Loca Librarian

Wiki

2008-02-28T20:23:00.001-08:00

Several months ago, I spent two days at a middle school telling the students how to find reliable sources online. "Library database: good." "Wikipedia: bad." A site where anyone can change information without proving their expertise is not a relevant source for a research paper. I admit, I sometimes browse Wikipedia just for fun, or to get a preliminary idea of my subject. But you have to take what you see with a grain of salt. If you like Star Wars, check out Wookieepedia.

Rollyo

2008-02-06T18:52:00.000-08:00

I created a Rollyo searchroll for genocide and human rights sites and blogs. I am sure I will add more as I come across them.

I had some difficulty posting the Rollyo bar on my blog. Thanks for your help, Glaucia!

Library Thing

2008-02-06T17:27:00.000-08:00

As someone with a vast library at home, Library Thing would be great to help me "catalog" my collection. If I had the time, that is. I may be able to get ideas for books to read by perusing the groups. Assuming the posters have anything intelligent and coherent to say.

My Library Thing

Play around with an online image generator

2008-01-11T13:43:00.000-08:00

I had poked around Flickr toys during the Flickr exercise, so it was fun to explore more image generator sites. Some of the sites were pointless and random (type in your name and a word pops up that has nothing to do with you). At least the sites with online quizzes have some meaning - you have to answer a question, even if the choices are limited. I explored Books for Dummiez, the Catalog Card Generator, and Spell with Flickr. I liked the Black Adder quote generator. I assume these are for your blog.

This image is from Sporkforge.com - Sketch Generator.

My sister had gotten a tongue ring while away at school. My parents nearly killed her. My dad took her to a tattoo/piercing place and had her get the piercing taken out. As an older cousin and pain-in-the-you-know-what, I doctored this photo of my little cousin. Someone's gotta be an influence on the kid. ; Þ

Thinking About 2.0

2008-01-02T12:06:00.000-08:00

"Librarian 2.0 controls technolust This librarian does not buy technology for the sake of technology. " This quote is by Michael Stephens in Web 2.0: Where will it take libraries? "Into a new world of librarianship: Sharpen these skills for Librarian 2.0." As entertaining and enticing many of these technologies are to me (especially flickr toys), we cannot afford to buy into every single new trend. With property tax and other budget cuts, we are limited how we spend our funds. Subscribing to a program just to say "we offer this service" is a waste of funds if the service is not utilized and just eats money.

Dr. Wendy Schultz, in her article "To a temporary place in time...: On the way to the library experience of the future," brings the evolution of libraries full-circle. In "Library 1.0: Commodity," there is an emphasis on books, research, and education. "Library 2.0: Product" focuses on libraries in the digital age and people creating their own content (MySpace, You Tube, Facebook, blogging, LiveJournal). "Library 3.0—Web 3D to Library 3D: Service" talks about librarians in the virtual world. "Library 4.0, the neo-library: Experience" includes aspects of Library 1.0 through 3.0: book storage and retrieval, digitization, virtual librarians, etc. It also will have a space that harkens back to the old-fashioned library with quiet reading rooms.

Schultz mentions virtual worlds such as Second Life. I've heard about Second Life, and I have to admit I'm not as knowledgeable about it as I should be. Nor do I have an interest in joining that community. I don't have time to look at all the rss feeds and newsreaders I signed up for on bloglines - how do you expect me to create and maintain a virtual avatar? Libraries going virtual - will the whole world one day be virtual? Will we receive all our mail, movies, music, and books via the computer or i-Pod or MP3 player (without ever having to leave home)? Will there come a day when the only "face-to-face" contact we have is on a virtual plane? Having access to research, news, and communities online opens a world to people who live in isolated areas or cannot get the support or information otherwise, but there is still something to be said for personal face-to-face interactions, hearing someone's voice on the phone, or reading a handwritten letter someone took the time to write and mail. Maybe one day Schultz's Library 4.0 will come to fruition - and we can have the best of both worlds.

Sarah Scrabble

2007-12-29T11:28:00.001-08:00

Sarah Scrabble
Originally uploaded by quackers82

Enough said.

Trading Card Maker 2

2007-12-29T11:23:00.001-08:00

Loca Librarian - The Dark Side
Originally uploaded by quackers82

Librarian joins the Dark Side. Mwa ha ha!!!!!! } : )

The Librarian From Hell, Part I (Tag Your Own Blog)

2007-12-21T11:27:00.000-08:00

Since I can blog about anything, I decided to write a story. Hope I'm tagging this correctly.

Author's Notes: This is a work of fiction. If you have employed at your branch a librarian like Ms. Oksana, please send her our way. Thank you.

The Librarian From Hell

Part I

The first time I met the new children's librarian, I was getting in trouble for playing Halo on the kids computers. Mr. Jim was saying we had to go to the teens computers if we wanted to play violent games. Kyle and Luis and me, we're good at ignoring some of the lady librarians, but we can't ignore Mr. Jim. That dude is like 6 feet or something. And he can be real scary. We stood up and made like we were gonna log out, then we waited until Mr. Jim was walking away and sat right back down. Five minutes go by, and next thing I know there's this woman going by dressed all in dark purple. Long black curly hair with a shock of white and big dark eyes. She had to be only like 4 foot 9. Real crazy looking. Shouldn't be too hard to ignore.

The librarian came up to Luis and stared him in the eyes. "You feel like reading a book," she said in a soothing voice. Her eyes - I swear they turned red and started glowing.

I nearly fell off my chair when Luis stood up and said "I feel like reading a book" like he was in some sort of trance. Then the dude goes and starts reading a book!

She turned to Kyle and told him he wanted to learn how to grow green beans. So Kyle starts looking up green beans - in books! Man, that's what Google is for.

I quickly logged off and ran away before the freaky lady could get to me.

"Walk!" Mr. Jim barked.

"Who's that new librarian?" I asked him.

"Oh, her? That's Ms. Oksana," he told me. "The new children's librarian."

"That woman's weird," I said. I started telling him what she did to my friends, but Mr. Jim looked at me like I had an alien coming out of my forehead or something.

The rest of the week, I kept a close watch on Ms. Oksana. There were less people on the computers. Seemed everytime she was around, more and more kids were reading books. All she had to do was look someone in the eye, and they'd instantly obey her. One time I asked Luis if he wanted to try beating me at the videogame I got for Christmas, and he just offered me a book and said I should read it cause I might enjoy it.

That's it, I said to myself. Ms. Oksana has got to go.

To be continued ...

Tagging and Del.icio.us

2007-12-16T17:04:00.000-08:00

As with many of the other technologies I'm learning with TLC 2.0, the more I use Del.icio.us, the more convenient it will become. I set up an account and tagged some of my favorite websites. I also played around on the Del.icio.us site and searched various terms to see what other users tagged. I looked at people's comments - some were generic (i.e. "this is good") and other comments actually were useful (they gave a detailed summary and/or critique of the site).

If you are interested in seeing my tags click here

Trading Card Maker 1

2007-11-25T19:12:00.001-08:00

Loca Librarian - Sad Baby Dolly
Originally uploaded by quackers82

Here is my trading card. It's a picture I once took of a rag doll. I was curious to see what she'd look like with a frown instead of a smile. It doesn't take much to entertain or excite me.

More Flickr Fun

2007-11-25T18:58:00.001-08:00

Kitty
Originally uploaded by quackers82

I played around with Flickr Toys. If I actually had more photos posted on Flickr, I would have tried the one that gives you a black background. The calendar, movie poster, captioner, and color pickr looked neat. I'm glad I'll know where to look if I ever want to do something funky with my pics. The one I didn't like was the beads. It was hard to see the picture (maybe I should try it with another one).

This is the Warholizer. Yes, that's me in my leopard Halloween outfit. Contrary to this and the other photo I posted (Devil Sarah), I am sweet and innocent - not evil. [No smirks from the gallery. This means you, Mary and Katie.]

Explore & Learn About Flickr

2007-11-04T11:47:00.001-08:00

Selena 4, originally uploaded by Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary Wolves.

You gotta love the wolf in this photograph amidst the snow-covered branches. This was obviously not taken by me. Credit goes to Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary Wolves.

Locate some useful blogs and feeds

2007-11-02T19:21:00.000-07:00

When I first opened Syndic8, I found it too confusing. When something overwhelms me, my brain shuts down. It refused to make sense of Syndic8. I tried exploring the site later, and it made a little more sense, but I won't be using it. Topix linked me to Sun-Sentinel articles for the local section. I will have to play around with these sites more until I feel comfortable with them.

RSS Feeds and Newsreader

2007-10-26T21:26:00.000-07:00

For some reason, I wasn't getting a confirmation email via my bellsouth account, so I ended up creating a bloglines account with my hotmail account. Subscribing to the feeds was easy - it was choosing which feeds that was difficult. I'm one who agonizes over the smallest decisions. There is no way I'll be able to keep up with every single feed I subscribed to. I assume this was practice subscribing to feeds?

You can link to my feeds by going to

http://www.bloglines.com/public/localibrarian

Ciao!
Sarah

7 1/2 lifelong learning habits

2007-10-13T11:16:00.000-07:00

The easiest lifelong learning habit is "accept responsibility for your own learning." How I learn is up to me. If I need assistance, I must ask.

The hardest lifelong learning habit is "have confidence in yourself as a competent, effective learner." It's too tempting to say I can't do this, especially when you first start learning a new skill. Until I get used to working with these technologies, the instructions will seem like gobbledy-gook.