Thing 6: Blog Readers

Google Reader was very user friendly to set up. I have already added it to my iGoogle homepage. What an awesome organizational tool!!! I added North Texas 23, my blog address, and a co-worker’s blog address to my account as my first three subscriptions. Having all this information in one place will make it much easier for me to access. The ease of updating the settings is a huge bonus.

Thing 5: Image Generators

I previewed the image generators listed on the North Texas homepage for Thing 5 and decided to go with Image Chef for my posting. I played around with several templates and tried different phrases. My final selection was the template of a button. I inserted the phrase “Read a Book Today!” I really enjoyed this exercise and hope to be able to use this feature in the future.

Thing 4: More Flickr

I experimented with all the Flickr Mashups. Some seemed easier and more user friendly than others. Spell with Flickr and Captioner were to the point and self-explanatory. Big Huge Labs on the other hand was much more involved since there were various tools to choose from. I used Flappr to search for “Grand Canyon” which resulted in 3,277 images. Colr Pickr was…. colorful. I never fully got the hang of FlickrFling and Retrievr. Flickr Sudoku seems fun…especially for anyone who likes to play Sudoku.

I used Spell with Flickr to spell “Library” for my blog posting. I kept getting error messages when I tried to post it even after following the instructions about copying the code. My next attempt was to try to post one letter. As you can see above, I was able to post the letter "R" by saving it as an image and then embedding the image into my blog.

Thing 3: Flickr

On Flickr, I chose to search for “kittens”. I discovered tons of photos of the cutest kittens. I was amazed at the fact that there were 926,005 results for this search. I tried to narrow the search by searching for “kittens in trees” which resulted in 2,888 results. When using Flickr, you definitely need to make sure you have lots of time if you want to thoroughly navigate through all the information that is available on your subject.

I thought this link was especially cute… http://www.flickr.com/photos/newlight2/315777031/ This kitten has the prettiest eyes.

Web 2.0 and Library 2.0

I first chose to read “11 reasons why Library 2.0 exists and matters.” Under the section, “L2 requires a fundamental change in a library’s mission,” I feel as though it is important to examine any library’s mission as the community changes since the mission is meant to encompass the needs of its patrons. The statement that “But collectively, we have the resources and societal placement to provide vital services that extend beyond our local communities” is a fact that many libraries are currently facing. As many libraries are facing budgetary cuts, we rely on each other more and more to help provide our patrons with the information they are seeking.

In the video “Web 2.0…The Machine is Us/ing Us”, the following words appear on the screen, “Digital text is above all…hyper.” I found this to be a good summary of how our world currently seems to operate. Information is processed at such a fast rate that sometimes it’s as though the world has become “hyper”. This transitions into hyperlinks which is just another way of getting to the information we want…faster. One of the clips in the video displayed the heading “There’s a blog born every half second.” Wow! They mentioned how we are teaching the machine every time we post and tag pictures and how we teach it an idea every time we forge a link. The statement in the video that “Web 2.0 is linking people…” is very true. I agree that we need to rethink copyright and privacy. It becomes so easy to put information out there that sometimes we forget to stop and think about whether or not we should.