a little personal note for the friends and fam.

okay fam. no more complaints! here is a photo for you guys...it is week 30. 10 more to go...okay you can't really see how big i am. i just look like grey boobs...that is actually what i have mostly become, just more boobs(as if that was needed!). the photo was for our new promotional stuff for the accountmangers. i'll get you guys a good one soon i hope but it is a start right? i know i have to do better.

step #8~more play time!

Ontdekoefening

1. Zoek hieronder een image generator uit (of waarom niet alle drie uitproberen?), waar je kunt manipuleren met plaatjes en woorden en schrijf erover op je weblog
2. Toon ons het resultaat van je bewerkingen.

got to play around with some very fun toys using things found on Generator Blog, FD’s Flickr Toys and CustomSigngenerator. i loved making my own ice cream with Ben & Jerry's(pb&j...yummy! if only it were real) but you can't stick the end result on your blog so i used the wigflip superstickies i found out about via the blog schaap veronic.

http://wigflip.com/superstickies/


i'm hoping to get some photo's up later today andmove on to step #9. check back later for the next round.

step #7~ what's in a word?

step #7 ~ Ontdekoefeningen
Ontdek en speel wat met een van de hierboven genoemde Flickr mashups en third party toepassingen. Wil je er nog meer bekijken? Kijk eens rond op Flickr Bits and Pieces / webapps en The Great Flickr Tools Collection.
Schrijf er een bericht over op je weblog.

so this time around we got to play with picture toys other smart people developed. first i scanned photos by colour with with the flickr color picker. seriously cool!!! even photos in all the different shades of grey...

then i check out some of the photos from my parents neighbourhood available via the google maps and flickr mashup. there was one of the swimming pool down the street and the main shopping street up the road. there were a few of the parks and creeks and such around. oh and a really funny video of an extra long accordian bus doing a 180 degree turn...it was only funny cause you don't expect that from such a huge bus. when you know the actual size of the place where it turned all you can think of is what a skilled driver. she/he makes it look soooooooo easy!

and finally i checked out the spell with flickr...now that is fun! i love how you get to play with each letter and make up your own words and ...just so fun!

for those of you looking at the letters going what in the world did this chick spell...read.c66...what does it mean...the word "read" what every librarian wants to encorage and then "c66" which is my cutter number. and now the next question entering every non-north american librarians head...what is a cutter number? be really web2.0 and check out the wikipedia definition of cutter expansive classification:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutter_number#Cutter_Numbers

happy reading!

step #6~ my friend flickr

Books_03, originally uploaded by Javier Pico.

a dude named javier pico took this great photo. it is part of his books series and is entitled Books_03. you can find it and other equally super duper fabulicious photos on flickr. as part of step#6 of 23 things i kind of did a combination of exercise a and b. i have searched through flickr many times before i thought it was about time i opened my own account instead of just checking out everyone else’s cool stuff. my stuff isn’t cool but it is a great way to share with the friends and fam. around the world (think of it as a step closer to some bump photos guys). so this time around i opened up my own flickr account, added some of my own pictures that my friends and family can check out but i added someone else’s photo to my blog. this is actually the second time i have attempted to add a photo to my blog. the first time it didn’t work…no one knows why. i asked around and got no real answer so i tried it again and now it is working. Perhaps it was feeling moody. i have no idea. but it works now and hopefully i can beautify my blog a little with some fun library themed photos. maybe I’ll even get totally crazy and include stuff that has nothing to do with a library…we will have to wait and see. in the meantime mom, go check out my triathlon photos on flickr.

oh ps. flickr might be a sharing kinda thing but you still gotta respect the property owner. i emailed mr. pico to get permission to use his photo. i haven't heard anything yet but if he doesn't like the idea that i used his stuff i'll find something different.

step #5 ~ the hunt for the rss feed

Ontdekoefeningen
Experimenteer met enkele van de hierboven genoemde zoektools, die je helpen om nieuwe RSS feeds te vinden op het gebied van bibliotheken. Een ander onderwerp is natuurlijk ook goed
Abonneer je op een aantal van die nieuwe RSS feeds en schep orde in je Netvibes pagina door het toevoegen van nieuwe Tabs
Schrijf een blogpost over je ervaringen. Welke zoekmethode vond je het prettigst in gebruik, wat vond je moeilijk? Heb je nog andere dingen ontdekt, andere zoekmiddelen?

it turns out that i had actually done part of step #5 without realising it. i just started looking up all my favourite sites and blogs and added the feeds. but since step #5 also asks you to look things up via certain search engines (like google blogsearch and bloglines) i did a little surfing and hooked myself up with some new blogs about knitting from friends from the international scarf exchange i did last year (mandy knits and and sew knitting begins) and found myself some new website rss feeds like jamie oliver’s diary and real simple magazine. an egofeed about myself was totally not interesting but i tryed it out for the sab...we'll see what that brings. i had added tabs earlier and organised it according to messages, news and blogs but i feel i miss the whole picture by having everything on a separate page. i like it organised in the three separate blocks but i like it all visible on one page, so i am sticking to my columns. i know i’m very picky that way. i also eat my dinner one food sort at a time separated on the plate, put all my information in tables, organise my craft supplies in separate labeled boxes by kind, and so on and so forth. it must be a personal idiosyncrasy. but i also realise that eventually my newvibes will get out of hand and i will be forced to reorganise my information so that i can remain on top of things. we will see then what i do. in the meantime i think it is time to move on to jazzing up my blog with a little fliker…time for step #6.

step #4~rss feeds!

Ontdekoefeningen

the ontdekoefeningen is way to complex to cut and paste this time around so I will attempt to summarise…

• read about rss feeds
  
• make a netvibes account
  
• include the following rss feeds on your account-nos, dok, marktplaats, gizmodo,
  
• add your co-workers blogs
  
• add the rss feed from 23dingen
  
• add the 2 rss feeds from the nlbiblioblogs wiki
  
• use it regularly

i actually already had a greader account that i made use of on a regular bases. since netvibes was recommended i figured i would give it a shot too. i actually like it more then greader i think. the way i am wired (i like to put things in boxes and label them…i like to make sure things are colour co-ordinated…i like structure…it helps me function on a far better stress reduced level…and in case i hadn’t figured that out on my own that accoumanagement test we did proved it) enjoys the fact that with netvibes i can move things around and put them in columns and colour code them according to what type of thing they are and move them into order of importance and play with the settings until i’m a happy camper. plus i can add a cool themed photo and such should i chose. the only thing i’m not willing to take advantage of is the ability to publish your rss feeds publicly so the world can view everything you have hooked yourself up to. that is going a little to far for me. not that i’ve linked to anything risqué…peoples magazine is still usually pretty g-rated…but i’m just not down with that kind of sharing…don’t be a sheep, go find your own stuff!

oh i’m not really anti-sheep. they are quite cute and fuzzy. they make great wool for knitting warm and lovely wearables but it is time we attempting to remove ourselves from the sheep herd mentality and expand our horizons…they say the grass is always greener on the other side.

step #2- beyond reading about 23dingen and starting to do 23things

Ontdekoefening

• Schrijf een blogpost over de weblogsoftware die je gekozen hebt en wat je er tot nu toe van vindt.
• Schrijf een tweede bericht, waarin je iets vertelt over wat jouw ervaringen tot nu toe zijn met Web 2.0 toepassingen. Nog géén idee wat die term inhoudt, kijk dan eens naar wat WikiPedia erover zegt. Of blader eens door onderstaande presentatie over “sociale software”, want daar gaat het in 23 Dingen vooral over.

well honestly i think that this first question is a bit silly(sorry) post a blog over the websoftwear you chose and what you think about it so far. i chose the websoftwear cause jules discovered gmail several years ago and liked the layout so she recommended i check it out for a food feeds you can get through it. the blog i started last year cause i needed to have access to the international scarf exchange weblog and they wanted you to also have your own blog to share stuff about how your scarf was going and such. i never made an actual conscious choice about what i was using it just kind of fell into my lap. i haven't weighed the pro's and con's of different softwear choices i have just used what was offered to me. not a good start i realise but what can i say. it is convenient. and what do i think about it until now...user freindly and simple to use. my only problem is the speel check doesn't seem to work. so sorry for the many spelling mistakes the world is bound to find.

the second question...what is is my experience with web2.0 stuff...well...i facebook daily(a social-networking site) , i've had a blog for a year (that i never used) (a blog), i use greader to keep up-to-date with the rss feeds from my cooking blogs(zuccini&chocolate) my library blogs(obnoxious librarian) my useless celeberty gossip website (People magazine) and my friends blogs(a mashup?), i chat online, i've done live chat reference, i read wikipedia(for fun not to use as an actual source have no fear!) (a wiki) and i have edited articles for it too, i've checked out flickr and all that is has to offer(maybe later i'll start an account there too when i have photo's to share with the world and my friends who live all around it) i use itunes for my ipod and listened to running podcasts with it, i've bought things via ebay, i've tagged things via del.icio.us(folksonomies) and i've read countless articles about web2.0 how to intigrate it into our services as a library. i'm not technically inclined so i stay away from things like personally using rich internet applications an just use those from other people. regardless of my use the whole idea remains a bit of an unknown for me. i grasp the concepts behind it, think it is fabulous but still feels funny and wait to follow someone elses lead. my hair is down and i search for articles on the internet but i'm still a bit of a drowsy sheep.

A year later!

well ladies and gents, I started this blog up more then a year ago with the idea that i would come up with some super stellar theme to write periodicaly about. as you will notice i never got past the first posting. why? well, i just couldn't think of a good enough theme to use. the thought of having a blog that just chatted on about anything and nothing really didn't appeal to me. it has the potential to be incohesive and unstructured and that irkes me. what is the point of having a public space where the world can view your thoughts about important things if you have nothing important to share and what you do have to share hangs on nothing but your own random thoughts...on the other hand perhaps my random thoughts are important and meaningful for more people then only myself and maybe that is the new theme for my blog...my random thoughts count...we will see. but for the next few months this blog will be the breeding ground for my offical fore into the world of web2.0. it is not a theme i feel the world actually needs to read about from me because there are much more schooled people for that topic. but it is part of a new initiative at work called 23dingen...or 23 things. initially begun by helen blowers of the public library of charlotte and mecklenburg county in the states it is now an internatational movement within the library world that is attempting to bring our slightly rusty yet very loveable library as a whole into the now and maybe even the future rather then relying on only a handful of people to push it into the right direction...the direction the rest of the world is heading towards and has already reached...and probably surpassed. this is our attempt to catch up and maybe even eventually supersede as a collective in order to meet the needs of our users...maybe before they even know it is a need. i mean that is really what working in a library is all about. so hopefully this will help us get on the same page as our users so that we can provide services that fit the times and actually meet the needs. what a novel idea! don't get me wrong i don't think we are all light years behind or anything. i've given up wearing my hair in a bun while using the card catalogue to search for a book on monastic libraries but a lot of us arn't really leading the pack. we can't all be leaders but we can't all be drowsy sheep either. but that is in and of itself a seperate issue... for another time? i have digressed!


23 things that's what this is all about...okay so this space is now designated 23 things space. the next few months will bring postings based on the 23 excercises of the program. since i work in the netherlands and this particular program is given in dutch postings will often have bilingual elements. all i can say is happy reading.