Learning Really is Lifelong

Excellent to see a couple of suggestions for my blog challenge, I'll have a go at those in the very near future.

Today I wanted to share this article with you all.  Meet Ivy Bean, a 104 year old lady from Yorkshire in the UK, who is using both Facebook and Twitter.  I've actually been following Ivy on Twitter for a few weeks now, and she's delightful.  She tweets about her day fairly regularly, and often imparts with a pearl of wisdom that to her, is just how she lives her life.

The reason I bring up Ivy Bean, the 104 social networker, is because along my campaigns to get as many of my colleagues learning new technologies and ways to find/share information, I hear a lot of "Oh it's all for young people." or "I'm not of the digital generation."

Do you think Ivy holds this attitude?  She's twice the age of most of us and so long as someone takes the time to set her up, she is jumping on in with both feet.  And as she does so, she is meeting lovely people all over the world who are enriching her life and are being enriched by her.

I do understand that for those of us between the age of about 30 and 55, computer technology was REALLY fractious and unstable back in the days when it was first hitting the mainstream market.  Personal computers died at a single keystroke (oh how the blue screen of death struck fear in my heart) and we've all cursed and cried over losing massive documents, days worth of work when a computer has failed at a crucial moment.

But those days have passed.  Technology is unbelievably  more robust than it ever was.  It is more user friendly than it has ever been.  There is more information, support, tips and tricks, and help right at our fingertips with a simple Google search.  We have more say in how the technologies we use than ever before.  You only have to look at the user generated changes to Facebook after they changed their format without consulting their users, and the feedback was bad.

There isn't really an excuse of "I'm too old" any more.  We learn our whole lives.  If we don't keep learning, we don't keep living.  And if Ivy can do it at 104, nobody else has an excuse!

Wanna hear my favourite tweet of Ivy's?

"Playing dominoes with my friend Mabel today.  She's a bit blind so I can cheat."

I hope I'm as cool as Ivy when I'm 104!

The Days are Ticking By...

So we're winding down for the year, winding down for 23 Things and I'm winding down in energy! Though I think that is predominantly the heat that is causing the energy lag.

Two weeks from today, this project run of 23 Things will end. I hope to see the majority of people have finished the training modules, because this is an awesome opportunity we are being given to learn a lot of useful tools. Particularly as unlike most formal training, you're not being told how you have to use the tools once you've learnt about them. You learn what they are, how they work and then apply them to your own work and life. None of us will use Web2.0 technologies in the same way or even use the same tools.

Already I've seen some wonderfully creative and innovative ways to use Web2.0 technology from my colleagues. I've seen that you are artists, musicians, gamers, cooks, storytellers, fashionistas, model makers, writers, poets, travellers and so much more. Working in public libraries we need to draw from a really broad knowledge base to help our customers, and this project has really highlighted that we HAVE a broad knowledge base right at our fingertips. With a bit of collaboration using these great connective tools that we now have, we can share that stuff easily, and save ourselves so much time and effort. Plus it's fun to find out what our colleagues are interested in, and share common interests. I haven't found any fellow Mythbusters fantatics amongst BCCLS yet though!

It's been a huge learning curve for me too. Maybe not as much in the tools themselves, because I've been tinkering around with them for awhile now, but in the way people can use them and how they apply to libraries. I think we're probably at a huge tipping point right now into a whole bunch of innovations and shifts for the way we do business. WHAT we do isn't going to change, but HOW we do it is morphing into new territory. It's pretty exciting times, particularly as it's influencing things like telecommunications infrastructure, education methods and entertainment.

I for one am looking forward to being part of it.

Wanna Collaborate?

I have officially finished 23 Things some time ago, but I realised I needed to take a little time to revisit a few things that haven't fully gelled with me. Online applications were something that I knew what they were, but didn't really think about using them myself.

So I've gone back for a play and have decided to create a document that any of you, my readers, are welcome to join and co-create with me.

Fabulous New Things I Have Learned from 23 Things

The link above goes to a document I created about the cool things I've learnt, specifically that I like to use, not generally for what they CAN do. So if you want to co-collaborate with me on this document, and share the groovy stuff you have learned, let me know and I'll hook you up with the access.

For those of you friends who aren't doing the 23 Things but are reading this blog too, you are also most welcome to collaborate. The subject is about those cool Web2.0 things that are out there. What ones do you use (eg Facebook, blogging, YouTube, Flickr, mashups... all that stuff) and what do you do with them. I'm interested in hearing all the innovative, cool and fun stuff people do, and when we get going I'll turn the document into something I can publish here on this blog.

Let's play!

Multiply Your Intelligence

I've needed a wee break from blogging for the past week, things have been kind of intense with me dealing with a close friend who has recently been diagnosed with cancer, and I've needed some time to process that before I got talking about other stuff. As you may have been able to see from my last blog post, my tolerance level had dropped considerably!

But I'm back ready to blog!

I've found a wonderful subject to talk about today. Mythbusters! Ok, it's not directly Mythbusters, but the lads have cropped up with regards to the internet and Web2.0, that I think is VERY relevant to our whole 23 Things journey.

Being the solid Mythbusters fan that I am, I have Google alerts (where you get an email that tells you if there are any new pages/blogs about whatever subject you choose) on them. One of the alerts pointed me to this WONDERFUL interview with Patti Schiendelman from Makezine online magazine of Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage from Mythbusters fame.

It's such a comprehensive interview it's split into two parts, if you'd like to read all of it go to:

Make with Mythbusters: Part 1
Make with Mythbusters: Part 2

The part that particularly stood out for me as relevant to our 23 Things journey was this quote from Jamie:

JH: Well, the strange thing is that I'm finding it just as entertaining to read non-fiction. In particular, the thing that I've realized, especially recently - people talk about the impact of the Internet, and I'm sure different people use it, obviously, differently, but for me, it's just absolutely fantastic because I have no end of questions and I can answer those questions almost instantly. Obviously a lot of it's crap that you're going to run across; if you learn how to filter it, you're better off. I was halfway through my master's in Library Science, had a degree in Russian Language and Literature before that, I was
already really into Information Science, way before Mythbusters, before getting anywhere near where I am now. But the Internet - I think of it as something that's practically mind-altering. The amount of power that you have for advancement and development of technology - I don't think we've really seen the impact of it quite yet - people may not realize the potential of it. But when one learns how to really use the Internet, it's like you've multiplied your intelligence, your abilities by huge factors.

I knew I liked the guy! Not only is he a prolific reader (and if you read the whole article, some of his favourite fiction titles are a delight to discover), but he was also studying to be a librarian before he got into the career he is in now. How cool is that?

Now his point on the internet and it's potential really impressed me. This is not a man who jumps on to technology because it's new and cool, he's known for always taking the unadorned, elegant approach to problem solving. This is also not a young man (he just turned 52 in September), and this is also one of the most phenomenally intelligent men in this world. And he completely sees the potential of learning how to use the internet and it's tools (which is what Web2.0 technologies are, internet tools) to multiply your intelligence and as a source of information if you learn how to use it effectively.

Web2.0 is very much a buzzword, and unfortunately people are naturally adverse to buzzwords. I know I am. That's why I really loathe the term myself. But I don't want to see us tainted against these tools simply because the hype has overshadowed them a little. Think of books you've read or movies you've seen that have been hyped up, and you were a bit over the whole lot, but when you DID find out for yourself, you've been so glad you did so. Harry Potter was like that for me. I avoided reading those books because of all the hype, but when a trusted source convinced me to try them, I found them truly wonderful and regretted that I hadn't picked them up earlier, that I'd let hype turn me off them.

The whole point of 23 Things is that we are leading you into learning what the tools are, how to use them effectively and then YOU choose how they apply to you. Once you are armed with the skills and knowledge, your intelligence multiplies and you're able to do so many things more effectively and efficiently.

I really urge you to read the whole interview with Jamie and Adam, you won't regret it, they're both fun and fascinating. And as a treat, here are a couple of my favourite YouTube vids of the Mythbusters in action.

Jamie shooting fish in a barrel, Mythbusters style:



Adam demonstrating the power of lighter and heavier gases on the human voice:

Mmmm.... Mashy...

I'm finally making a little time to actually do my own 23 Things. I feel like I'm way behind because I actually haven't had a chance to do the modules myself, I've been so busy making sure everyone else is plugging along.

But today I decided to dedicate some time to it, as I really wanted to have a go at some of the things I'm not really up on.

One of those, is mashups. I knew already what mashups were, and was used to using other people's mashups, but hadn't really done anything along the lines of creating my own. So using http://www.bighugelabs.com/, I made this wonderful poster:



Whaddya reckon? I'm over cuteness at the moment, I'm going for some HOT! Ole Cedric Diggory up there does well as a vampire. Absolutely can't wait until the Twilight movie comes out, that's going to be awesome. Mind you, I need to catch up and read some more of Stephenie Meyer's series. I just haven't had a lot of reading time which sucks. I'll have to do something to actively change that. I don't buy the whole "There isn't enough time." schtick really. My belief is that if something is a priority to you, you'll make time for it.

Right, I'm off to play with some more mashups!

Chocolate... Chocolate would help!

Mate, I'm knackered. For every one email I reply to, twenty more come in. Usually from someone asking me why I didn't answer their first email, that they sent an hour beforehand. I do get to all of the emails eventually, but because there are so many, it takes some time to roll around!

Chocolate would help. Seriously. Look at this chocolatey goodness:




However, that said, I am really enjoying the whole 23 Things project. It's stuff that interests me and that I find really time-saving and useful. I'm thoroughly enjoying reading all the blogs that have been shared with me, watching the Wiki grow, learning new things myself and being led to all kinds of wonderful information and resources. It's challenging and fascinating, despite the fact that I have to reset wiki access and passwords two dozen times per day!

I'm doing the Brisbane City Romp on Sunday. Quite looking forward to that, hopefully it won't rain. I'm in no way interested in winning the event but the challenge will be fun and I also hope we can raise some money for the Burnet Institute.

You know, I just can't take my mind off of chocolate for some reason. I wonder why...

It's not Tuesday today, I know... but I don't care!

A Teeming Social Life

I'm finally getting a little time to work on my OWN 23 Things today. Popular to contrary belief, I'm not an expert on the whole Web2.0 thing and I am learning a lot of this stuff along with everyone else. I have used some things quite heavily already, like blogs, MySpace and Facebook, YouTube and photo sharing, but a lot of other things are totally new to me too.

However, I am an intrepid tinkerer with this technology, and am not afraid to just play with it until I get it doing something that I like. I have no fear at all of any of the technologies that we are using in 23 Things so I guess I am a lot more gung ho than the "newbies" out there who are hesitantly having a go for the first time. I will sign up for things, faff about with settings and profiles, and generally just jump on in feet first. Mostly because I know that there is always the functionality to set it back to the original way, or change it to a whole new way. I'm not at all afraid to make mistakes because I know I can just change it straight away.

So today I have been doing the module on social bookmarking. It was interesting that it put things like LibraryThing in the same category. I guess that they are bookmarking in a sense, but I consider them more social databases or catalogues. Rather than just a collection of links, I feel they are a database or catalogue of my interests and tastes.

I use several of these sites regularly. My favourites are Shelfari, Good Reads, Bookcrossing and of course LibraryThing. I am a member of all of these reading/book sites and if you want to find me, just do a member search for "sleepydumpling". (Yeah and you can stop laughing at the username now, you lot!)

I also find these a great tool for keeping track of my own books, and books I've borrowed from friends. I tag them with things like "loaned to" or "borrowed from" so that I know where they are and who I have to give them back to when they're not mine. It's a great way to track series you are reading, and you can even put in due dates when they are a library book. How cool is that?

Another one I quite like is a music one, and it is Playlist. You can make up "jukeboxes" of your favourite music, and then you can embed those in your blog, Facebook and MySpace, all kinds of places. I make new playlists up with themes. For example, on Australia Day I did a playlist up of great Aussie music, posted it on my MySpace blog and then shared it with all my overseas friends. They loved it because they don't always get access to Australian music - particularly in America.

And if you are looking for a movie one, Flixster is good fun and really useful too.

So socially online, I'm pretty busy. I'm incredibly busy in my real social life too, but I find using some of these tools actually helps me organise myself and save lots of time, as well as a great way to meet new people, find new resources (books and music etc) and share my interests. I love to talk books, movies and music, and these give me another outlet.

Are there Only 23?

Right now I'm wondering if there really are only 23 Things, because for me, it feels like a lot more. Not that I mean that as a complaint, not at all. I just am finding that it is taking up HUGE swathes of my time at the moment, which is fantastic because it means that people are jumping on in to the 23 Things programme, and really having a go.

But I am finding that it makes my "normal" work pile up a bit behind it. I guess it is all about prioritisation, but with 400 people we hope to do this training, it's HUGE. And there are so many technical questions that folks have.

It gives me an awesome perspective though. Other folks find things I may never have noticed, and they bring them to my attention. Lots of "Can I do this...?" and "Is it possible to...?" or "How do I...?" And I'm learning that there is no shame in the reply "I don't know." But I will do my best to find out if I don't already know.

I logged on to the training module a few times over the weekend just to see if anyone was having a go, and was pleased to see that every time I logged on, there was at least one person online there as well. That's amazing!

I am getting out to the libraries to talk to people. In some cases (only a couple) it's my first visit to that library ever, even after almost 10 years working for BCCLS. It's really good to get out there and meet the folks I haven't yet met, see those I have, talk about what we do in here at Systems and Processes and why we do it, and find out what the REAL issues for our troops are.

This week I'm off to CDA, ASH and down to BSQ (for two rather mammoth sessions!) I'm sure I'll enjoy these ones as much as I have the libraries I've already done.

Feeding Frenzy

RSS feeds. I've been using them for ages at home, but I actually had no idea what RSS actually stood for until quite recently. Real Simple Syndication. Makes sense to me, it is real simple!

I'm using Bloglines for here at work because we have an older version of Internet Explorer on our staff PC's that doesn't have the RSS button enabled on it, but at home I use Internet Explorer to do it. I just click that button and it saves them in my favourites, and when there is a new post to read, it bolds them in the list in the favourites.

But Bloglines seems to work quite effectively for a work environment. I've been tinkering around creating folders so that I can have all of the blogs written by my dear colleagues together, other library interest blogs in a folder, a folder for museums and art galleries and photography sites, a folder for fun stuff and so on. It's a little cluttered looking but I seem to be able to navigate around it ok.

I'm looking forward to when we get the blog links in the 23 Things page up and running, so that everyone can see all of the blogs submitted there. We have had a few little technical glitches along the way, which has meant that they're not all visible yet, but as they are put up, they will go on the BCCLS blog so that everyone can see them until we get the glitches ironed out.

But back to the subject of RSS feeds, I can see a lot of applications for them for both internal use and externally to customers. Already customers can RSS feed things from eLibCat like the What's New lists, What's On, info about One Book Many Brisbanes, things like that. But we could also have blogs for libraries RSS feeding news about events and promotions out to our customers.

Internally, we could have our wiki up and running and if you are working on a certain task, like magazines or AV Incomplete, you could RSS to those pages, and receive notice of any updates on those topics, rather than all 400 of our staff getting an email about it when we don't need to know.

I don't really read straight up library blogs myself, as mostly they're about stuff going on at the actual libraries. But there are some interesting industry ones I like to read. Here's a bit of a list:

Michael Stephens' Tame the Web (lots of Web2.0 information and inspiration)
The Annoyed Librarian - a bit whingey and sour grapey... but raises some valid points.
Librarian Idol
Jenelle.net

There are lots of others, but I can't remember them off the top of my head, I'll share them later.

We're Off and Running!

Well, hello 23 Things for BCC Library Services. We're officially off and running and how exciting is this?

Now are you all scared by my blog title? Most folks can't handle Kath x 1, let alone 23 times.

As a first post, I'm not sure what I really want to say and do. I think I want to welcome you all to the programme, shower you with praise for taking the first big step off into the land of Web2.0 and encourage you all to just have a go. Don't be shy, don't worry that you're going to do the wrong thing... just try. Each of us will approach this differently and we'll all learn something from each other. Yes, even from YOU.

Now, if anyone wants to find me on things like Facebook and or MySpace, here are the links to my profiles. Please feel free to "friend" me, it will be my pleasure to have you as my friend.

Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=660897148
MySpace - http://www.myspace.com/kath_read

I am sure that as well as learning HEAPS in a simple and effective way, we'll also have lots of fun and get to know each other a lot better. And we'll find ways we can do our jobs in a much more efficient manner, both engaging with our customers and communicating amongst ourselves.

I've set up comments on this blog so please leave a comment if you're reading, so I get some feedback. Be nice to me though!