Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Collection of Book & Reading Quotes

"A life without books is too horrible to contemplate." ~ Brainy Smurf - - Episode 270 (Bookworm Smurf)

"I crawled into my books and pulled the pages up over my head." ~Mary Russell in Laurie R. King's _A Monstrous Regiment of Women_

"I cannot live without books." - Thomas Jefferson

Henry James
"The only obligation to which in advance we may hold a novel, without incurring the accusation of being arbitrary, is that it be interesting."

Monday, March 16, 2009

TCCL 23 Things #22: Audio Books

I listen to Audio books in my vehicle all the time or on my portable CD player and I have checked out Playaways, the pre-loaded digital audiobooks in the Media Center. However, I don't have any of those fancy digital ipods, iphones, or MP3 players. Guess I'll have to win one in the drawings for the prizes. But I can attempt to download a TCCL digital book on my laptop at home. When I use the phrase, curl up with a good book, I somehow don't picture me and my computer. Am thinking of purchasing a Kindle for my son's 40th this year, but don't plan to get one myself until I retire and start traveling. Books can be heavy.

Eureka! I've completed Thing #22. First had to receive coaching from our wonderful IT Department on disabling the Google Tool Bar Notifier on my home laptop. For some reason, probably a challenge to my tech skills, it locked me out from gaining access to Internet Explorer and thus, the TCCL catalog. This morning Carey patiently coached me as to disabling all the Google options and then again trying to access Internet Explorer. Sped home at noon and got into TCCL catalog and successfully downloaded "The Gospel According to Oprah" and completed Discovery Exercise for Thing #22!! And I completed Thing #23: Survey. Gist was that "you can teach an old dog new tricks". AND for my final task, I notified and penned a description of my completed online experience to Continued Education. Is Hallelujah! too strong?

TCCL Library Thing #21: Podcasts

http://www.mugglenet.com/mugglecast/ put this feed on my Bloglines account. It's an informative talk show, a newsroundup on everything about Harry Potter. The one I listened to featured an interview with the U.S. Harry Potter illustrator. The Mugglecast is made up of young people in their early twenties attending a variety of colleges or are recent graduates. Only one Brit in the group. I'm sure I'll have the opportunity to share this podcast with some of our customers who are HP fans.

Also put on Dan Carlin's Hardcore History feed. He presents thought provoking questions and issues and interviews interesting historians.

The number of podcasts available is somewhat overwhelming, but I intended to continue to explore some of the choices, especially those library-related podcasts. It is very convenient to be able to put them as feeds on Bloglines. Really don't see how or why our library would incorporate, but it's food for thought.
librarylin

Sunday, March 15, 2009

TCCL Thing #20-Exploring YouTube



Ride Little Monkey Ride, A Taco John cowboy monkey commercial

librarylin

TCCL Thing #20: Explore YouTube

This is the one 2.0 website that I am somewhat familiar with, but really don't use that often because my nose is usually in a book when I go home or I'm playing with our Boston Terrier puppies. After being online helping customers all day, I just don't want to go online on my personal laptop.
Sometimes when friends are over, someone will suggest a YouTube site for us all to watch.



like Tacojohn commericials, starring Whiplash the cowboy monkey. Hilarious!

as for the library... We did use at Rudisill to entertain and be entertained by kids before the MLK Day parade. The kids danced to rap song videos. Did have to find ones with suitable lyrics. a library event could be videoed and published on YouTube, but right now I can't see the value. Actually TCCL could have filmed the Spring Employee family party where members of families explored the Teen simulated guitar games. That incident could be shared on a social network as an example of a fun library get together.
librarylin

Friday, March 13, 2009

TCCL Thing #19 Discovering Web 2.0 tools.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/toolbar/#topic=Books&url=http%253A%252F%252Fwww.dailymail.co.uk%252Fnews%252Farticle-1156973%252FThousands-scramble-free-books-Amazon-supplier-abandons-warehouse.html

First I just explored a variety of Categories and posted above link to an article I "stumbled upon" and found interesting.
Then for my actual Discovery Exercise using search engine tools to find a site that would have applications for use in a library setting, I chose the Category "Books".
"Lulu" was the 1st place winner, but I found it to be too commercial a site since I already use and am familiar with Amazon.
The 2nd Place winner was "Biblio" which is for used or rare books so I could refer customers to it.
The 3rd place winner was "VuFind", a resource portal software for Academic libraries developed by Villanova University of PA. The goal of VuFind is to enable users to search and browse thought library resources by replacing the traditional OPAC. Many major Universities are using or testing.
"Worldcat" and "LibraryThing" received Honorable Mention Awards. I learned that Worldcat is becoming more and more accesible to the general public, and while I was again exploring "LibraryThing" (Thing #11), I added another title to my book list.

librarylin

TCCL Thing #18: Web-based apps: They're not just for desktops

http://docs.google.com/TeamPresent?docid=dd33hmxm_2hm9jq3hb&preview=true

Created account in Google Docs and copied and pasted the text of the sign I created.