GC Librarians

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ZamZar

Another goodie learned from the wonderful MarylandLearning training - ZamZar ZamZar is a website that offers file conversion of text, image, audio and video file formats without log-ins or downloads. Upload your file, select the wannabe file format type, (document, image, music, etc.) and add your email. ZamZar sends you the new file type. You are only allowed up to 100 MB for free. Bigger files take longer, of course, to receive.

I uploaded a slideshow on Word 07 and chose to convert it to a pdf file. Hmmm, 15 minutes later - I'm still waiting on my file; it probably was a lot to convert. I should have picked a smaller file for practice. As SpongeBob says, "Two hours later..." So, I picked a jpeg, converted it to a png, after several errors - success at last!

I think this is a great website and I think I will use it. I have the pdf software on my laptop, but at home this will come in handy for converting to that format. This will also come in handy when converting files to be used on our new digital library page.

last fm

Hmmm, never heard of this one before. Last FM, another web-based music service. Typed Paramore into the search box - clicked Play - voila - a whole page about Paramore, video and tracks to play, similar artists, and more. Wow, lots of info on here about your favorite bands. Neat tabs run vertically along the side offering an Overview, Photos, Biography, etc. To tag your tune, love it, ban it or share it, you do have to log in. I like how you can embed your station and darn it - it is enticing to buy the music! Another good site when I'm at my notebook.

By the way, our local Go 106 FM offers streaming music.

Pandora

Pandora Radio is a radio station that uses genomes to to fine-tune the music that you like. I typed Allison Krause into the search box & Pandora created a station for me. Liking the song Pandora picked, I gave it a thumbs up. (give a thumbs down & Pandora will find you something else)Pandora then found me some similar songs, with strings and a mellow tone. I like how you can share your station or mix it up & add some variety or just a add a whole new station. A year ago or so, I had used Pandora before, enjoyed it and then, whoops - totally forgot all about it! For shame! Glad to find it again. You can create an account, so that stations can be saved or just play it on the fly! Will I use it - most definitely when I'm sitting at my laptop.

SlideShare

SlideShare is easy to set up an account and search for slides of your interest. I found a good one on "Web Technology Trends for 2008 and Beyond." (posted below) I grabbed an embed file and popped into a new post. Tada. Very easy, just as easy to add to Twitter. I like how you can view most downloaded, most embedded, most viewed, etc. Great way to share slideshows with co-workers and possibly on our new ACLS production page.

SlideShare

Web Technology Trends for 2008 and Beyond

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: semantic 3.0)

Twitter

Twitter is a online service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing? Sounds like some people are addicted to it! Whoo hoo, even the White House uses Twitter! Now, personally, I can not see me using this - there is never enough time in the day and you know what I mean. I think it is very popular with young people. As for using it in the library, I like how ALSC is micro-blogging about happenings in their library.

I had an account with Twitter, back when we were working on Library 2.0 - hmmmm, now to remember the password. Well, two hours later, I've created a new account, very easy. I like when you find someone to follow, such as YALSA, a little Follow button can be clicked - and tada - there you are. I actually found great teen ideas to use by looking at the YALSA twitter entries.

With Jaiku, you must be sent a personal invitation, so I did not follow up.

LitLovers

Oooh, I like this site. LitLovers claims: We are an online community dedicated to books and book clubs—because both enrich our lives. We've got great resources to enhance your book club experience. Whether you're selecting books, or thinking & talking about them, LitLovers is the place to come.

Unfortunately, under LitClub there wasn't any discussion on "The Shack" (it's brand new tho)so I checked out "The Kite Runner." Lots of good reviews and discussion questions. LitCourse was pretty cool - they're courses to deepen your understanding—and enjoyment—of fiction. For the LitCourse, I chose Literature Matters. When I read, "We need literature— because we can never live enough to investigate all of life on our own" I thought to myself - that is the truth. There is even a quiz at the end for fun to see what you've learned. LitLovers claim that each 30-minute LitCourse is comparable to a freshman level college class—but no grades, no tests, no papers. LitBlog is a great place to blog & comment. LitFun includes LitKids, LitFood, and LitFlicks. LitFlicks covers books adapted to film. I actually printed out book discussion for Teens, with having Teen Read Week already upon us.

Great site, I bookmarked it and will add to my Del.icio.us as well.

Jott

Jott.com’s voice-to-text services allow you to capture thoughts, create to-dos, set reminders, and send emails & text messages - all with a simple phone ...

Our web filtering at work, unfortunately, blocked us from trying Jott. I will try to look into it from home because it does sound interesting. I'm not sure how much I would personally use it - pen & paper sounds easier for simple lists. Blogger already has an option to call & send a message to your blog. But the more I think of it, I can use it while stuck in traffic, (not too often in Allegany Co. unless a bridge is being worked on) at my kid's soccer games, or waiting forever in a doctor's office.

I was able to walk through the simple steps of setting up an account from home. I left several messages that showed up in my Verizon email. The text was a little garbled, I suppose, from speaking too fast into the phone. The only problem I came across was when I was trying to call in a Blogger post. Apparently, I hadn't given the right ID of my Blogger account in the beginning when I set it up. Jott did send a message in my email informing me of the problem.

Perhaps I'm not looking outside the box, but I don't think we could use this with our patrons. If they add an email to their library account they will already receive a message that their books are due. For personal use, it will come in handy.

YourMinis

Personally I love widgets - I even love the name, widget, sounds like Gidget, but enough rambling on and about. As Jennifer says, on Learning 2.1,essentially, a widget is a small, interactive program that allows quick access to often-used tools or information. (or check Google) Most – though far from all – widgets are connected to the Internet. Some are very practical; some are just for fun. I have put widgets on ACLS's teen myspace page but I love to find more.

On myminis I clicked Startpage to try some out w/o creating an account. I grabbed a template of "news" to try out, followed by grabbing more minis, which is so darn easy,and dragged them over to my page.Fun, I changed the colors on the clock and in fact I had widgets coming out my ears!

I'm not sure about adding some to the library's website. People like to personalize their own pages and I hate to see our homepage get too cluttered. Perhaps adding the Flickr widget to our site would be helpful, (only if we could set it somehow to our pics)but for now we already have the free account and a new webpage is set up to house video and more.

Plaxo

Plaxo looks pretty cool. I signed up, imported some contacts from AOL, set up a calendar with Sierra's 16th BD event. I even added the countdown - I like how you can see the big pic or set it on upcoming events, month, week, or day. Adding a task was fun, as I like to check them off - ordering Sierra's cake, grocery shopping, etc. Couldn't figure out how to layer the calendars tho, for work and home.....added a link to our Teen Myspace site and my Flickr site. Connection requests are pending to John, Krista, and Jenn.

Learning 2.1 and LetterPop

Just started Learning 2.1. The first "new thing" is a lot of fun to work with. I created a newsletter in LetterPop and imported family pics. Very easy to work with - not a lot of frills for the free version - I guess unless you would upgrade. It was extremely easy to import pics and what's cool is you can import from your Flickr site too. What impressed me was the huge amount of templates to work with - I hit the Motherlode of templates!!!!

Wonder Why to use a Wiki??

Cool, came across this on my LATI journey..Why use a Wiki?

New Kid's Page Idea

Possibly an idea when we redo our ACLS kid's page.

GC Worm Race

 

Twilight Movie Releas

 

Local teens play for the annual George's Creek Library Bonfire.

Smokey visits the GC Library

 

Smokey the Bear visited the George's Creek Library during their annual bonfire.

Flag Retirement Ceremony

 

Our annual GC Library Bonfire was well attended last night. Over 100 people listened to bagpipes & music, talked to Smokey the Bear, and nibbled on hotdogs & chips. Troop 26 and Pack 24 retired several flags during a very moving ceremony. Our local teens played a few songs. Everyone seemed to enjoy the small-town atmosphere.

Metamorphosis Teen Program

Our first Metamorphosis Teen Program was a hit at the GC Library, as it was in our other branches. 20 Kids + Me!!! We had a Teen Matinee, popcorn, & soda for our afternoon program. Most pre-teens slouched & flopped on the floor to get comfy. I can't believe that there were absolutely no popcorn fights - they were too busy eating it!

50 Reasons Not to Change

Helene B. came across this and I loved it.




Thank you Pam for the link!

MLA

I had such a great time at MLA in Ocean City, as I did last year. Good speakers, good company, good food! I think I gained 5 lbs., no kiddin' Really enjoyed the Black Belt Librarian and IDK Teen Services. Our own system, ACLS, gave an awesome presentation on Tune into Reading, using IPODS, MP3 systems, & PhotoStory, a free download, to encourage & reinforce reading skills. Also attended the grand opening of the Worcester Public Library, beautifully renovated and run by a gracious, welcoming staff. Thanks to all the people behind the scenes who did such a great job preparing MLA this year and to our great vendors.

Check out my Slide Show!

Blog BackUp - Cool Idea!!!

Wow, The Cool Librarian's posted on Blog BackUps! Blogs are backed up automatically everyday - neato! Click the above title to check out the BackUp site.

Jessica's site:
http://coollibrarianblog.blogspot.com/

Fill'er Up!

Testing a New Speech Agent

I am testing a free Speech Agent , offered from our Merlin site, to be possibly used on our ACLS homepage. The free options are limited, but useable. I just copied and pasted the code into a html/javascript element box.

Check out our Teen MySpace Page

Our Teen MySpace page has been a work in progress since last September or so. I have to give a big thanks to my daughter, Sierra, who was a huge help with getting it off the ground! I had never worked with a MySpace page before and she gave me valuable information and her time - and we know how much time teens have for their own parents!! LOL! In the beginning I had to search for Teen Authors, but now every week I get a request from an author to add them as friends - so they are finding us. Cool beans! We're adding teens slowly but surely and our Teen Volunteer Program is also growing. Hoping to add more widgets as they become available, especially one that can search our catalog directly. New books & DVDs are posted. I also try to blog weekly which can be difficult. I'm hoping our teens can review our teen books and the review can be on the blog. Click the the above title to see our Allegany County Library Teen MySpace page.