Working on the Wiki Thing

This weekend I've been working on the Wiki thing from home. I wrote a piece for the Tapestry of Freedom wiki, but I put it in the wrong place. After I wrote it, I realized that I had it in the teen section. I deleted it and copied it to another section, but I'm not sure that it really got there. I spoke to Billie on Saturday while I was working and she said that she would fix it. Since then, I logged onto the wiki about Library Success and printed out some information about Online Library Card Registration at Contra Costa County Library. They also issue e-Cards for online use only. I am not sure why they do that and how the licenses work for their online resources, if their customers never enter the library and never establish residency with proof of I.D. Since I am hoping to do a soft launch of our online library card registration this week it was interesting to see what their website looked like. It was an easy way to access shared information- the pro. The con for wikis is that all of the information may not be reliable, since it looks like editing may be easy to do and misinformation may be included. I read an interesting thing online about Sarah Palin. It sounded as if someone wrote a glowing bio of her in a wiki, just before she was announced as the Rep. candidate for Vice President. Afterward, other people added and edited the bio to reflect a more candid account of her career. I just thought is was interesting. I like the idea of the library using wikis. I see this as a great tool for people to add information about our exhibits. I wish that I had taken the time to write down some of the stories that customers told me when we had the replica of the Lincoln Memorial statue. A wiki would have been a good place to store those personal stories.

Podcasting put me to sleep

I was listening to Uncontrolled Vocabulary with its monotone narrator who sounded as bored with his topics as I was. They talked about the director of the Hartford Public Library retiring. She is 74 years old. Apparently there was some kind of security issues that may or may not have been the reason for her planned retirement. Then they discussed the Joy of Sex book being banned at the Nampa Library, but the board reversed their decision when the ACLU got involved. I finally gave up when they went on and on about the lawsuit between J.K. Rowling and the lexicon that contained' "no original commentary." I hope I find some interesting podcasts, but this was not one of them.

Just a side note...I missed church Sunday because I worked. When I got home and checked my email, there was a message from my pastor that this sermon series was too important to miss- so he sent an attachment of the complete video "vodcast?" of his message. After I listened to it, I mentioned to my husband how "out there" that was. He said, " Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you there was an automated message on the answering machine from our pastor saying you needed to go to church this Sunday." Boy, even Denise would be impressed with their marketing- "as mission" staff!

YouTube and Teens

Today I was trying to find a fun YouTube site that I saw awhile ago. It was a promo for teen use of the library with a really "hip" teen librarian and some teens doing a rap about how cool the library is for teens. I couldn't find it again, but this site http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biQnC0gsTu0
was one of Sarah Long's vodcasts from the Evanston Public Library's Teen Zone. One of the areas that I believe should be at the top of our list in strategic planning is an area dedicated and designed for teens. Lisel and I are working on the Teen Winners program that we do every October for Teen Read Month, but I want to do much more to increase teen usage in our library.

Social Bookmarking is FINALLY done!

Thank you, Margaret! You have the patience of a saint. Even finding a site to bookmark was painful. I wanted to read how circulation staff were using Web 2.0, but everytime I typed in "circulation," all that came up were sites on fans. I did see a really cool site that had some kind of graphic pattern that changed size and color intensity. The "blobs" represented the Dewey numbers of the popular items that were circulating at the library. It took me back to the psychedelic 60's. It also reminded me of the Seattle Public Library with its digital screen that ran the Dewey numbers of items scanned in. I won't tell Denise- we would need to run out and get another plasma screen just for that. Anyway, I hope that podcasting goes a whole lot easier. Thanks again for your help, Margaret.

Rain, rain, go away!

My husband and son were planning on spending yesterday and today working on our pond project. Unfortunately, it rained so much, they spent most of the time trying to pump the rain water out. The pond is much bigger than even I imagined. I bought a tarp to cover it before the last storm, but it hardly covered half of it. This project feels like it is taking a life time. They finally did install the underwater pipes for the filtration system. It is really deep. They assure me that our fish (if we ever get that far) will be able to survive the winter below the freeze line. I did have a pair of mallards swimming in there earlier this summer, so I can always hope. But in the meantime, another thunderstorm is in the forecast. The good news is that my "nursery" where I am raising plants for the garden area is doing great. The ornamental grasses are looking healthy and happy and the hostas I've been dividing are blooming nicely. I have a lot of daylilies in a bucket that I dug up when I worked on the irises last month, so I need to find a place to plant them temporarily. It has been a very good summer for the garden.