Thing 32 - Google Maps

This Thing was fun - a little frustrating at times, but fun. And very useful - perhaps mostly in a personal way but also professionally.

I created a map of the Duluth Public Library locations and linked it on my library website. The weird thing is that the first time I clicked on the link on each of my computers, I got a totally different map, of some place in Missouri!! So I'm a little wary of leaving it there.

It worked better on my personal project, which was on a blog for Strikepoint, my handbell ensemble. I embedded a map of a couple upcoming concert locations.

View Pequot Lakes concert sites in a larger map

My next project will be to trace the routes of our annual tours on a map, with placemarks for our concert stops. Our director would like there to be a single map showing all of our tours (for 20 years!), each in a different color, but I don't think Google Maps does that. 

Thing 31 - More Twitter

Twitter is one of those things for which I've had a hard time seeing a library application, but I guess I'm finally finding some interesting library uses for it. Luria Library (is that right?) used their feed to tell their students that first, the Internet was down in the library and then that it was back up. Hennepin County uses theirs to give reminders about programs. (I can only wish that we'd have programs to promote!!)

I've read a lot of the articles linked in the Thing instructions and signed up to follow several more people/organizations. (I've seen somewhere that Queen Elizabeth is on Twitter but haven't found her there yet. That would be fun!) Some of the techie tweeters put out so much that it's just too overwhelming to try to actually follow.

If my library had one or more Facebook pages - and I'd really like to see this happen - then automating a feed into Twitter would be great.

Some of the fun things - I started following the Mac v. PC tweets, looked at the Twittergami bird (very cool) and took the "what punctuation mark are you" quiz (I'm a comma). I didn't post it to either Twitter or Facebook - I've been seeing sooooo many "What (insert noun[s] here) are you" quizzes in the past few days that I just don't feel like extending it! (But I *have* posted results from some others on Facebook. As a children's writer, I'm Beverly Cleary!)

David Lee King's articles were very interesting, and particularly the one about who not to friend on Twitter or Facebook. While it can be interesting and idea-sparking to see what other libraries are doing with these media, I agree that the primary purpose of a library's presence on Twitter/Facebook should be to connect with their patrons.

So right now I guess I'm at the "kinda doubtful but willing to be convinced" stage of Twitter. I'll keep plugging away...

Thing 30 - RSS and Delicious Redux

When I opened my blog just now, I really focused on the Clustr map. My gosh - there are people from all over the world reading this! (And I wonder why???...) That's amazing!

One of my favorite Things from the first round was blogs. I have found a LOT of them that are fun and interesting and pretty and useful. I added a subscribe button to my browser toolbar so it is way too easy to follow a link, read a blog and sign up. Easier to sign up than to keep up. (So I should do some weeding!) It was, therefore, quite heartening to read the Seven Tips for Making the Most of Your RSS Reader article and to see that #1 was...Oversubscribe! I can DO that! 

The same tip was #1 in the article about "wildly successful delicious users." I've recently added several bookmarks to my delicious account (the problem there is remembering what I used for a username & password!). 

I'd like to get more in the habit of using delicious both for home and work, and I want to explore using delicious bookmark lists on my library website. I did add a couple subscriptions to find out when new bookmarks are added in a couple categories.

I also looked at 43marks.com and really liked it. I think it's a much more user-friendly format than delicious. I need to play around with this more too.

Thing 29 - Google Tools

The parts of this Thing that I think are most useful are ones that I'm already doing. I set up a Google Alert some time ago to track references to my library - good for seeing what's being said out there or for seeing media references that I've missed. Our city administration also has an alert set up. As part of this Thing I did go in and try to refine the search terms so that I get more narrowly defined results.

I've also been using the Google Calendar product for some time, and have it linked on my library website. Here's the link to the page where it's embedded, but I see now it doesn't appear to display in Safari. Great - something else to figure out...

I read some of the tips articles and there are certainly lots of cool ways to use Google Calendar for your personal calendar. I will explore some of these for myself later.

Oh, Google 411 is very cool. I am definitely going to try that. I looked briefly at Google Health. I can see that it does useful things - consolidating records, keeping information about medications, diseases/conditions all at hand, etc. - but I don't think that I want to put my health and medical records out on any website. I'm tempted by the Google Desktop....

Thing 28 - Customized homepages

I thought this was fun during the first 23, and it still is. This is something that I've been doing since last spring. I created an iGoogle homepage on one of my work computers and have changed the background and added gadgets to it several times. I have some useful things and some....fun....things on it. There's a little To Do list that looks like a legal pad that I use to narrow down the top things I need to get done. And I've got weather/temperature info from Duluth and from some places I'd rather be (my Florida vacation spot, London...). Just looking through some of the options on Google Gadgets has been really interesting. Every so often (like maybe three or four times in total) I've scrolled through a few pages and added a couple things. Puppy of the Day photos. Times of movies showing in Duluth.

It never occurred to me, though, that you could add other 2.0 tools to the page. I added a Facebook gadget, which might make me remember to check Facebook more often! And I added gadgets for my Flickr photos and delicious bookmarks. I added a sticky note gadget, but it would work essentially the way my legal pad To Do List gadget does, so I deleted that. There are a couple others that I added last year and haven't looked at - hard to remember to scroll all the way down the page... - so I deleted them and moved some others around.

This is a really useful ability - to create your own homepage without having to know any html and to be able to add so many fun and useful things. I may show this to my mother, who would enjoy having things like the current stock market info so readily available.

My Facebook story

I have done more with Facebook in the last six weeks than in the last six months! And for me it's kind of like Twitter - I have a hard time remembering to check it or thinking of anything interesting enough to post.

But a few weeks ago I got a friend request from one of my childhood best friends. This is someone that I haven't heard from since I was entering junior high! She was just enough older than I am that we never went to the same school and as school life became more complicated we drifted apart. She found me on Facebook and sent me a message! If it hadn't been for Facebook, I'm sure I would have never heard from her again.

How cool is this!!

Thing 27

This Thing has taken a long time to do - not because it's hard or complicated but just because I haven't had the time to both explore Twitter and then to write about it. Just too busy at work!

So I found my Twitter login info from the first set of Things and then found a few people or organizations to follow. I have a hard time remembering to check Twitter! Luria Library (in California) looks like they're using Twitter well - one recent tweet was that the campus Internet system was down, followed shortly by one that said it was back up. That's the kind of instant info that people would find useful.

I watched several of the videos mentioned in the Thing instructions and read some articles. One guy said that he devotes 3-4 hours a day to Twitter. THREE TO FOUR HOURS??? Oh my goodness! I don't want to be that kind of person!

I added a photo and changed the background and color settings of my page. I have posted a couple of times (nancye28) but I have a hard time thinking of anything that's interesting enough to say!