Last post for Learning 2.0! Whoo-hoo!
After all this time, I have to say I'm still bitter about this program being made mandatory, although I've since discovered that this edict was just for Freedom Regional, not all of PLCMC. (Although I think a lot of other branch managers made the same call.) Grumblings about mandatory-ness aside though, I have to say I have enjoyed myself. A lot of the things on the list were things I'd already messed around with on my own, which made me feel very tech-savvy. (The things I hadn't played around with already were generally things I wasn't terribly interested in...but considering how much I play around on-line, that's not all that surprising.) I suppose my main gripe is that, with the pressure on to finish the list, I didn't feel like I got to play as much as I wanted to - with a few of my entries, I just sort of copped out and knocked out a post based on what I'd managed to discover in 15 minutes or less. In some cases, like with Netlibrary, Librarything and Bloglines, I just went with what I already knew from past experience and didn't bother to try to dig deeper to discover anything new. Ah, the mandatory rule is still my main complaint, I guess. If another program like this were to come along, though, I'd do it, mandatory or no.

So, that's that for Learning 2.0 - wonder what the MP3 player will look like? (Here's hoping PLCMC spends more than $10 apeice on them...I already have a crappy MP3 player that doesn't even hold a full CD's worth of music, thanks!)

Can you tell I'm rushing to rock out the rest of this list in one sitting? (Gotta get it done by the 6th! And I'm going to be busy tomorrow!)
So, you'd think someone who doesn't like podcasts would also not be terribly fond of audiobooks...but of course, my brain doesn't work like that. Granted, I only listen to audiobooks when I 'm in the car, or when I'm working on something at the computer, but I do enjoy them. (Not as much as regular books...but there are few joys in my life equal to reading a good book!) Anyway, in the interest of saving time, I'm going to slightly cop out on this one and say that I've already listened to Anne McCaffrey's Changelings. (Do any other fans out there think Anne's writing style is getting odder as she grows older?) The audiobooks from this site play nicely on Media Player Classic, (most things do if you have the right codecs), and even though the story was a bit odd, (the selkie kids and their ocean pals were a bit hokey, even for a sci-fi/fantasy girl like me!), it was fun to listen to it while I did other things.
Interesting note - my old NetLibrary account disappeared! I tried to log in again, just for the sake of this exercise, and it no longer recognized my username, password, or e-mail account. (And I used my library e-mail, so I know it's still active...) How odd...maybe it has something to do with the fact that I've had to replace my library card since then? Definitely worth looking into...although it's not like it was hard to create a new account...

Confession time - I'm not a huge fan of podcasts, and I've been skipping the ones posted in the Learning 2.0 blog. Unlike all the other stuff from this list that's turned me off, I don't really have a reason why podcasts bug me...normally this sort of thing would be right up my alley. Still, I'm too close to getting that MP3 player to give up now, so let's do this.
I found a few library-related podcasts to listen to by browsing around the directories. My top three are, in no particular order: Open Stacks, LibVibe, and Library Lady Audiobooks. (The last one is just a lady named Annie reading chapters of different books - sort of like an audiobook podcast...it's still kind of library-ish.) Confession #2 here - I didn't feel like downloading anything special to play these, nor did I feel like messing around with new codecs for my MP Classic to get it to play them, so I just added them all to my bloglines account and listened to snippets of them from there. But hey! That takes care of the adding an RSS feed to my bloglines account bit, so ta-da! (Will I ever listen to them again? Maybe if I'm really bored...actually, no, probably not.) As for finding anything useful...well...that's a tough one for me. (Have I mentioned I don't like podcasts? Makes it tough to come up with good ideas on how to use them...) I guess they can be used for those who learn beter if they can listen to instructions rather than read them...people seem to like them on the Learning 2.0 blog...meh, they're neat if you like them, they're annoying if you don't, and I don't. On to the next exercise.

It's Fall Fest y'all!

How could I pass up a chance to show off a time-honored tradition from Salem College? Every year for a campus celebration called Fall Fest, the juniors and seniors grab their favorite noisemakers and go through the dorms waking everyone up. In this clip, a bunch of brand-new freshmen are waiting around to see what's going to happen...and then end up scattering when the wake-up team hits the scene. (The first Fall Fest wake-up can be a little scary, actually)
Anyway, I've been in love with YouTube for a long time - it's one of those sites that just has something for everyone. Of course, as with pictures, you do have to be careful about what you post - putting up a video of someone without their consent is a huge no-no on the internet. I could definitely see this being put to use in the library - how neat would it be to have a live, walking tour of some of our branches up here? (As an aside...doing a search for PLCMC brings up some odd things...anyone ever heard of the PLCMC band?)

I took this exercise an an opportunity to mess around with Facebook like I've been wanting to. I already have a Livejournal account, a MySpace account, a Care2 account, a bloglines account, and this blog, so setting up an account with yet another social networking site seemed a bit silly...but I wanted an excuse to do it anyway!
As far as social networking goes, I can definitely see why FB came in first! Whereas livejournal and MySpace can end up dedicated to memes and community drama, FB seems like more of a grown-up site. No sparkly page lay-outs, no "My 100 favoritest things ever!" quizzes - just straight out contact information and facts about the user. (Though you can customize parts of your profile with shiny bits of code to personalize it.) I have to admit that I was a little taken aback by how much contact information you can make available to the public - take that with the fact that you can also use FB as something of a matchmaking service, and this is definitely not a site teens should be allowed to use unsupervised. Of course, there is always the option to keep things like phone number, addresses, and various chat client names hidden from everyone but your friends...but teens are not famous for being very discriminating about who they make friends with online. (Check out a few MySpace accounts from the friends list for the Loft's MySpace page - a lot of these kids have upwards of 200 random users listed as "friends" in their accounts...heck, the loft itself has over 400 friends!) Still, before I bash this site too much for its potential creepiness factor, I should check if there are any age-based restrictions in place - it could be that I only have the option to toss all of my personal info out on the web because I'm supposed to be old enough to know better.
The possibilities for library use are endless - the potential networking among staff and patrons, the ways libraries could use the "notes" options, the professional yet personalized feel of the site overall - these all fit the feel of a library much better than Livejournal or MySpace. I could see it being used for book clubs, book reviews, public opinion polls/discussions, ways of sharing information in the system or out of the system with other libraries...and, of course, as a way to give librarians and libraries a more personal feel for those who like meeting folks online.

Messing about with Zoho Writer

O	O	X
X	X	O
X	X

Yay for tic tac toe!

Obviously, I was taking this exercise very seriously. But, really - what better way to play around with a multi-user word processor than to actually play?
This is a pretty nifty little site, and I can see a million uses for library users - no more worrying about whether the version of windows installed on the home computer is compatible with the one on the library computers! (And don't even get me started about floppy disks - this is a much better way to save files!)
Two big gripes, though:
1. It's a bit buggy. Me being me, I had to play around with all of the different functions, and some of them either just plain didn't work, or didn't work the way they were supposed to. Fonts didn't always change correctly, (or at all), resizing sometimes caused my text to either disappear or become strangely formatted, and the tables are a bit tricky to deal with. (Occasionally, a cell would randomly delete, or I wouldn't be able to enter any text into it...hmm...)
2. It doesn't post well to blogs - which is supposed to be one of its big features. First, it refused to acknowledge my blogger account. To get it here, I sent it to my livejournal account, then copied the html and pasted it here...except the images I was using instead of Xs and Os wouldn't load, and I got their text equivalents. Also, for some reason, copying and pasting the text from livejournal tweaked the table settings so that the text/characters in each box were no longer centered. I have a basic grasp of html, so I tweaked things here and there until I got it to look roughly the way I wanted it to...but it's not quite as convenient as it's made out to be. (Imagine if I was trying to post an elaborate spreadsheet instead of a tic-tac-toe game!)

Overall rating: needs work, but it's a good idea, and I'm looking forward to messing with it and seeing how it improves in the future.

Well, it's definitely a wiki.
I don't really know what to say about the PLCMC Learning 2.0 wiki that I haven't already said in my last post. (Yay for being repetitive! Except not!) I added my blog to the Favorite Blogs list, and I put in a quick plug for Cape Cod on the Favorite Vacation Spots page, but that's about it.
Eh, don't mind me, I'm cranky today - my back and shoulders hurt, and yesterday was my three-year anniversary with my sweetie and we didn't get to do anything. (His back hurt, my back hurt, and we're both broke. Ah, youth.) Plus, I have to:
-Make up a poster or something to get people to join the PLCMC Race for the Cure team
-Type up the (VERY late!!!) minutes for the Holds Expired team
-Rock out the October edition of the Freedom Flyer
-Bake a few batches of dessert-type stuff for the party Wednesday
-Look into taking the GRE in a bit more detail and sign up for a session
-Look into orthodontists so I can do something about this retainer
-Get around to writing my review for The Good Fairies of New York, which I have had checked out forever
-And maybe, just maybe, get back on track with Learning 2.0?
There's probably more that I'm forgetting, too. Oh...and I should call my dad before he starts thinking I'm dead in a ditch somewhere. And I need to e-mail Kevin and Robert, and I need to finish uploading the Hawaii pics to Flickr, (haven't done that YET!), and I need to get the apartment ready for the hoards of Ren-Fair goers heading my way and, and and...
and I need to stop, is what I need to do.:P

Ah, wikis.
In my experience, wikis tend to either go really well, and produce amazing results, or else they go very badly, and result in hurt feelings and flame wars. Or else, as is the case with the few I've set up with my on-line friends, they go well for a few weeks, and then everyone gets bored with them and moves on to something else.
To be honest, I'm not quite sure how a wiki would work within a library in general. A lot of the wikis linked to on the Learning 2.0 blog certainly look interesting...but they don't seem to get a lot of traffic. I love the idea behind the "Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki"...but again, I can't help but notice that it's nowhere near as active as, say, the plain old forums over at LIS news. The main problem I have with wikis is that they don't work unless everyone pitches in and plays nice - and how often does that happen on the internet? As has been demonstarted with Learning 2.0, it can be hard to get everyone to work together on the same thing unless you make them, and when you make them, you're going to end up with a few participants who are...less than enthusiatic about the whole thing. Which, with wikis in particular, leads to junk postings, people deleting other entries accidentally or out of spite, and plenty of infighting. Of course, you can always create resrictions on who can post, what can be posted, and who can edit or remove other participants' entries, and you can have a group of users go through the entries from time to time and remove entries and/or participants who don't follow the rules. But...if you're going to do that, why not just set up a forum and be done with it?

Oh no, the dreaded "read this and write out your thoughts on it" assignment. (Flashback to highschool)
Ah well. I thought Rick Anderson made some good points in his Away from the "Icebergs" piece. I think one of the hardest things for me...and any bibliophile to accept, is that digital resources are slowly growing in popularity over print materials. (Not that I'm entirely against the idea - the reader in me is already thrilled at the thought of someday being able to download any book, any time, anywhere!) As Anderson says, though, this doesn't have to mean disaster for libraries - it just means change.
I also agree that libraries need to get out of the "come to us" mindset. I think that PLCMC has already started doing this, with our on-line audiobooks, library MySpace accounts, and websites like Reader's Club. Of course, we can take it even further - I'd like to see PLCMC get more involved with e-books, MP3s, and digital news sources.
A point Anderson makes that I somewhat disagree with, though, is the reliance on user education. Yes, it would be wonderful if we could remove the barriers between people and the information they want to access, but those of us here in the trenches every day know that it's not so easy. No matter how user-friendly you make a site, you're always going to end up with a patron sitting at the computer saying "This screen says 'hit Enter,' and there's a diagram of the keyboard with the Enter key circled in red. What does that mean?" For every new piece of technology that comes out, there are thousands of people who need all the help they can get in understanding it, and I think the library is a wonderful place for those people to come. After all, what are we here for, if not to be a source of information? I would like to see more technology classes - maybe even classes geared towards adults on how to use basic library equipment. (I know we have some patrons here who would sign up!) I would also like to see better staffing solutions. At the beginning of this paragraph, Anderson says that libraries are "poorly equipped and insufficiently staffed for teaching." - I think that's the real iceberg. If the patron-to-librarian ratio is something like 680 to 1, then patrons coming in and needing personal help aren't going to get it, and they aren't going to come back.
And there's your two cents worth from a humble Library Assistant.

Okay, I'll admit it, I blew Technorati off at first...but now that I've played with it more, I'm impressed. This is the first thing on the checklist to really intrigue me! (The first thing that I wasn't already aware of, that is...I do love my Librarything and Flickr accounts!) I really want to come back to this later and play around with it some more - but since I'm already behind on my checklist, I'll just stick to the basics for this post.
Searching for "Learning 2.0" in blog posts brought up 27,856 results - not surprising, as this lists any blog post with "learning" or "2.0" anywhere in its content. Searching for "Learning 2.0"brings up 11 results - several of which are blogs of PLCMC staff. (Hopefully I'll get my own up there too - as soon as I figure out why what I'm doing now isn't working!)
Messing around with the popular searches, tags, and blogs didn't really surprise me - some weird things came up, but that's pretty standard for any search you do anywhere on the Internet.

What a dry post this turned out to be - but I'm not through playing with this yet. I may have to come back and blog more about this later on...after I'm caught up on my checklist!

Technorati tag: PLCMCL2

Ah! I'm so far behind now - I didn't do anything at all last week! Well, not anything Learning 2.0 related, anyway. I kept busy at work...and there was my reading at the anniversary celebration for the Salem College Women's Writing Center on Tuesday. (Gack!) Regarding the reading...I did my best, but I was so outclassed it wasn't even funny! (The other four women were reading from poems they'd written as part of a Master's Thesis, or from stories that they'd won awards for, or from books they'd published - I was reading a crappy little story I'd struggled with for a week! Helphelphelp!) Ah well, it's over, and everyone was really nice to me...plus it was really inspiring to be around such amazing people. I hope I can be that talented, calm, and professional some day. (As it was, I did my pathetic reading, relaxed through the rest of the program, hung out a bit for everyone else's signings, then got overwhelmed and ran to hide out in the parking lot when too many people came up to congratulate me...*sigh*)
Anyway, enough about all that - on to my thoughts on Del.icio.us.
I don't really have all that much to say about it, other than that it's a fairly nifty little tool. I created an account for myself to mess around with, and although I haven't done much with it yet, I can see how it would be a great research tool. The main problem with standard bookmarks is that you can only access them from your PC - unless you're a nerd like me who saves them to a floppy and carts them around with you. (Haven't done that since college, though...:P) Del.icio.us lets you access your bookmarks from any computer - and also lets you see what other people are bookmarking. Obviously, this would be a great research tool for anyone using internet resources - and it's fun for those of us who just enjoy playing around on a lot of different sites. I'll probably continue to poke at it now and then - but I really can't see myself getting deeply involved in it or using it for anything other than its primary purpose: storing bookmarks. (I don't think I'll use it as a public wishlist, or a way to share links with family and friends without e-mailing them, to quote a few of the ways the site suggests using your account.)
As a side note - does anyone else have trouble remembering where the periods go when typing in the Del.icio.us site name? For a site that wants to replace my web bookmarks, it sure is hard to access it without bookmarking it!

Playing around with Rollyo today.
Hmm...as with bloglines, I think this one's a little overrated. Yes, it's nice to have a search engine that hunts through my favorite sites all at once...but I still prefer browsing through the sites themselves. (I guess I'm old-fashioned...is there an old-fashioned way to surf the web?)
At any rate, here's my own little Rollyo thingy; I threw one together for bargain anime, as that's what I generally shop for when I'm on-line. (I'd already made up my mind to have my search tool be shopping-related... don't ask.)

Select Search Engine...Bargain Anime HuntSearch The Web

Powered by Rollyo

And...that's it for now. Still working on that 5 minute story. Ach, writer's block is a beast!

Yay for LibraryThing! I already have an account there - I discovered the site about a month before Learning 2.0 started. (So far I've only catalogued a few of my manga series and some books I recently bought, though) Nifty place - for those of us who are absent-minded, it's also a good way to keep track of what you have. (When you have as many books as I do, it's harder to keep track of them all than you'd think!)
Check out my LibraryThing account here, if you're interested. (I'm also in the group "Librarians who LibraryThing")

Urgh, my brain is not cooperating right now. What I need to be doing is writing a 5-minute piece of celebration-themed fiction for the Salem College Women's Writing Center anniversary next Tuesday. (At which I am a guest speaker! Zoiks!) What I am doing is mucking about with my blog, because I have a nasty case of writer's block. (I've got the beginning of my story, I've got the ending, and I know roughly how I want it to play out - it's those bothersome middle bits that keep giving me trouble!)
Anyway, without further ado, here are the results of my messing around with image generators. (At least my mind's still capable of doing something semi-productive...)



Scary stuff! From Spelling with Zombies. I cheated a little, though...I didn't like the way the cut and paste link looked in the blog so I took a screencap of it, resized it, and uploaded it from my computer.



And one more...from a dynamic Einstein picture over at Hetemeel. You have to mess about with the text a bit or it overlaps his hands and head...but you can't go wrong with a picture of a slightly-guilty looking Einstein!

Yay for Labor Day weekend! Three days off to...well...clean the apartment. Although if it stops raining for long enough I might head out here for a day hike. For now, though, there's a spot on the futon and a good book waiting for me!
Happy Labor Day Learning 2.0ers!

Woof, I feel like I've been parked in front of this computer forever! I just finished up creating the first official blog for the Freedom Flyer - check it out here. It's not very pretty yet, though - before I do another one I need to figure out how to add tables and such to a standard blogger post. (Or maybe just do a custom layout...lots of coding, either way!) For now, though...I need to get away from this monitor before my poor abused eyes go on strike.

Holds expired team meeting today - it was at Independence, which meant I got to walk there and back, and I'm now in my apartment, typing this up while I have lunch. This way I can work on the Freedom Flyer or the holds list from 4:00-5:00, (normal lunch time when I'm on the 12-9 shift), and I still get to skip the crazy 2:00-3:00 school traffic on Independence. Nothing like being stuck behind a smelly school bus for half an hour as it stops and blocks traffic every 200 feet to drop off screaming kids! (Kids who then go running into the road anyway...tying up traffic both ways and nearly causing accidents...*sigh*)
Anyway, changing the subject away from East Charlotte's kamikaze kiddos...one of our managers, Michael, pulled me aside the other day and brought up the idea of transforming the Freedom Flyer into a blog. (How many blogs would that put me in charge of? Five? Six?) I still kind of prefer the idea of having it in paper form for everyone, for the same reason that I print out the staff.org newsletter each month - people are more likely to read something if you put it right in front of them. However, it might be fun to have it in both formats - I have to type out everything I put in the Flyer anyway, so it wouldn't be too much extra work to upload it to a blog, too. I may mock up a template for it when I have the Flyer done tomorrow and run it by him...bringing the Freedom Flyer into the 21st century...man this little newsletter's come a long way since it started!
Stuff to do, stuff to do...I need to get Annette's birthday buckeyes in travel-ready boxes and hit the road. I have to get on my to-do list from the holds meeting, work on the Flyer, and, most importantly...get to work! (Not that I'm officially late, since I'm scheduled to be gone until 4:00, but still...) Before I go, though, here's a few more Learning 2.0 related links:
Continuing on the subject of RSS feeds, I know I'm repeating myself here from a previous blog, but I can't stress how cool Hennepin county is, or all the different things they've done with newsreaders. How awesome would it be if PLCMC reached this level one day...although most of our patrons would probably have no idea how to use it. (That's what the library's for! Learning experiences!) LIS news has a link to their feeds as well...I get their news through e-mail already, though, so I don't think I'll sign up for this one. (For those who are really into their new bloglines accounts, though, it looks pretty nifty!) And last, but not least, the U.S. government has an RSS Library site - for those interested in government doings, I can't think of a better place to get your news! Stop by and check it out - their featured sites even has a link to feeds and podcasts straight from the White House! For a US government news source, I don't think you can't get more direct than that!
Well, cross your fingers with me that the buses are all off the roads by now, all - I'm off!

Feeling a bit better today - still not quite able to manage solid foods, but I've got my little bottle of water to carry around with me, so we're doing good. (I still owe Miss Annette some birthday buckeyes, though - hopefully I'll feel up to facing a bit of peanut butter tonight!) Just a little while ago I was bragging about how much sick time I have saved up - I think I jinxed myself, because I've had to call in on two sick days since then. (Or it could just be the standard hazards of working with the public are catching up to me...)
At any rate, let's get moving and knock out the Week 4 Learning 2.0 checklist! Now, once again, I've had my bloglines account for a while, and since I don't check it often as it is, I've never really felt a pressing need to go out and look for more feeds. Still, the whole point of Learning 2.0 is to try technology-related things we wouldn't normally try, so I used the links from the Learning 2.0 blog and set off on a feed hunt.
First stop: Feedster. Pretty easy to use, but most of the stuff I found wasn't what I was looking for. Most of the feed links I got were for personal blogs...and introvert that I am, reading about the daily lives of people I've never met and know nothing about doesn't hold much interest for me.
Next up: Topix.net. Like it says on the Learning 2.0 blog, this one's focused more news and media outlets for feed links...but I prefer to get my daily news from over at the Washington Post news site. Eh, good site if you want to get all your news through feeds, though. Moving right along...
Number three: Syndic8.com. Probably my favorite site out of the four listed, I even found a feed for Anime News Network to subscribe to. (Since when does ANN has an newsfeed? Five-star niftiness!) This one seems geared more towards feeds from websites, rather than personal blogs or news sites, which makes it a good one for those of us who like to surf, and want to use RSS feeds as a way of knowing when a page has updated.
And finally, last...and, well, least of the four, Technorati. Another site for personal blogs, but the search engine wasn't quite as user-friendly as Feedster's. Tecnorati searches in three categories: keyword in blog post, keyword in tags, and keyword in blog directory. Searching for things in a blog directory seems to give the best results, but even then they're still generally half relevant, half random. I suppose if you were just surfing around for neat things to look at, this could be a fun site, but if you're looking for a specific type of feed you're pretty much out of luck.

In conclusion, I suppose I'd have to say that my favorite way of finding newsfeeds is still to go to my favorite sites and see if they have an RSS feed of their own...and then use the feeds as a way of knowing when to check the original site for updates. What can I say, I'm a (web) surfer girl at heart, and the idea of getting all my info from a single site every day is no fun. Now if you'll excuse me...according to my new newsfeed, ANN has an update on their main site that I should go check out.:P

Well, now that the day's almost over, let's get moving on the next part of the Learning 2.0 checklist. (Man, time flies when you're feverish and unconscious!) Number eight isn't much of a challenge for me, as I already have an account with bloglines. I did start up a blog there as well, though, in honor of the whole Learning 2.0 experience - who knows, maybe it'll get me to look at the bloglines account more than once a month. (Maybe? Hmm...) RSS feeds don't really do it for me, to tell you the truth. Yeah, you get all of your news in one place, but it's not like it's really hard to click through your favorites list and visit each individual site, either. Reading stuff through bloglines is also a bit...well...dull. For example, I keep up with Neil Gaiman's on-line journal, because it's awesome to hear about the daily goings-on in the life of an insanely successful writer. (My #1 goal in life is to be a successul writer myself, for those who haven't already heard this a million times) Bloglines lets me know when he's updated, and gives me the update, but it doesn't let me see Gaiman's actual site, and it doesn't let me see any new graphics or links he's added. Yes, I admit, I'm a slave to cool site designs and pretty graphics, but really, I've always found the bloglines site to be a bit slow, so it's not like there's much of a time difference between loading the original, shiny site and loading the RSS feed. Eh, I'm not trying to make it sound as if I don't like bloglines - I do, and I do enjoy playing with my feeds when I remember to - but for me, it's just not the superamazingcool new toy it seems everyone wants to make it out to be. As for how libraries could make use of this technology, I think the coolest example is over here at Hennepin county's site. Personalized library RSS feeds - now that might make me check my bloglines account more often!

Ugh, what a Monday.
Woke up today feeling dizzy and groggy, but I figured it was just a case of the Monday blahs until I discovered I was having a hard time staying upright. Last time I tried to blow off a dizzy spell like this, I ended up with a sprained ankle, so this time I was a bit more careful. As it turns out, though, it's not my anemia acting up again - I just have a nasty fever. (So...um...yay?) Since I'm stuck at home for the day, I guess this means I have plenty of time to get caught up on my Learning 2.0 checklist, so let's get started.
Today's blog is dedicated to technology - so I'll do a little spiel on one of my favorite time-wasters: bittorrent. Bittorrent is a P2P file sharing program that has grown steadily in popularity over the years. It works like this: first off, you have to download a bittorent client. (I use ABC, but Azureus is probably the most popular right now) Once you have a client, you have to find torrents; the easiest way to do that is type the word "torrent" into Google and see what sorts of sites come up. Once you have found a torrent for the file you want, you download it, then plug it into your bittorent client and start downloading the file itself. What makes bittorrent different from other P2P file-share clients is that the moment you start downloading a file, you automatically also start uploading. While there is usually one main source that does nothing but upload, or "seed" a file, all users who download the file are also uploading parts of it as well, which is what makes bittorrent so fast. Bittorrent breaks a file down into pieces for faster uploading/downloading, and when you download a file, it draws file pieces from as many different sources as are available; the more people there are uploading a file, the faster the download.
For example, let's say a new Charlotte band wants to make their new single available to their fans over the internet, but their main site doesn't have great bandwidth. Instead of having it available for direct download, they create a torrent for it, and post the torrent on the site instead of the file itself. Their fans then download the torrent and plug it into their clients. At first, there are 200 fans uploading/downloading the file - this means that when bittorrent downloads the file for an individual, it is pulling file pieces from 200 different sources and the download only takes a few minutes. A few months later, though, only a the band and a few hardcore fans are still seeding the file. That means when a person goes to download that file, their bittorent client is only receiving file pieces from a few sources - thus the download takes longer. If the band decides to stop hosting the file altogether, and the fans stop seeding it, then bittorrent is unable to retrieve file pieces from any source, and the torrent is dead, meaning that if even if you download it and plug it into your client, there are no file pieces available for it to find, so it won't download anything.
The upside to bittorrent is that it's generally faster than other P2P clients, and there's a huge community for it, so it's easy to find whatever file you're looking for. The downside is that it relies on individuals seeding a file, so if you're halfway through a download and everyone who was seeding it suddenly stops, chances are that you're never going to get the rest of that file. However, unlike other P2P clients, bittorrent relies on a community of seeders, so if you can convince even one person to start uploading again, you can finish downloading your file.
That's it in a nutshell - for a clearer explanation, and/or to get started using bittorrent for yourself, head over to the main bittorrent site.

Played around with a few tools on Flickr today like a good little Learning 2.0 student. The trading card maker is the most fun, although the idea behind Mappr is very cool too...but I had some trouble with it, which cost it some coolness points. It's very slow, and the pictures didn't seem to want to load properly on my computer screen - either they don't load at all, or I only get blurry little thumbnails. Still a very nifty idea, though, and I did get to see some cool pictures from my hometown of Granville, Ohio. (Yay for the crazy pink Buxton!)
Sooo...if I can get my act together and blog about something technology-related tomorrow I'll be caught up on week 3 - just in time to be behind again with week 4. (Sigh) I have to get the September Freedom Flyer out by Wednesday, though, so Learning 2.0 might have to go on hold for a while. Hmm...I could talk about Learning 2.0 in the Freedom Flyer...now there's a good front page story idea! (The front page is always the hardest!) I wonder if messing around with Publisher to put out a newsletter counts as playing with technology...not that I really need to dig for a technology subject. (I'm always messing around on the computer!) Ooh...speaking of which...Week 4 involved RSS feeds - I already have a very active account over on bloglines, so this week might end being a gimmie for me! (That'd be nice...)

Oh my.
Apparently adding a PLCMCL2 tag to your photos on Flickr automatically makes them appear in the little slideshow on the front page of the PLCMC Learning 2.0 blog. So now Matt and Shundra, (pictured in the last blog), are famous - well, in our library system, anyway. Matt thinks it's funny...Shundra, however, may kill me when she comes in on Monday. (Maybe she won't notice if I don't tell her?) It's nice to see FRL rated up there with ImaginOn and Main in something, though, and it's also nice to think that PLCMC employees are looking at my photos every time they log on to the Learning 2.0 blog. (Me? Vain? Nah...maybe just a little!) I'm having a good time on Flickr now, personally. Some of my PLCMC colleagues are apparently hardcore photographers - if you want to see some amazing albums check out their work here and here. I have no eye for artistic pictures myself - I just snap shots of anything nifty. Speaking of which, I still need to upload the Hawaii album to my Flickr account so I can send the link out to the family, and I should work more on my Learning 2.0 checklist...but it's the weekend, so all that's going to have to wait for Monday!

My Friday off would be a great day to get things done if I could wake up at a decent hour. Anyway, here's my post with some pictures I took around the library yesterday. (Matt and Shundra were good sports about posing for me - Matt even gave himself a special Learning 2.0 hairstyle!) As for my feelings on the experience...well, anyone who checks out my Flickr account can tell that I'm no stranger to playing with a digital camera and posting the pictures online. Mostly it was just another chance for me to mess around and take goofy pictures of people - which is never really a bad thing!

Busy day, busy day.
I've spent a large part of the day helping my coworkers get up and running with their own blogs, as well as adding my own comment over on Freedom Regional's blog. I'm still bummed that this is all mandatory now, but at least I'm getting in a lot of practive with Habit number 7 of the "Habits of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners." (I still feel like number 7 1/2 has been tossed out on the curb for this program, though.) I'm learning a bit more by helping other people too - I just figured out today how to change/modify my blog templates. I'm not sure I'm up for coding a personal customization just yet...I may have to browse around and see if there are any other sites for Blogger templates, though! (If I find any nifty ones I'll post links to them - and if anyone here knows of anything like this, leave a comment and let me know!)
I'm going to try and get started on my Flickr checklist tonight too. I already have a paid Flickr account - I just need to start using it and upload more pictures to it. (You know you mess around on the internet too much when you get excited about a site, pay to be a pro user, then immediately forget about it in favor of the next new shiny distraction!) I got some fun shots of our branch today, so hopefully I'll toss some of those up here either today or tomorrow.
Ooh, and students come back tomorrow - and I won't be here! Part of me is a tiny bit sad to miss out on the initial excitement...and a slightly larger part of me is very, very grateful that I'll be missing out on the initial craziness!

Well, bah.
So now this whole Learning 2.0 thing is mandatory, which kills the fun for me. Instead of using my cute library kitty picture I have to post a picture of myself. Bah. Instead of playing around for the sheer joy of it, I'm obliged to keep up with the list because I'll be in trouble if I don't. Bah. Instead of being something to do when I want to for fun, this has become something I have to do for work. Bah, bah, bah. (Apparently I go into sheep mode when I'm disappointed) Ah well, I suppose it was too good to be true - work's work, that's why they have to pay you to show up.
On the bright side, it makes me feel a lot less guilty about not updating regularly like I originally planned on doing. Anyway, I need to get myself caught up on this check list!

We had our Silly Circus here at FRL today, and it was fun, though it got a little crazy. (For future reference: snowcones + library carpet = bad idea.) This snowcone dye is pretty stubborn too - I've washed my hands several times and it still hasn't come off. (Miss Annette cleaned it off her hands using Comet...but I'm not that anxious to get it off!) Good times all around - and our new manager really proved himself today.:)
One of my coworkers has recently started grad school for her MLIS, which is what I will be doing around this time next year. The reading I can handle - it's the starting classes again and writing papers with actual deadlines that I'm a bit nervous about. The fact that I'm planning on getting a degree in library science lead to a discussion on the future of libraries in general, and librarians in particular. For my part, I see both libraries and librarians becoming increasingly high tech, and I think that will lead to a higher demand for qualified librarians. When I was in elementary school, I practically lived at the local library, which was a decent-sized, two-story building...about the same size as FRL, actually. Know how many librarians worked there? About 6. (Compare that with FRL's staff of over 20!) There just wasn't as much demand for them - the only times they interacted with the public were when they were doing programs, checking out materials, or helping someone find a book - I'd say around 75% of their time was spent shelving and keeping the building in order. We still do all of that, but we also spend a lot of our time showing people how to use the computers, envisionware machines, search PACs, and so on. As I have been typing this post from the lab, in fact, I have had to pause to restart a computer where someone didn't close out of their session, show a patron how to copy and paste a webpage into MS Word to make it print the full page, show a patron how to paste pictures into word, and help a patron add extra rows in a table for their resume. Libraries have always been about learning. In the past, books were the main source of learning - now it's predominantly computers. Librarians of the future are going to be the ones showing people how to use all of this new technology, and libraries are going to be the place people come to to play with it and learn about it.

Which is what this whole Learning 2.0 program is about, right?:)

*P.S. Right as I was about to close out this window, the patron I had shown how to copy and paste webpages into Word stopped by my station, smiled at me and said, "You just taught me something tonight." That sums up a large part of what my job is, I think.;)*

Today was a stay in bed sort of day...and that is exactly what I did. Bah.

Weekends don't count.:P

So...let's get back to the Learning 2.0 checklist, which is the whole reason I started blogging here in the first place.

For me, the easiset of the 7 and 1/2 lifelong learning habits is definitely number 7 and 1/2 - play! (I'm good at playing around with stuff!) The second easiest would probably be viewing problems as challenges, especially when it comes to technology problems. Mind you, I may not always be up to meeting the challenge on my own, but I'm always willing to give it a shot! (Ask me about the time my first PS2 stopped working and I downloaded instructions off the internet to try to fix it on my own...)

As for the hardest, that would probably be beginning with the end in mind, mostly because I rarely have a set goal in mind when I start out doing something. There's always a vague concept of what I want to accomplish, but that doesn't solidify into a clear cut goal until I've already started. My goals, and the order I want to accompish them in, change too much from day to day.

Whew, there's not much August 11th left - I'll have to type fast if I'm going to get in today's post!
Work was a little stressful today - the internet was down until around 4, although Firefox started working again around 2. (Proving yet again that Firefox is superior to IE) Most of our borrowers left as soon as they heard that we didn't have internet access, so things were pretty slow at the circulation desk. It picked up a little for me in the last hour though - I ended up calling out for a lot of requests for quick pick-ups and the like. Things got a little heated at one point over a request for a browsing paperback, but we managed to get our borrower what she wanted, and she left in a pretty good mood. (Sorry I ended up causing a bit of trouble for you all over at Morrison! No hard feelings - everyone was just doing their job the way they'd been told to, right?)
I've been poking around the Learning 2.0 checklist a bit - some of these things I've already done. My librarything page is already linked in my profile - maybe for my Learning 2.0 session I'll upgrade it to a paid account and try to catalogue all of my books...that'll be a job and a half! I have an account at bloglines already too - I mostly just use it to keep up with news from Slashdot and Fark, though. (I use it to read cartoons too and check the weather too!)
And that's all for tonight. It's a lovely Friday night, after all - can't spend it all sitting in front of a computer!

So much for the idea of updating eveyday, ne?

Well, I haven't given up on it completely. My main problem was that I didn't have anything going on in my life that I cared enough about to share with the world. (Hello world, today I went to work, then came home, ate some pizza and messed around with my computer a bit...and that was it. Stay tuned for tomorrow's exciting installment.) My life makes for dull reading. So, instead of writing about myself, I'll toss up opinions and links to some of the things I'm interested in and see if that inspires me to head here daily. Be ye warned: my biggest interests right now are environmental/humanitarian issues and anime, so if that sounds even less entertaining than the story of how I spent the afternoon napping, run away.

Thus, without further ado:

Environmental/humanitarian
-Interesting stuff on the front page of Care2 today. I don't check out this site as often as I should - though that's mostly because so much of it nowadays is depressing and/or infuriating. Still, for anyone looking to keep up with the major environmental news of the day, you won't find a better spot!

-Yet another petition to try and get our leaders to acknowledge the dangers of global warming and actually do something about it over at the petition site.
I signed it, of course, but sometimes I feel like things are going to have to reach cataclysmic levels before anyone in power takes any sort of action.

-Interesting link from Red Cross today - this might also be something my fellow librarians would want to make note of. The link is here, for anyone interested in checking it out. This is a site for someone who has been involved in a disaster and has been unable to contact friends and family; the individual can register themselves as "safe and well", letting their family and friends know that they are okay. This would be especially helpful to people travelling overseas right now.

Switching gears over to anime:
The big news today, for me anyway, is that they're working on making a movie based on the manga of Battle Angel Alita. According to wikipedia, the movie is (for now) going to be called Battle Angel, and will be based off of the first three volumes of the manga. Unfortunately for fangirls like me, it's not set to start production until 2009, but I suppose it's nice to have things to look forward to. For more info check out the wikipedia link.

Well, that's a pretty decent entry - let's see if I can keep it up!

And we're off! I've never had an account just for blogging before - I use Livejournal mostly for passing around quizzes and posting weekend plans, and MySpace is my spot to post pictures and pass around bulletins. Maybe this will be good for me - I'll do my best to post something in here every day. (I need the writing practice!) We'll see how long that resolution lasts...