Thing #31: More Twitter

We're really just getting off the ground with Twitter. I'm following several different news sources (some of which surprisingly found and friended us out of the blue (like the Minnesota Daily -- wonder how they found us? It's a nice little boost!)

At first I had the profile under my own name with my photo. But as my colleague and I talked about it more and how we could both post Tweets, it seemed we should change that. So I took my name off it and posted a photo of the Library. We're talking about getting updates to our Library blog posted automatically to our Twitter feed. Under this Thing, it looks like TwitterFeed might be the way to do that. The instructions look pretty easy.

I might also start a personal Twitter account just for fun and my own personal use. I have to say, I was skeptical at first, but I'm enjoying looking at the news updates. I like the brevity of the messages with the option to click on the link for the whole story.

I'd say I'm at the Twitter stage of trying it out and considering how we might use it beyond just reading other people's feeds.

Thing #30: More Ways to Use RSS & Delicious

I understand the principle of RSS and how very useful it might be for some people, but I haven't incorporated it into my own life. (Come to think of it, maybe I subconsciously am by using My Yahoo as my personal home page. I continually get updates from various news sources by means of the widgets I've chosen. Not sure if that counts as RSS, but it does follow the same principle.)

Here have been my stumbling blocks: I subscribed to several feeds via Bloglines, but the number of posts got overwhelming. Plus, it meant remembering to go to Bloglines to check them. As it is, I have an established rhythm of checking a few sources regularly, and adding the Bloglines routine felt overwhelming: too much info.

That said, I could subscribe to or just read selected feeds. But I ran into an email problem. My feeds were automatically going to my email inbox at work, and it was way too much of a good thing. My inbox was getting bombarded and filling to capacity. Finally, I turned off that function. Now I can't figure out how to turn it back on in Outlook, though I've followed the directions. (SIGH) Oh well, getting off topic...

I am using my blog's home page, though, to check on updates of a few of my favorite blogs by means of the blogroll. I like how it puts the most recently updated blog at the top and lets you know when it was updated.

Now, delicious I've been using and loving for more than a year. We have a Library account to which we add useful bookmarks that we and our users will find valuable. I also have a personal delicious account. I love being able to find my bookmarks on any computer, and I love how easy it is to add sites by means of the toolbar. I also like how you're able to find the most popular sites for particular tags.

Right now on our Library home page we have a link to our delicious account, where viewers can peruse our sites with most recently added at the top. But what I'd like to do is take advantage of the tagging to use them for subject guides.

Oh -- and I added the Library's delicious links to my blog, with the tag cloud displayed. Pretty cool to see!

Thing #29: Google Tools

Great tools here, for sure! They're fun and powerful.

The first one I tried was Google News. I hadn't realized you could get headlines and stories aggregated in Google from so many places. I tried the archives search and was really impressed. Hadn't realized all this stuff was available outside of paid databases. I recently read All Quiet on the Western Front for a class I'm taking in WWI literature. So I typed "Erich Maria Remarque" in the News Archives search box. I got some really interesting results back to the time the book was published. Also an old New York Times article from when Remarque and Paulette Goddard were married.

Then I tried GMail. Or maybe I should say I retried GMail. At the urging of my son, I opened an account back in 2005 when it was brand new and only a select number of "invitations" were given out to join, and my son got me invited. But I didn't really use it -- not because I disliked it but because I was used to my Yahoo account and satisfied enough that I didn't see the need to change.

It was fun to sign back on and see that my old account was still there. I was impressed by GMail's spam-blocking power and also impressed by the various features that can be added.

I went back to the iGoogle page I created recently and had fun with that. I chose "Theme for a Day," which means each day you get a random new theme and had a pretty pattern by designer Anna Sui. In fact, Google has lots of designer themes. With the attractiveness and the useful options and the way all the features work together, I could see switching to iGoogle as my personal home page.

Thing #28: Customized Home Pages

I've been using Yahoo as my personal home page for years, because Yahoo is my primary personal e-mail provider, so it seemed easiest. I didn't realize the world of options out there till doing this Thing.

After reading the linked articles comparing the various home page providers, I tried Netvibes, since it seemed to get the most accolades. It is attractive and has lots of handy and fun widgets. I eliminated the default widgets that didn't interest me much, but that left me with a lot of blank column space. All my faves seemed to be over in the left column. I'm sure there's a way to rearrange that, but I wasn't finding it and didn't have the time to go into it too deeply.

Then I tried iGoogle. I already have a Google account, and its features are familiar to me, so I thought I'd compare. That page I was able to set up easily and quickly. I like the various theme choices -- fun, fun. (There's a really beautiful Japanese cherry blossom one that I may use in April. For now I'm on the default spring green hopping frogs theme. Thinking hopefully for Minnesota...) On iGoogle I was able to set up some good widgets easily -- ToDo List, maps, etc. Not sure if there's a Yahoo mail widget available, as that may be a competitor, but it would sure be handy for me.

Not sure that I'll use this for work use in the immediate future, as we already have a good library home page. But I'll tuck it away in my mind for future ideas or for my personal page.

Thing #27: Twitter

I signed us up with the username DCTCLibrary, added a profile pic and am now "following" mnmorethings. It was satisfying to get that all set up. I'm intrigued, although I'm not yet completely a-twitter about Twitter for our purposes... yet. Need to think more about possible uses.

I looked at the public library Twitter links that were posted, like the Hibbing PL. That looked really good. But our library doesn't have events or frequent changes of hours, so I'm not sure it would be effective for us at this time. We've recently added a blog to our library home page, and that's where we post New Books, highlighted Web sites, etc.

Really, I'm of two minds about Twitter. I can really see the fun and usefulness of it. On the other hand, it feels like there's so much information coming in to us via blogs, RSS, IMs, etc. that I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed. I'm finding that the trick is to be very selective in what I subscribe to, so that it's information I really want and not just "static."

I'd be open to trying Twitter in the near future to publish short updates about new books, etc. Seems like a good way to get info out in an even quicker and more informal manner than blogging.

Twitter Badge

Thing #26: Join the 23 Things Ning

I joined the 23 Things Ning during Round 1 last spring. To be honest, I haven't really used it... yet. I like knowing it's there, I like seeing all the friendly faces from the Minnesota library world, all of us learning the same new things. For now, I'm trying out all of these tools and figure, as time goes on, that I'll learn which ones are most useful and effective for me.

I just saw a new group for MnSCU libraries and joined that. I could see using the Ning to trade ideas and to share videos, etc., thereby avoiding reinventing the wheel, and also to look at photos of other people's libraries and events, for ideas and just for fun.

The two new things I did with Ning: I added the large Ning badge to my blog and added a comment to the Ning group blog.