Thing 22 - Reflections

'23 Things' finished! Time to go back to crime-fighting.....

Well I have reached the end of 23 Things and my overall feeling is one of satisfaction. I will try and explain in this, my final post, simply how I found the experience, what I enjoyed, and what I disliked. To begin with however I will provide a few statistics that you may find interesting. My 23 Things consisted of:

• 23 Posts
• 1103 blog views (as of 21/4)
• 36 Comments
• Most commented on post: 'Thing 15: Library Thing'
• Most viewed post: Thing 1: 'Lund does Blogging,' followed by 'Thing 13: Reflections.' 

I am quite surprised at how many page views I have, and although in the blogging world this is comparatively a tiny amount, I am still quietly impressed that I have so many people visiting my blog. I do fear however that people have found it accidentally whilst looking for information on Sarah Lund of The Killing fame!

The post for which I received the most comments was the post I probably most enjoyed writing so I was pleased to get some recognition for this. I also found this post satisfying as I was able to impart some of my knowledge and help others display the Library Thing widget. This is significant I think as really this is what blogging is about: collaboration and community. If people can learn something from my blog and I from theirs then I think this is testament to the whole exercise being a great success.

Another success for me was not just helping people out 'virtually' but actually in person. Some of my colleagues and I set aside some time each week to work through the things together and I think this was helpful for all of us involved. Although many of the things weren't new to me, I found myself learning new skills in demonstrating some of the things to my colleagues, so in this respect I have found 23 Things immensely satisfying. I have also had a chance to explore in more depth some of the 'things' I have sporadically used over the years, and has actually encouraged me to start using them again having previously written them off (for example Delicious and Flickr spring to mind).

So, before this turns into an Essay (which it could, only it is Sunday night and I should have finished this last week!), I will now highlight may favourite and least favourite aspects of 23 Things:

• Favourite 'thing' overall: Twitter. 

This was quite hard to call, as there were many 'things' that I enjoyed, but Twitter is truly something I use everyday. Although I am by no means a prolific 'tweeter' myself, I do check it regularly and follow a number of feeds that truly keep me in touch not only with the world around me, but also some of the things that are most important to me professionally and personally. Twitter is a wonderful tool, and once you get your head around it, is very simple to use. I can't recommend it highly enough.

• Least favourite 'thing': Netvibes.

Ugly looking, clunky and with a distracting number of tacky widgets. It was a shame this was one of the first 'things' we were introduced to as I think it may have put a lot of people off. Looking at reviews of it however I seem to find myself in a minority with my dislike of it. It has also been touted as a worthy replacement to Google Reader. With this, I disagree and shall say no more than that!

• What 'thing' am I most likely to use at work? Probably Thing 1: Blogging itself.

This question highlights one issue I have with 23 Things in general and that is it is clearly predominantly designed for Librarians and Information professionals. In my working life as a Library Assistant I see no need for many of the things, and bibliographic software and Slideshare perhaps stand out the most here. That is not to say that being aware of many of the 'things' isn't valuable and by virtue of the fact that I work in an academic library and face a wide variety of enquiries everyday, knowing about many of the 'things' is actually quite important. I would like to think that I can in fact incorporate many into my working life, but I may only be able to do this by actively making these a part of my job. So for instance I have been actively involved in setting up and contributing to the WSA library blog, and also have access to the library's twitter feed and facebook page (mwahahaha the power!!), but I got involved in these because I put myself forward and really find that I get increased job satisfaction through these.

So to conclude, I have very much enjoyed 23 Things and although it has been a bit of a struggle at times to fit it all in, I do feel satisfied with the amount of work I have put in and the knowledge I have gained in doing so. Thank you organisers of 23 Things for all your hard work and guidance. Also, please be aware that it is my birthday this Friday - a day before the prize giving if I am not mistaken ;-)

Thing 21: Google Drive

So with technology moving so fast, it is often hard to keep up with which inventions are having the most impact on me. One development however that stands out for me is undoubtedly Cloud computing. The idea that you no longer have to save everything to portable hardware devices and can access your files from any computer (with Internet access), and from anywhere in the world, is quite outstanding. For someone that constantly loses small things like memory sticks and has always therefore been at risk of losing hours of work in the process, cloud storage has become a dream come true.

'Clouds' by mnsc on Flickr

When I first discovered cloud storage, Google Drive didn't exist (it wasn't released in fact until April 2012), so I chose one of the popular models of the time which was Dropbox. I found it very straightforward to set up and upload files, and download versions on my laptop, desktop, tablet and smartphone. Dropbox has been truly indispensable over the years, especially when I have been studying. I don't tend to use it so much to store photos (especially since iCloud has come about), but overall, Dropbox is an essential part of my technological life.

So over to Google Drive. Could it replace my beloved Dropbox?

Well one thing stands out immediately: You get more free space (5GB) than with Dropbox which is only free for the first 2GB (although you can gain extra space through referrals).  Another added bonus is that you can create files directly in Google Drive. In addition to creating documents, spreadsheets, forms, drawings and presentations, there are many more apps available in the Chrome store which will allow you to create further features such as mind-maps, videos and diagrams.

On balance, there is more you can do with Google Drive, and when you have a Google accounts for other things, then it makes sense to integrate your cloud storage with Google as well. However, after Google decided to do away with Google Reader, which must have been one of the most popular RSS readers around, I'm not sure I have total faith that Google Drive will be around indefinitely. In fact, after discussing this very fact with my husband he pointed me in the direction of the following article on the Guardian website which discusses the lifespan of Google services and APIs. It makes for interesting reading and has encouraged me to for now, stick with Dropbox which I have been happily using for a number of years....

Thing 20: Slideshare (with a bit of Prezi thrown in)

Well the end is now in sight as I begin my posts for my final week of 'things' (although I am still behind schedule at this point!). I have some familiarity with Slideshare but have never really explored it in any depth. As I have left my studying days behind me (although never say never!), I don't really have the use for this kind of software, although there may come a time when I need to use it so getting to grips with it seems like a valuable exercise. If Slideshare was just about presentations then I would favour Prezi which offers a very dynamic experience where you can zoom in and out of presentation media. In fact here is a Prezzi presentation I made myself about The Killing. This is particularly for those people who still think Sarah Lund actually works somewhere in one of the UoS Libraries.....

Back to Slideshare then, which not only hosts presentations, but also documents, PDFs and videos. It has been described as one of the top tools for learning so I spoke to my husband who is a teacher, about it since he uses it quite regularly in his classes.  He pointed out that it as useful to him as a research tool as it is for his students who find it quite straightforward to work with. Comparing it to Prezi though, students find it less appealing as it clearly lacks Prezi's dynamism and interactive features, only being a space to upload presentations rather than create them from scratch.  However, the major advantage of Slideshare is of course that you can use existing presentations or documents as templates and add your own material to them - or 'remix' as Slideshare refers to this practice as. 

I chose one of Phil Bradley's presentations to embed into this blog, and it is just one of many he has created discussing the relationship between libraries and social media. Although very basic in appearance and not especially 'polished,' it does hold a lot of information (perhaps too much?? I found myself tiring a bit around slide number 40....).

   

Why librarians must use social media from Phil Bradley

In conclusion, I think if I am looking for a short presentation, with a bit of flair then I will stick to Prezi, however if I am after tools for educational purposes then I am more likely to go to Slideshare for research. There is a lot going on in this site and unfortunately I have not had the time to explore it in any detail. I will certainly return to Slideshare in the future to see what else it has to offer me.....

More Library related randomness

Before I get back to the more serious matter of actually trying to complete 23 things (which is looking like a bit of a challenge at the moment) I feel I need to share the following find. As we all know, working in a library can be a dangerous occupation. I for one will never forget the day I was nearly crushed to death in the rolling stacks.

Via Dark Roasted Blend

Apparently there is a sub-genre called 'bibliomysteries' - not come across this before but judging by the number of titles dedicated to deadly books it is obviously a popular topic! Here you will find more examples including 'The Mystery of the Human Bookcase' and 'Murder: First Edition'!!

Thing 19 - Wordle & Tagxedo

I enjoyed this 'thing' as it allowed me to be both creative and to come up with as many stereotypical definitions of Scandinavia and Scandinavians that I could think of (I hope my Norwegian colleague never sees this!). Anyway, I found this exercise quite worthwhile and can see how both Wordle and Tagxedo could be used as tools for learning, although within an academic library setting I think their value might be a bit limited. 

My Scandinavian themed Wordle example.

Tagxedo gives you more control over your word clouds than Wordle does, but I feel the site is not particularly user-friendly and is quite clumsily put together. Although this isn't especially relevant, I am increasingly finding that I desire to only access well put together sites, with clear and concise links and good usability. I don't think Tagxedo fulfils this requirement. However again, it is very useful as a tool to create interesting and striking visuals and could be used educationally, for marketing purposes or even just for the sake of art! It is free and quite fun, allowing me to again indulge my Scandinavian obsession (and get a couple of Killing references in there as well!).

Thing 18 : QR Codes

Before beginning this exercise I must admit that I had little time for QR codes. I saw them purely as a consumer advertising ploy and am of the opinion it is just quicker to enter the URL into your browser and go straight to a web page this way, rather than faff around with opening a QR reader and then getting the code to scan correctly. I was however quite intrigued at designing my own, so as instructed,  I went to the following generator and set about creating my code. I started with something basic and produced a code which links to this blog. However, since QR codes are designed to be used on printed materials and largely as marketing tools, I got thinking about how they might be used in the library.

My very boring looking QR Code.

My colleague had the very good idea to make a code for the WSA Library blog posts relating to our new acquisitions, which could be printed on a poster and placed at the loans desk. This would have the dual effect of getting more users to access our blog, and also provide a quick and easy route to seeing what new books we have in the library, rather than accessing this information through WebCat. In other words, the QR code can provide a quick and direct route to a particular website, rather than clicking through more than one link which is obviously more time consuming. I really like this idea and think that other QR codes could be dotted about the library for various purposes (by the MFDs for example with a link to isolutions troubleshooting pages). However, from a widening access to resources perspective, QR codes are problematic. Not everyone has or uses a smartphone or tablet device, so if we were to rely too heavily on QR codes, a number of users would be at a disadvantage. 

The more I look into QR codes though and recognise their value as a marketing tool, the more positive I feel about them. The following page featuring some creative uses of QR codes (including edible QR cookies!) has confirmed that they can be used in unique and innovative ways, and do not need to look like my very ordinary example above.