10 Random Things About Me...

When Helene challenged us recently to continue with Learn and Play by posting 10 things about ourselves that few people know I was a little daunted. I'm new to CML so there are LOTS of things people don't know about me. That part is a little overwhelming. On the other hand, what in the world would be interesting enough about me that would be worth sharing? I finally decided that I needed to stop viewing it as the "10 Most Interesting Things About Me" and just go with 10 that pop in my head. So, here we go:

1. I collect unicorns. In any form. Figurines, pictures, tee shirts, coffee mugs, whatever. I have collected unicorns since I was young, elementary school age. My collection has grown too large and my house too small so adding pieces has slowed down tremendously. One of my favorites has always been The Unicorn in Captivity.
2. Which leads me to..... I am fascinated by all things from the Medieval and Renaissance periods of European history. I have attended Renaissance Fairs (including the one in Harveysburg, Ohio). Yes, I have a costume and it is a serving wench. No, I am not posting a pic of it here. Not because I won't share. I simply don't have one of me in the garb.
3. My family calls me the Pied Piper of Pets. Animals just come to me. Literally. For example, I was walking one day with my mother in a local park and we decided to take a break for her to rest. We found a bench and sat down. A cat came out of no where, jumped on my lap, curled up and went to sleep. Mom asked me if I'd ever seen the cat before. No, I hadn't. Odd. And it isn't just cats. At the moment I have seven animals in my household. Two dogs and 5 cats. Only 3 of them are original to me. The rest belonged to someone else before I took them in. I blame my maternal grandmother, who lived in the country. People from miles around would drop off unwanted pets, some of them in burlap sacks, on her walk up to her house hoping she'd take them in. She always did. Maybe it runs in our blood.
4. I have been called a "black sheep" in my family for two reasons. First, I am the only one from my paternal Grandfather on down who has not worked for Ma Bell. Seriously, all of them. Except my Mom. I guess they didn't include her in the comparison because she didn't work outside the home. Apparently, being a Librarian is thinking outside the box. ;-) Second, I am the only immediate family member (not sure about distant cousins) who does not have a tattoo. I have thought about it. But I haven't figured out what I want yet, and don't want to set it in ink on my body until I know what it is I want to put there permanently. I do know it will not be visible to anyone while at work, only to those I choose to show it to.
5. Although it is not my favorite season (that would be autumn) I am one of the few people I know who loves winter. Not just tolerates it, or likes it, but loves it. Not so much the Ohio winter, with gray dreary skies and snow that's here, not here, melted, slushy, now frozen.... I want snow on the ground all winter with bright blue clear skies. Apparently I live in the wrong state. I have friends who used to live in Idaho. From their discussions of winter there, it is where I need to move.
6. I tend to be very friendly and outgoing around most people. I think my job does that for me. I can approach just about anyone to ask them if they need help or to say "hello". I'm one of those people who others approach in the grocery store to ask where something is on the shelf because I smile and make eye contact. So far, no dates, so they must just think I work there. ;-) Outside of work I tend to be an introverted shy person, especially around people new to me. It's something I'm working on....
7. Speaking of friends, I have known my BFF Keri since we were both 2 years old. Keri's husband David is my next closest friend (convenient that they are matched up like that) who I've known since freshman year in high school. Oddly enough I met him before she met him. We are so close that our kids call each other Aunt, we have keys to each others houses and have taken vacations together. They tease me about being the "oldest" of the three of us. I am a whole 3 days older than her and 9 days older than him.
8. As my blog info suggests, I love to travel. I have been to several countries in North America, Central America and Europe. I hope to someday visit all 50 states. But I have never lived outside of central Ohio. It isn't that I wouldn't live elsewhere, but up to this point in my life family commitments have kept me here. As my kids are becoming more independent adults, who knows?
9. One of my favorite wild animals in all the world is a manta ray. I love how large and graceful they are. I have never seen one in the wild. I hope to be able to someday.
10. And last, some people around here have already figured out that I like Tinker Bell from Disney. But I am fond of another charater, this one from Warner Brothers. Marvin the Martian. If anyone remembers the Warner Brothers store at City Center Mall, in the back of the store there used to be Marvin's spaceship. It was designed for kids to crawl into and play with the instrument panel, see a running stream of cartoons of the adventures of Marvin and K-9, and generally get lost in space. I loved that ship! My own kids would hunt me down in there and ask "are you ready to leave yet?".... "Just a few more minutes, please?" ;-)

So what have we learned with Learn & Play?

Wow! We are at the end. It is finally here. I see others who are still catching up, and know of many who will still the next few weeks to complete the 23 Things. But is only just dawning on me that I am done and feeling a little let down. It has been wonderful to participate in an activity like this with lots of other people involved. I think that it is exciting that CML to is behind this initiative to educate the staff about Web 2.0 tools, if for no other reason than for them to be aware. I know I heard some frustration from people about how much time it took to do each of the tasks. The time involved really varied, depending on either the persons familiarity with the tool (if you knew nothing it might take longer figure the basics out) or their interest level with the tool (if you were just checking it out, you could get it done fairly quickly but if you really wanted to understand it, it might take longer). I do not think it is necessary for people to continue using all or even most of the Web 2.0 tools. If you have found some gem in the pile, that's great! At the very least, when our customers talk about one of the tools we have a clue what it is they are talking about.

MOLDI

I kinda feel like I'm cheating on this one. I have an existing account arleady with MOLDI. I recently came to CML from another local public library system, and I was their MOLDI rep, attending the annual meetings to determine where the focus of the money should be, who was interested in obtaining download stations (so glad to see CML has one in AV at Main!), etc... This is not at all new to me, though I realize there are many who have yet to discover it. For those of us who love to listen to audiobooks the potential for this iniative is exciting. But having been a longtime user of it, I have two quibbles with it. The first is small - is there a worse acronym in the world than "MOLDI"? I keep thinking of bad rhymes with 'old moldy librarian' in them. Not a good image. The second is much larger - and potentially damaging for users - when will iPod users be able to download audiobooks too? I realize that the issue is not with MOLDI itself, and rather with OverDrive who runs the system. But there are so many users they are alienating right from the beginning by not downloading to iPods. Just my thoughts....

Podcasts

I have listened to podcasts before and even subcribe to a couple on my Google Reader account. The most useful feature for listeners of Podcasts is that they can do it on their own time. One person might have time to listen in the morning but another not until the evening. And both can access the Podcast and listen at their convenience. The most useful thing for podcasters is that there is the opportunity to get their message out, whatever the topic, to a wider variety of people than a simple broadcast would.

YouTube!

I have teenage kids and was exposed to YouTube years ago. We have spent more time laughing over videos they have brought me over to their laptops to see than I'm willing to admit. I have never posted a video there myself, but I have seen some work by family members (posting a video from a class, a video of their kids for the holidays, etc....). Because humor is very important to my family, and humans in general, and many of us here have feline companions I want to share a video I recently uploaded to my Facebook page for my friends enjoyment. It is part of a series of animated shorts about "Simon's Cat" and this one is entitled "Cat Man Do". I hope you enjoy it too! (As an aside, I have a cat who does the "face pat" too).

CML's Tool Box

Wow! Has it really been that long since my last post? Today I spent time exploring CML's Tool Box of Web 2.0 tools. I feel good that I recognized all of the items listed, even if I didn't always use them. Played around a little on Boing Boing, already subscribe to the RSS feed for MAKE, and spend WAY too much time on Twitter already. Thinking about downloading the Library Toolbar at home. Good jumping point for those who are new to the whole Web 2.0 thing, but not necessarily interesting for anyone already living it. Wish there was some note on the page, however, indicating to newbies that this is only a sampling and not necessarily the full experience.

Google... It's not a post about what you think

Google likes to celebrate uncommon holidays. When they do that, we see a change in the way Google is presented on the initial search page. It's been dressed up for a birthday party when it recently celebrated it's ten year anniversary. It's sported Olympic rings and Chinese dragons to honor the most recent Olympic games. We'll be sure to see soon pumpkins at Halloween, turkeys in November, and possibly decorated fir trees in December. So why not urge Google to acknowledge World Diabetes Day. It may seem like a silly thing, but wouldn't it be great if the millions of users of Google were educated, if only slightly, about a disease that affects us all. Even if you don't have it, I bet you know someone who does. If you are interested in signing a petition to do just that, please feel free to click on the "sign the petition" button below. And thanks!

Web 2.0 Awards List

I browsed the awards list and found several that I recognized. Although there are many useful sites, I wanted to focus on one that I'd never visited before. There seem to be so many it was almost like looking for a needle in a haystack. Or maybe I was like a kid in a candyshop, and just couldn't make up my mind. In the end I found one that is health related, my initial looksy, but was actually listed under "Niche Social Networking". The site I chose to write my blog entry about is tudiabetes.com. It is, stating the obvious here, a social networking site for people who have been touched by diabetes. People who have it, who know someone who has it, who are experiencing pre-diabetes symptoms, who are type 2, or who are type 1. There are groups formed to socializing, for support systems, poetry writing, music, health related information, just about anything you can think of that someone who is dealing with this prolific disease might be seeking. My interest is two fold. My father was a type 2 diabetic and was diagnosed when I was fairly young. He initially started with oral meds and diet control but eventually his diabetes got so out of control that he needed to go on insulin shots to keep his blood sugar control maintained. My second reason is that I am a type 1 diabetic (what most people know as "juvenile diabetes"). I am insulin dependent and live with this disease every day. There is no cure (yet!) so finding a site like this where I can talk to people who are also Type 1's is comforting. I have a support system in place but like so many journeys in life it is difficult to truly understand all the nuances of a disease unless you are experiencing it too.

Living in the Cloud

The "librarian" part of my brain took over and I searched for an article related to that piece I'd heard on NPR about "living in the cloud". I found it on NPR's website - "Computing In The Cloud: Who Owns Your Files?" http://tinyurl.com/5wo2g7. Something to think about.... I am not someone typically adverse to using technology generally or Web 2.0 tools specifically. But I do think it wise to be aware and keep ourselves informed of just what we are getting ourselves into.

Google Docs

Spent a little while playing around with Google Docs. There is a similarity to the idea behind Delicious in that Google Docs frees the user from the computer harddrive. I don't know the number of times that I have been working on a Word or Excel document from multiple computers and ended up mixing myself up as to which version is the most current. I usually ended up saving the file with the date updated in the title so it was obvious at first glance (I know that viewing properties would give me the same information but just not as quickly). Even then I would sometimes not have the current one on the computer I was using. Using Google Docs instead would have allowed me to be able to access those documents from anywhere. This would certainly help me as an individual librarian, particularly if I tend to take documents home to work on or work from more than one location. Public libraries could benefit by using Google Docs when working on collaborative projects where more than one person is responsible for completing a document, when a group needs access to several documents but many not work in the same building or when sharing information between library systems.
One caveat, though, is to be aware of unintended consequences. I heard a story on NPR a few weeks ago (sorry, forgot which program) about how much information people are now storing "in the cloud" (ON the web as opposed to ON their own harddrive). The amount just keeps growing and has produced some unforeseen situations. Some of those consequences have been that if a server goes down, or if for some reason a user is blocked either temporarily or permanently, the information stored in the cloud is unaccessible. Sometimes permanently. There are issues with intellectual property rights too. Most people, myself included, just don't take the time to read the fine print in those user agreements we all to frequently automatically agree to just to click through to setting up our account.

Two words to the wise.... make sure you always have a backup of the current document saved on a harddrive somewhere and always read that user agreement you are agreeing to when you set up your account.

Wiki Sandbox

Today I added my blog to the Favorite Blogs section of the L&P @CML Wiki. Like many other people, I had difficulty logging in at first. I set up an account, but when I first tried to access the wiki, I was given a message that I did not have permission to leave a comment (let alone edit). Twitter was useful in that I saw conversations between people I am following that indicated I was not the only one who was having trouble. Comfort in numbers. By this morning, whatever quirky issue had cropped up was resolved. Apparently you needed to request and be granted access by someone with greater authority. Took only a few minutes and I was able to add my blog. One thing though, either someone was taking an inordinate amount of time to add their blog or they logged in and forgot they were in edit mode because the wiki was locked for quite some time.

Wikis

This is interesting. I've used wikis before (who hasn't at least perused Wikipedia?) but have never really sought them out to see how organizations use them. Mostly I have just stumbled across them while searching for information on the 'net. I do like the whole idea of a collaborative effort, where people from all over can share ideas. I even know people who continually edit Wikireadia on certain entries. As for how libraries can use, the emphasis is definitely on collaborative, whether it is librarians across the country or even world, sharing information or a local Teen Advisory Council sharing information for their club.

My four-legged kids

I'm really bored tonight, so I thought I'd add some pics of my four-legged furry kids I mention in my profile.





DJ (15 1/2)

Hoover (13 1/2)

Keesha (almost 12)

Polly (almost 9)

Luna (4)

Picasso (2)

Kasey (10 months)

Power Outages

I cannot let this week end without commenting on the recent power outages, some of which at the time of this writing, are not yet resolved. There are two things that are apparent to me at first glance. My first observation, in light of our L&P experiences, is just how much I depend on technology to communicate with friends, family, and coworkers. Some newly introducted apps can be absolutely indispensable during a crisis situation. As much as we use some of the web based apps for socializing and simply having fun, there is a serious side to it as well. Take for example Twitter. When my power was out I was able to let people know what was going on, even from my cell phone. Very helpful when there are people I talk to on a regular basis who do not have text messaging service and who would worry about me if I just suddenly stopped communicating. I also received updates from family living in Texas (Galveston and Houston) who had been seriously affected by Hurricane Ike. Which leads me to observation number 2. We, as human beings, are incredibly spoiled. Myself included. My electric was out. I lost a little food in the fridge, but my frozen stuff was saved thanks to the generous offer of space in a couple of friends freezers. Not much financial hardship. I could take a shower, but not blow dry my hair. I had to put off doing laundry and dishes. My experience was one of inconvenience but not hardship, though I know not everyone experienced the same thing. I worried about medically sensitive people who needed electricity for more immediate reasons. I kept thinking about my own Mom who, if this had happened just two short years ago, would have been in dire straights because she was on oxygen. The machine she used at home needed electricity, and the individual tanks only last so long. Certainly not five days by the time my power was restored. And again, we were not dealing with a hurricane on top of all that. No rain, no flooding, no displacement without the ability to even get in to see your house to assess the damage. We probably had the best weather possible for not having any heating or cooling. But I was encouraged by what I saw too. I talked to more neighbors over the past few days than I have in months. For that matter, my kids and I had dinner together for three evenings, a rare event anymore. I saw people offering up help, physical labor and freezer space to others, sometimes strangers, every day. I also saw alot of good natured people, who were bearing it all with a smile on their face and a joke or two. Sometimes I think we are tested as humans like this to remind us of what is really important, so that we can put our priorities back in order.

Library 2.0

One of the tasks for this week was to read some interesting, but varied, perspectives on Library 2.0 and where we as a public library fit in the whole Web 2.0 world. Trying to figure out my own perspective is a little more difficult. I definitely think that the move toward Library 2.0 is a change in the way we think as public librarians. Less of a "what can we do for patrons at the library" and more of a "what do our patrons need and how best do we get that information to them" change of perspective. Dr. Wendy Schultz proposes Library 3.0 (Service) and Library 4.0 (Experience) as well. In reality, I think those are aspects of public libraries that we have always strived for, even in Library 1.0. But how those aspects are defined has changed, based on a Web 2.0 viewpoint).

Scrumptiously DELICIOUS!

I just love del.icio.us! For those of us who log onto the internet from home, from work, from a laptop... this is a way to keep track of all those websites that you want to be able to access at a moments notice. I tried for some time to keep "work" bookmarks separate from "personal" bookmarks. But after a while I realized there just was no way I could do that. Sometimes I needed to find a site at home that I use for work, but just couldn't remember how to get there. Or vice versa. Now there is no problem. I can save all of them here, and be able to access them from anywhere. Even on vacation! Click here to see what is on my del.icio.us account.

Library blogs on Bloglines

Whoopsie! Thanks to LibraryJoy's blog entry on L&P@CML, I double-checked my entries in the tracking log. I was one of those people who had entered a link other than my actual blog entry. I also noticed that on one of them (Step #9) I hadn't really blogged about it at all, and had presumed that my actual Bloglines account would show the (way too many) library related blogs I subscribe to. I was wrong! Ooops! I do have several subscriptions to library related blogs, most of which I have subscribed for quite some time. Michael Stephens is one. I subscribed to his blog after I had heard him speak at an OLC related event. Similar situation to Helene Blowers blog, when I heard her speak at a Tech Connections conference earlier in 2008. I also have subscriptions to organizational blogs, like PLA and ALA Online News. A few Ohio library blogs caught my eye, like OPLIN Forecast. I read a few personal blogs written by people who work in libraries, like The Shifted Librarian and Bookpusher. This exercise for L&P offered up a few new feeds, including iLibrarian and LibraryThing.

Tweets for my Peeps!

I seem to be in the same boat alot of people are by falling behind a little. I'm just now getting to posting about Twitter. I signed up for it earlier in the week, and even linked it to my blog along the right hand column. But before commenting on it in a post I wanted to play around with it a bit since I had never used it before (afterall it is play week). Initially, I couldn't really figure out what the purpose was for someone to use the service. Am I really that interesting that people would want to follow me around just to know what I am doing? Do I want people I don't know following me? I'm still a little skeptical about the latter, but the former I have resolved. I've seen several people refer to tweeting as "micro blogging" but I have a different analogy. Simply put, this is web-based texting, except that anyone can see your texts. Instead of sending multiple texts to people I know and care about, and who know and care about me, I can write one Tweet and everyone is updated. My family has recently gone through some medical crises, and we relied on texting to keep everyone up-to-date about what was going on. If we had tweeted instead, more people could have been reached because it isn't limited to the people I know who have cell phones that accept texts. Plus I don't bug anyone that has a cell with those capabilities but who has to pay for the text each time one comes in. After playing with it a little I figured out how to set Twitter up to automatically update my Facebook account too. Pretty cool. I think I am converted, at least for limited uses. My twitter account can be found here.

LibraryThing

Another tool we are supposed to "play" around on this week is LibraryThing. Okay, now this is something I can really play with. I already have an account with Shelfari, and even have "My Shelf" on the side of my blog. I have heard a couple of fellow librarians discussing LibraryThing but never really took the time to look at it beyond the first page. I guess I fell into that all too often familiar trap of "I already signed up for this one, do I really have time to sign up for another?". I'm so glad that I did take the time to look into LibraryThing. I really like it. My "Library" can be found here. If interested, my Shelfari shelf can be found here.

Sticky Notes!

Okay, I found one I totally love using! Sticky Notes. I have a thing for buying and using sticky notes so this is very appropriate.

Image Generators

I've been playing around with these for a little while now (a couple hours tops) and although entertaining, I've not found much use for them personally. The only one that really seems more than just a time waster is FD Toys that uses images from Flickr for various entertainment. It is the same one that we saw earlier on with the Librarian Trading Cards, but you can also use Flickr images for other entertainment. I especially liked the jigsaw puzzle maker, followed closely by the motivational poster maker.

Bloglines

This weeks "thing" to complete was to learn about RSS feeds, create a Bloglines aggregator account, and subscribe to a few newsfeeds. This task was admittedly not a challenge for me as I have been using Bloglines for a couple of years now. I did take the opportunity while participating in this exercise to preview the coming updated Beta version of Bloglines and setting up my subscriptions. One of the best features of the coming version is that you can set up a Start Page with your favorite news feeds, so that if you only want to login and glance at anything new from those feeds you can without having to drill down into your folders to find them. I have not yet discovered the limit on the number you can put on the start page (there may not be one) but I set mine up with about six just to see what it looks like. At the moment, bloglines is allowing users to bounce back and forth between the two versions as the Beta version they are testing does not yet have all the capabilities the older version does (they plan to add them gradually). Click here to view my public Bloglines account.

Next up.... a post on technology. OR Love my DVR!

I grew up watching TV. My mom would plop me down in front of the TV in our family room. The "electronic baby sitter" she would call it. I was one of those kids who knew all the commercial jingles and could sing them from memory ("My bologna has a first name...."). When my kids were little, the pendulum swung the other way, and I didn't let them watch TV nearly as much as I did while growing up. I wanted them to be up and outside. Active. Not couch potatoes. But I am not against TV watching entirely. And technology has advanced to the point where it can help you monitor your TV watching while still allowing you to see what you want. Nowadays I use my DVR to record any shows I want to watch. I don't get distracted by the other shows that seem to be on before or after the one I am really wanting to watch, I can fast forward through those commercials and skip over parts that just aren't interesting, and save some valuable time (something none of us have enough of these days). I spend less time in front of the TV and more time enjoying what I do watch. I use it so much that if I do find myself watching "regular" TV, I subconsciouly want to fast forward through the commericals.

Flickr with a side of Mashups

Continuing with the play of exploring Flickr, I had a lot of fun with the Flickr Color Pickr. It amuses me that I could bounce around on various color choices and the pics matching that color shade would appear. The Montagr disappointed me actually. I love photo montages, and was curious to see how the application worked. I realize the difficulty in finding images that match the various shades in an image in order to create the montage but in very few could I make out what was supposed to be the original image. Thinking about it now, maybe I should have stood a few feet away from the computer screen in order to “see” the image. One part of the app that I liked was the ability to scroll over the images and have individual ones “pop up”. My favorite of the ones I looked at, though, has to be the Trading Card Maker, in which one of the groups is the Librarian Trading Cards. No, I have not created one for myself (though I briefly entertained the idea) but enjoyed clicking on them to read about others in libraryland. Oddly enough, I didn’t see any library folk I know though….

Flickr!

I could just get lost in Flickr, bouncing from one thing to another. I have been on Flickr before, but only for looking at family and friend's uploaded photos. I have never really felt the need to upload images there. I have a personal myspace and facebook account, and usually upload images to share on those. The image I chose to upload to my blog was of the annual hot air balloon festival held in my hometown, uploaded by gilesclement. I do not own one, nor do I actually ride in one (my fear of heights keeps me from doing that) but the simple beauty of lighted ballon against the background of the night sky is magic beyond words.

7 1/2 Habits of Lifelong Learners

I'm a little behind in posting. One of the things to be done for the first week was to watch a tutorial entitled "The 7 1/2 Habits of Lifelong Learners" and decide from those habits which was the easiest and which was the hardest for ourselves. The following week we were to blog about it once we created our blog. I'm finally just getting to writing about it. I would have to say that the pace of the tutorial was a little slow, so I fell into the group of viewers who turned off the sound and paged my way through it on my own. The easiest habit for me personally is to accept responsibility for my own learning. I was raised with a natural curiosity and have learned over the years to be proactive in my learning. If want to know more about something or learn a new skill, it is really up to me to find out all the details on how to get that done. Oddly enough, the hardest habit for me personally is to begin with an end in mind. Not because I don't think it is important, or that I don't think about it at all, but that sometimes I am not always clear when I begin how far I really want to go with that learning.

Why is there a KK in KKBookmom?

Wow, I have already had a question (face to face) about what the KK in my name means. The K's belong to the two kids mentioned in the About Me section. They are Kory and Krysta. That's all.

Learn & Play @ CML

Two posts in one day.... The library system I work for is encouraging staff to Learn & Play with Web 2.0. I am very excited for the opportunity this presents to staff to be able to actually dive into some of the things the web offers, especially the ability to practice (ie, play) at work. No feeling guilty just for trying to keep up with new developments in technology. It's been really cool to see so many staff creating blogs, searching for pictures on Flickr and learning what an RSS feed is. More than anything I am exciting to see the seed of curiosity that has been planted. Visit the website at columbusmetropolitanlibrary.wordpress.com/.

Hello World!

If you are reading this already you are probably a family member, friend or coworker who knows that I just started blogging again. I’m excited that I have finally jumped back in. I used to blog on Xanga for a couple of years, mainly because my own kids had Xanga pages. But also to keep up with their friends and such. Why did I decide to blog this time? For my own creativity. I like to write. I like to keep up with friends and family. This is a way to do both. You will find me talking mostly about what I see in my day to day world. Family. Friends. Pets. Work. And stuff I like to do in my spare time. Camping. Gardening. Cooking. Hiking. Reading!! Can’t get enough reading in. So, welcome to my world.