Thing 22

I really should make it a habit to read at least one library blog every day. LibraryBytes, The Shifted Librarian, Free Range Librarian, and others, are all possibilities. I'm still looking for one consistently good library-related blog that I can read daily.

Thing 21

Visit 23 Things on a Stick


I call the Ning icon above my badge of courage. There are a lot of social sites out there, and only the VERY brave librarian with lots of time dare venture. Gather at first turned me off because I thought it was just another social site, albeit for adults. Then I learned of its book focus and I'm hooked! Ning is quite interesting and I especially enjoy its groups that delve into library topics. WebJunction is a classic.

Briggs 20

I've been on Facebook for a while now. It's more of a personal communication device rather than a professional outlet, but utilizing the technology on a regular bais in beneficial. I haven;t used MySpace. Briggs Library has a new Facebook page and I am a co-administrator. We hope to use our Facebook page as a way to "push" events and news out to our fans. We already have a news RSS feed on our main webpage, but Facebook offers us the chance to reach a wider and perhaps deeper audience.

Besides Facebook, I'm interested in using LinkedIn, the new professional social network. I have a Twitter account, but I don't use it that much. The character limit seems a bit silly and I don't quite get the advantage of having to communicate in yet another outlet. Still, I'm advocating the library set up a Twitter account and it will be fun to see how that goes.

Since 23 Things was started middle-aged individuals, many of them women, have eclipsed college students and teens as the fastest growing population in Facebook. Eventually the young will have to find a new cool place to go. Will librarians be ready?

Thing 19

Podcasts are something I've wanted to try out for a while. A couple of years ago I began listening to NPR programs on my iPod, but lately I've reverted to just listening to the live audio stream from my computer. I'm now signed up to several podcast feeds through iTunes as well as Podcast.com and look forward to listening on a regular basis. One of the drawbacks for me is having to go to several different places to get my news and entertainment. Hopefully media will continue to converge so all our podcats, facebook socializing, tweating, emails, chating, etc will be in one central location, rather than scattered around the far-flung corners of the Internet. Remembering all of those passwords is giving me a headache!

I also downloaded audacity and will explore this more. It's not much use without a microphone, however, so I will attempt to borrow one from our Media Services. It would be fun to record and make available some of our special programming at Briggs Library, perhaps via iTunes U as well as own website.

Thing 18

Star Wars made quite an impression on me as a twelve-year-old. This YouTube video is one of my favorites.



Briggs Library is working with several UMM students to create a short library video that can be used for orientation. Once completed I'll post here!

Thing 17

I'm very familiar with the resources available through ELM. That will all change, of course, with the new additions to ELM just announced and taking effect this July. I was lucky enough to take part in the selection process and am awed by the wide array of databases that will be available to individuals in Minnesota, South Dakota, and North Dakota. My lone lament is the sorry fact that many people including students and school teachers are unaware of ELM and what it can provide. Until we mandate that ALL schools have media specialists information literacy and education in general will continue to suffer.

The search alert function in many of the databases and I can see my faculty at UMM making use of it. I set one up myself in Academic Search Premier. The "Create Web Page" function is less useful in my opinion and seems to be a lot of work for little benefit. The "Note" function is interesting. I played around with it a bit. Since UMM has a site license to EndNote writing Notes in individual database items is unnecessary (and a bit cumbersome).

RSS feeds have always been a bit of a frustration for me. If they can be delivered as an email in a separate folder I am happy to receive them. Otherwise it's just one MORE place I have to go to retrieve information or communicate.

Thing 16

University of Minnesota, Morris has had Assignment Calculator on our Student Services webpage for over two years now, and we have been very pleased with it. I try to keep it current and list local resources whenever possible. I hadn't heard of the Research Project Calculator, but I was a bit disappointed in it. The information and resources listed were fairly sparse. Much worse, however, there was no Research Paper choice in the assignment drop-down menu. Are students at the high school no longer expected to do research or write papers?