o and it helped to iterate what I like best about blogging. That being, it is a community where bloggers go to each others' blogs and read them, comment them, and even link back to those entries on their own blogs.

I downloaded Google Chrome and am already intrigued. It gives you a visual list of your most visited sites.

I suppose that's it for this week. Now I need to go and try to get these blogging songs out of my head.

How Will I Use My MP3 Player...

I want to play music as well as put audio books on it. It's quite a convenient piece of technology and I'm excited to get it.

I listened to Chuck Klosterman's IV. Hilarious.

Wait... this is technically the last week of Learn 2.0, right? Woot!

Flickr Pictures

I uploaded 2 pictures onto Flickr. One is of our lockers and another is of the 3rd floor workroom.

Music

Loved Liveplasma. Even though the website didn't recognize some of the bands I chose (I really didn't think it would), I was pleasently surprised to see that it did recognize others. It's always fun to find new artists.

I tried the Springwidgets and Yourminis, but I still don't really understand the point of them. Except for the fact that you can make your own website, well, sort of. It's not even entertaining to play around with them. So, obviously, I didn't sign up for either website.

Only a couple more weeks of Learn 2.0 to go!

Lesson 8

Flickr is interesting. I wouldn't like to put up personal photos of mine on the internet for everyone to see. I already have a photobucket account too, which is pretty much the same idea. I'm not able to take any pictures right now, but this coming week my dempartment will take some so we can upload them for the lesson.

I tried the prototype page, but I'm not really sure what the point of it is though. It's kind of, well, boring. The doggy is fun though.

Lesson 7

Lesson 7 was fun. It's always nice to find new websites to play around on. I registered my dog on Dogster, but I couldn't upload the picture for some reason. I'll have to fiddle around with it.

Week 6

The "Explore" for this lesson was pretty interesting. I enjoyed picking out my books on the Library Thing website, as well as, seeing how many other people are interested in the same books I read. The What Should I Read Next website wasn't as informational. They say they are still going through a process of gatering information, so I'm sure the website will be more accurate eventually.

Yay for Meez!