"This is the end" (The Doors; Song: The End; Album: The Doors)

I can't quite believe that I'm writing my final post for 23 Things and that I managed to reach the end by the deadline (and also that I thought of over 23 related song lyrics by bands I like; sometimes more of a challenge that the task set for the week!)

I started 23 Things a few weeks in, spurred on to get involved by all my colleagues at SSL that were taking part (the main topic of tea break conversation was 23 Things, so it was essential to take part really!). I'm glad that I did as I've throughly enjoyed the 23 Things experience, though at times it has been hard work trying to keep up to date with all of the tasks, and I've done a lot of it in my own time rather than at work. Also, having so many colleagues taking at work part meant that you instantly had someone to go to if you were having problems and already had lots of available candidates when tasks required you to send something to someone etc

The Web 2.0 tool that I enjoyed using the most was actually the thing that I thought I would enjoy the least, and that was my Blog. At first I was a bit nervous about creating one and was a bit concerned about what I would write and imagined suffering from writers block continually. In fact I've found it to be the exact opposite and can quite easily type away, rambling on with ease. I've especially enjoyed fiddling about with the design of it, adding photos, gadgets etc to make it more interesting, and having a nosey at other peoples Blogs to see how they found the tasks set.

The 'Thing' I enjoyed the least was LinkedIn. I could see it potential and how some people would find it really useful but I didn't feel it was for me and did feel comfortable about adding lots of details about myself to it; so now 23 Things is over I will delete my profile from it.

Other highlights were Flickr, RSS feeds and podcasts. I also enjoyed getting to grips with Twitter (as everyone seems to be using it) although I'm not sure how much I will use it in the future, where do people find the time to send constant Tweets??

To sum up, it's just nice to feel more confident about using lots of Web 2.0 tools and to have an understanding of how they work and their potential for Library use. The next step will be getting together with other colleagues to evaluate what we have learnt and see which things we could use here at the SSL for the benefit of staff and readers.

"Everything you do is quite delicious" (The Cure; Song: Why can't I be you?; Album: Kiss me, Kiss me, Kiss me)

I'm obviously too tired to be trying to do Thing 22 at 10.30pm; I was ages looking for the Labpixies del.icio.us widget before I realised I was meant to be looking on my igoogle page rather than my Blog page! As soon as I realised adding my bookmarks was a quick and painless process, aided by the fact that I had my Del.icio.us user name to hand.

As iGoogle is now my default start page it makes sense to also feature other web 2.0 items I've signed up for on it. So now at a glance I will be able to see and access my bookmarks, in a similar way to me being able to access my RSS feeds that also feature on there. I must admit that I hadn't logged on to my Del.icio.us account since we did that task as part of 23 Things so adding it to my start page which I use all the time is a good idea and will make me use it more.

There are so many interesting gadgets you could add though that you could get carried away, so it pays to be selective, but it's good to know that you can quick and easily add something new if you get bored and what to liven up your start page.

Wow, only one more Thing to go!!!!!

"Picture me with you" (Maximo Park; Song: Postcard of a Painting; Album: A Certain Trigger)

Hurray! A 23 Things task that I had already previously completed. When I originally set up my blog way back in week one I spent quite a bit of time playing around with it and adding various gadgets to make it more interesting (and pretty!). I noticed at that point that you could add photos from your Flickr account on to it and saw from exploring other peoples blogs that some had done this. As soon as I had created my Flickr account and had uploaded some interesting photos I set about adding the photostream to my blog. This seemed very straight forward to do and I didn't encounter any problems.

"I said no, no, you're not the one for me" (KT Tunstall; Song: Black Horse and the Cherry Tree; Album: Eye to the Telescope)

ThinkFree Online said that it was java based, in my opinion it needed a large cup of it to speed it up a bit. It took ages to load up and when I finally got to the point of loading up a new document I was then rewarded with an error message. I was trying it out on my laptop at home so I'll try again at work to see if I can get round this problem and test the site out more. In its favour I did like the fact that I didn't need to sign up for yet another account and could log in with my Google one.

I had more success on my work computer and managed to load a new document without any errors. I actually quite liked the word processor on this site, it felt nice and familiar as it was very close to my usual Microsoft Word. What put me off though was the slowness still remained; which is a shame as I did like the look of ThinkFree online and liked what it had to offer. In the future I would stick to Google Docs, but it was good to explore an alternative to this.


Riddle Answers from previous Post:

Sweetcorn

Air

"Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere I choose" (The Who; Song: Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere; Album: Only released as a single)

I had no prior experience of Google Documents, so it was nice to find that it was really intuitive and easy to use. I quickly created a new document and sent it to 3 other 23 Things participants at SSL. I then went on to create a form (a really useful Google Documents feature) asking if the people I wanted to share it with could answer 2 riddles (listed at the end of this blog post in case you are interested). I liked how the answers they entered would automatically be entered into a spreadsheet for me to consult, with no work having to be done by me.

I really liked this web 2.0 tool and can see the benefits of being able to access it from any computer that has an internet connection, using as a secure file store, and possibly saving you money when buying a new laptop if you don't want to buy all the usual software you require from Microsoft. It was also a convenient way of sharing documents with people that you could all edit easily. Definitely a web 2.0 tool I would use again.

Riddle Questions:

I throw away the outside and cook the inside, I then eat the outside and throw away the inside, what did I eat?

What can fill a room but takes up no space?

[Answers at the end of my next Blog post.]

P.S. Failed miserably to think of lyrics to a song I liked that would be connected to Google Documents so had to go for a reference to nearing the end of 23 Things. Europe I hasten to add are not one of my favourite bands but the song is fun and I can remember dancing a school discos to it!

"Some useful knowledge can always be found" (INXS; Song: Heaven Sent; Album: Welcome to wherever you are)

I was already aware of Wikipedia (how can you not be when it is claims to be the largest and most popular reference work on the internet!), and use it mainly for finding information about books, films, tv series (useful for a quick summary of an episode if you missed one); and travel information. On reading up about Wikipedia it was interesting to see that the top 10 subjects referred to in 2009 consisted of famous people, bands, tv series, films, and web 2.0 tools; so it looks as though most people use it for similar subject areas to me.

For this task I looked up some information about a book I was thinking of ordering and also took a look to see if the Social Science Library was on there. I discovered via the 'Discussions Tab' that the page for the SSL had been put there as part of a Wiki project for Oxford University to improve coverage of the university on Wikipedia. There was more information that could be added to the page but I felt I would want to more research (check dates) etc before I went ahead with doing that. Other people may have just gone ahead, relying on their memory; so you can easily see why mistakes could me made; leading to inconsistency and accuracy problems.

Although there are negative points about Wikipedia; such as accuracy and possible vandalism of certain subject pages; I do think it is a very useful free reference tool. It is amazing to think that since its conception in 2001, millions of people have contributed and edited articles featuring on it. I can remember weekly trips to my local mobile library as a child to consult hard copies of the Encyclopaedia Britannica for my homework that week, I wouldn't even have to leave the house now (though maybe I would still want to check the validity of what I had read on-line, and you can't beat a trip to your local library!)

"Come together, right now ..." (Beatles; Song: Come Together; Album: Abbey Road )

I was aware of wikis because of the C&RD wiki; although I hadn't looked at it for a while as technical services is not really my job area, but because of it I understood what a wiki was. As I couldn't remember my log on details it was useful that you could still gain access via your Facebook or Twitter account.

The Web 2.0 wiki was full of useful information and interesting to look at now I've gained more knowledge of the web 2.0 tools out there. I was a bit hesitant about editing the work someone else had already done, so I looked at the case study for current web 2.0 tools used by the SSL and added some information about the iGoogle start page I helped to set up last year, as I felt this would be useful for other libraries.

Wikis seem to be a really usefuly tool. They are easy to contribute to and edit by multiple users (maybe to easy to edit as someone could easily write false information), and I imagine are much easier than trying to do the same via a web page. They are a simple way for groups of people to log information, discuss ideas, and provided useful comments and tips' all in one central point of reference. I would definitely refer to the web 2.0 wiki in the future before developing use of a web 2.0 tool for the library.

"She can sing like a bird in a cage" (Arcade Fire; Song: (Antichrist Television Blues); Album: Neon Bible)

Just spent a large chunk of Saturday afternoon getting to grips with Twitter (I can't seem to find time to get on with 23 Things tasks in work time). Twitter is a Web 2.0 tool I was aware of but didn't really know what is was all about and how to use it. So now I understand that it is essentially a brief form of a Blog post from which people get let you know what they are up to or share information that other followers may find useful. When sending a Tweet having a countdown of the letters you are typing in certainly makes you keep things short and to the point (perhaps I need this on my Blog to stop me rambling!)

I began by searching for fellow 23 Thinger from SSL so that I could follow some people I knew, and then branched out by following a few famous people and also Radio 2. Adding Tweets was very simple (once I had decided what to put!) and I soon worked out how to ReTweet and Tweet replies to people (I'm waiting for someone to Tweet me back so I can see what that looks like on my Twitter page).

I contributed to #ox23; it was quite interesting to see that some people had been Tweeting from the Staff Conference.

Not fully sure what to make about Twitter yet, I think I need to play around with it a bit more and start contacting more people to get conversations going, and then I can judge how much I might use it in the future. It has been interesting though to find out more about it, understand the Twitter jargon and feel confident about using it.

"I hear a sound, a sound above my head" (Doves; Song: Kingdom of Rust; Album: Kingdom of Rust)

I've no idea why I haven't used podcasts a lot up until now. There are radio programmes that I enjoy but if I happen to be out and miss them, then I just miss them. So in the same way as I view the majority of my tv programmes when I want to watch them via Virgin on Demand or on-line, I hadn't really considered doing the same for radio programmes. So I really enjoyed this weeks task of getting to grips with them and exploring all the types of podcasts that are out there.

I eased myself in gently by subscribing to an RSS feed of the podcasts of the Jonathan Ross show on Radio 2 as we listen to that every Saturday morning if we can. I then found a Claudia Winkleman Arts show that looked interesting sosubscribed to that as well. We recently went to see the comedian Dave Gorman at the New Theatre and hasn't realised that he had a radio show until we went, so I searched for that online and listened and subscribed to the podcasts for that. So now I will have all these new podcasts to listen to (if I find the time!) and like the idea of downloading them to my ipod so I can listen to them on the go or even on long car journeys. I did have quick look on the podcast.com site where that are 1000's of podcasts, so I'll have to explore that a bit more and find other things I'm interested in listening to.

Last years library trainees here at SSL created a podcast for a tour of our library as their final end of year project. This was then made available via our website and also downloading on to some MP3 players we purchased which readers could borrow and do a self guided tour. We felt this would be useful at the start of MT for new students that were unable to attend the library induction and also thought out the year for visitors to the library. The only problem is that we've had such a lot of changes recently in the library that the content already needs updating. It would be interesting to explore though other uses for podcasts in a library context in the future.

"Watched tv, laid awake all night" (Barenaked Ladies; Song: What a Good Boy; Album: Gordon)

YouTube is one web 2.0 tool that I use alot. My brother is constantly sending me links to funny clips etc. I also use it for viewing trailers for films I might be interested in, and looking for videos from music concerts I've been to, among many other things. There is so much on there and I can happily spend an hour looking for videos that I might be interested in.

At the moment I am taking a night school course in pottery, so I searched YouTube for some demonstrations of people throwing pots on a wheel; they make it look so easy!

I hadn't used the Channels section before and I'll definitely use it again for searching for topics of interest. I had a look at the kind of videos that had been loaded against Oxford University, there were 100's of videos on there ranging from films of matriculation at the Sheldonian, interviews with students to videos of formal dinners at colleges. Alot of these would really be of interest if you were thinking of applying for the University and wanted to see more about what student life would be like. The demonstrations of e-resources were also useful and could easily be built in with links from library webpages to assist students with using them.

"I was looking for a job and then I found a job" (The Smiths; Song: Heaven knows I'm miserable now; Album: Hatful of Hollow"

I had never previously heard of LinkedIn, although it says it has massive membership. I can see why it would be good for social networking in a professional capacity. You have the opportunity to make new contacts in your career area (first viewing their profile to find out more about them), but also reconnect with past colleagues from previous work places. It also looked very useful if you were searching for a new job, as well as being able to search for opportunities, you could also be head hunted. I suppose the more you put into it the more you would get out of it, so it would help to write a good profile of yourself, so you almost have an on-line CV.

I'm not sure how much I would personally use it in the future, but I can appreciate that it does have its uses.

"Painted faces fill the places I can't reach" (Kings of Leon; Song: Use Somebody; Album: Only by the night)

I currently have a profile on Facebook but don't use it in the avid way that some people do. I initially joined when I found out about a group called 'The SSL Appreciation Society' formed by readers a few years ago (most probably now defunct). They had amusing ideas on there such as a competition to see who could write the most stupidest comment in our reader comments book, which is probably why we had the suggestion for 'Bunk beds for power napping' (needless to say this never came to fruition).

I suppose I currently use Facebook more to have a nosey at other friends pages and see what they are getting up to, but myself, I don't seem to find the time to be constantly adding things to my wall, and prefer to contact friends directly via the messenging service within it. I have found it a great way of keeping in contact with friends that have moved abroad though, and it great for looking at photos that people have uploaded to their page, as they can just do it in one central place. I can understand why some people might be initially nervous of signing up, but with the security level settings you can really control what you want people to see and if you don't want someone to be your 'friend' then don't accept them. My Mum was on the receiving end of this when she asked to be my brothers friend, and he sent back a rejection message, in some circumstances it best that Mum's don't see all the wall comments and photos that you add!

So with my bit of knowledge about the ins and outs of Facebook I was really interested to look at the Libraries that had set up a Facebook Fan Page and what they had done with it. There were a lot more than I thought there would be, so it was interesting to look at the different styles that were used, some were quite formal and others were quite chatty and had fun information connected to libraries, as well as more formal information. I think it is a really good way of connecting to readers, there are so many different web 2.0 resources that people are using that the more you use, the more likely you are to reach readers, who can then subcribe to the resource they prefer. The popularity of this method was also proved by the number of fans for each page. Setting up the page looks to be quite straight forward, the layout is very clear with the tabs along the top; I particularly liked the 'Boxes' tab where you could put useful links to the library catalogues, e-resources etc. The important thing is that you get the information you need to across readers, what ever the means and by the looks of it this is another web 2.0 resource that seems to be work for this purpose. I definitely think it would be a good thing to explore in the future for our library.

"Libraries gave us power" (Manic Street Preachers; Song: A design for life; Album: Everything must go)

I was quite surprised at how many libraries were currently using web 2.0 tools; so it was really interesting to look at the Directory and explore the way they were using them. There were a number of Delicious users so it was good to get a feel of what resources they were promoting to their readers. By looking it from a work perspective I can now see why Delicious would be a useful tool to use; as it is a quick way of gathering together useful resources for readers that can easily be searched via the tag facility.

The other beauty of it is that it would be so easy to set up for readers to use; the time would just be spent in gathering together all the websites etc that you felt you should bookmark; and making sure that they were up to date in the future and to keep adding so that it stayed interesting.

I found the networking facility straight forward and added the VHL and a fellow 23 thinger to my network, and it was good that it kept these under a separate section so that they didn't just appear under your own bookmarks. It was also quite interesting to see what other colleagues had bookmarked.

"And I lost my page. Again" (The Strokes; Song: Trying your luck ; Album: Is this it)

Thanks to having already set up the Yahoo account for Flickr the first step of signing up was made easy. Downloading the 'Bookmarklet" was also a good move as it made the process of adding any bookmarks I wanted quick and simple. Delicious seemed very intuitive to use. Tagging was especially very straight forward with all the relevant tags already appearing at the bottom of the screen and then just selecting what you wanted to add to your bookmark.

I'm not yet convinced of how useful I will find Delicious; it didn't immediately grab me in the way that some of the other web 2.0 tools we have tried have. As far as accessing my bookmarks go I have them neatly grouped under different headings in my favourites on my home laptop and at work I tend to use my favourites or my most frequently used ones are on my iGoogle start page. I don't tend to need my work ones at home or vice versa, or just tend to search for the relevant website I want via a search engine if I can't remember it off the top of my head.

I did like the 'Explore Tags' feature though, where you could look for other topics that were of interest to you, and so potentially discover other websites you didn't know existed or articles on topics of interest, so I'll have a play around on this a bit more.

"Old red eyes is back" (Beautiful South; Song: Old red eyes is back; Album: 0898)

Castello Sant'Angelo, Rome, originally uploaded by twilight!74.

Picnik is yet another useful Web 2.0 tool that is very simple to use. I'll definitely use it in the future for editing my photos and removing all those annoying red eyes etc. An added bonus was that you didn't even have to register to use it. It was quite fun playing around with the photos to get the look you wanted, although it was tempting just to click on Auto Fix to let the site do it all for you!

I've added to this post a photo I edited via Picnik, taken at Castello Sant'Angelo in Rome.

"Hold still wait for the click" (Barenaked Ladies; Song: Christmas Pics; Album: Barenaked for the Holidays)

Social Science Library, originally uploaded by twilight!74.

Here's one of the photos I had taken in SSL a while ago, which I uploaded to 23 Things on Flickr (spot the SSL staff member lurking in the back ground!)

"I've been looking so long at these pictures of you" (The Cure; Song: Picture of You; Album: Disintegration)

Sausmarez Manor, originally uploaded by twilight!74.

Here's one of the first photos that I uploaded to Flickr. It's a close up I took of a sculpture in the grounds of Sausmarez Manor on Guernsey.

"Flick-A Flick-A Flick-A ... Here you are!" (The Cure; Song: The Caterpillar; Album: The Top)

I love Flickr and I can see already that it is yet another Web 2.0 tool that i've never used but will continue to use in the future. The closest I've come to uploading photos and editing them is using Photo Box; which I currently use to order prints of my photos. I found it really easy to use, once I'd set up my yahoo and Flickr account (this seemed to take a while for me as every yahoo e-mail address and Flickr screen name I choose was already taken!).

Uploading the photos was a really simple process and so quick to do (on Photo Box it seems to take forever). The sets option is a really useful feature for organising your photos in a coherent way. Being able to tag and add descriptions is also useful and the geotagging feature is brilliant, I also liked viewing my photos via the slide show option.

As I wanted to create a set on a theme, the first photos I added to my Photostream are photos of sculptures I have taken in various places. It was nice to have them all together in one set and really interesting to look in one set as they had been housed in all different folders on my computer according to the trip they were taken on. I'm going to continue create sets on other themes of interest to me.

At the moment I'm being a bit cautious and apart from the photos I took of SSL to upload to the 23 Things Group I've made them all private; which I would always tend to do for holiday/family photos and just share them with friends and family. I'll probably change this in the future as I add more things and finish adding more sets and playing around with them.

"I've got a feeder for you to perch on" (Eels; Album: Daisies of the Galaxy ; Song: I like birds)

I found that I already had a Google Reader account from a previous training session, so that was one less thing to do. However, I hadn't looked at it since the course so I was only currently subscribed to one feed.

I found this task quite straight forward, it was more of a case of thinking of things I wanted to subscribe to. I settled on feeds from the National Gallery, Oxford Playhouse, 2 from Carluccios (one of my favourite restaurants) which has separate feeds for events connected to the restaurant and one for Antonio Carluccio's blog, and finally a feed from one of my favourite bands 'They might be Giants'. It seemed to vary to how prominent the RSS feed logo was on each of the webpages, some needed a bit of finding.

I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of information I'm getting each day in my Google Reader though, learning more about managing my account and subscribing to more feeds. I may even wonder how I managed without it before!

"Hope you don't mind that I put down in words" (Ewan McGregor's version from the film Moulin Rouge; Song: Your Song)

Setting up my blog was suprisingly easy, and I soon got the hand of adding posts, editing them and changing my settings. If anything I spent too long changing things around, altering font and colours and adding gadgets; it can soon get quite addictive. My one fear of not being able to think of things to say hasn't come to fruition yet, in fact it's is quite easy to just ramble on and on. The other addictive element is having a nosey at other peoples blogs taking part in 23 things.

So at the moment I am very in favour of blogs but I guess it depends on what they are being used for. Our blogs for 23 things have a definite purpose but I can't imagine keeping a personal one for myself rambling on about what I ate for tea etc. As far as their use in a library environment we currently have one that has been set up for a while that is to keep staff informed of IT problems, lost property, visitors, items for collection and other useful information that they will need to know for their session on the issue desk. We've found it is a good way of keeping e-mails down and a central point that all staff can refer to. It also has the added bonus of having an archive of posts which will be of use in the future (e.g. how to solve a particular IT problem).

I also had a look at some of the OULS Library blogs. They all seemed informative and user friendly and were a good way of getting readers to keep abreast of library news. I can also see they have the added advantage of being much easier to set up and maintain than websites.

"An end has a start" (Editors; Album: An end has a Start; Song: An end has a start)

I had actually created an iGoogle page in the past after attending a WISER session which introduced you to a few Web 2.0 tools, which included start pages. I thought they were a really good idea so I followed up on it after the course and created my own. However, as I had done this over a year ago it was time for an update, so I've added some new gadgets (I'm now the proud owner of a pet hamster!) and changed the 'Theme.' There are so many gadgets you can add that you could get a little carried away, so I've tried to limit it to things that are useful (bookmarks, to do list etc) and a few things that are decorative but interesting (places to see etc).

After creating my own page I felt it would be really useful if we had an iGoogle page for our staff issue desk pcs. I created this along with a colleague and we have used gadgets such as a Note Book to create an FAQ section for helping staff deal with issue desk queries, a To Do list for vacation tasks, Bookmarks for frequently used websites, and a few fun extras as well. I've also included an image of this page as well.

"Like Harrison Ford I'm getting Frantic" (Barenaked Ladies; Album: Stunt; Song: 1 Week)

Finally I'm getting started on this '23 Things project' just a few weeks late, my main problem is that there always seems to be another 23 things I needed to get finished before I could get started with it!

I thought that taking part would be a really good introduction to Web 2.0. Looking through the different tasks that we would be asked to complete I could see that there were some things that I already knew how to do, or already used, but there were lots of things that I hadn't and wanted to try. Also, it's great to be able to take part along with a lot of other people at the same time, that way you know there will be plenty of people that can answer you questions if you get stuck on a particular 'Thing.' Lots of colleagues are taking part in my work place and so 23 things has generated plenty of talk at coffee breaks, so it's good to be involved so you can join in the debate!

Inspired by a fellow colleagues Dr Seuss quotes as titles for posts I'm going to try and head as many of my posts as possible with lyrics from songs I love, which are connected to the theme of the post (most tenuously and I can see me spending longer of thinking of them than it takes me to actually do the task and write the post!)