How to Read a Library of Congress Call Number

Our college library is in the process of converting the collection from the Dewey to the Library of Congress system. It was a big project this summer. The YouTube video will be a good training tool to use for our student workers.

Al Franken

Al Franken
Originally uploaded by Aaron Landry

Minnesota's Long Senate Race Has Finally Ended!

Lily Finale

Orange Lilies
Originally uploaded by kayh6951

Lilies are favorite flowers of mine, and I like to plant a few new ones each year. Yesterday I noticed that the first one of the season is blooming, so I am using photos shared by others on FLICKR for my final post before the deadline.

June 20th Deadline!

Screencasts and videos online

Thing 47! Evaluation

Some Observations about MORE THINGS on 17 June:

1. Some that were the "most fun" were also the "most frustrating" for me. Even though I spent lots of time working on GOOGLE Maps and screencasting, I am not satisfied with my efforts, and want to continue to use those THINGS.

2. Thanks to the Things, I spend much time on Facebook and Twitter now. It is amazing how they change our communication and the way that we spend our time. When I just checked, I found that I have 117 friends on Facebook, and follow 117 on Twitter. What a coincidence!

3. There are many potential library uses for the Things we just completed, and I hope to implement what I have learned professionally as well as personally.

4. I found it easier to do the first 23 Things last summer than I did this round when I started while I was working full time. My preference is to work on one a day rather than a group of them at a time to try to finish by the deadline.

5. RSS is probably the Thing that I use the least, and WebJunction one that I want to use more than I currently do.

6. Some of the Things that I found most fun and useful were the music and photo ones. It was great to learn about sites (like Animoto) that I had not used before.

7. I enjoyed looking at the blogs of other Things participants, especially after "meeting" some of them on the 23 Things Ning and Twitter.

8. Thank you for offering More Things!

Thing 46! WebJunction

Winnipeg Junction, Minnesota
Originally uploaded by afiler

Thing 46


I will admit that for me WebJunction is one of the least utilized Things. Even though I had used the site before the first 23 Things, I neglect to use it routinely as I do Facebook, the 23 Things Ning and Twitter. After finishing these Things, I hope to explore some of the courses available from the University of North Texas and the Illinois State Library. I enjoyed the librarian spotlight on Kristen Mastel and exploring some of the information in the featured groups. The Calendar of Events is also a useful feature. A MINITEX Messenger EXTRA (June 8, 2009), features a special cover story on WebJunction with valuable information from Bill DeJohn, Ann Walker Smalley, Mary Ann Van Cura, Deanna Sylte and Jennifer Hootman.

Thing 45! Cloud Computing

clouds
Originally uploaded by Sheila in Millstone

Cloud Computing.

Thanks to Sheila in Millstone for this photo on FLICKR!


In the June 15, 2009 issue of TIME (page 40), Jon Rubenstein was quoted about people not wanting to be tethered to a computer. He stated, "People keep their data all over the place. It's spread throughout the cloud." I read that before starting on Thing 45, but have been conscious of Cloud Computing being I knew it was one of the last Things. Without being aware, I had been doing Cloud Computing for a long time. More Things on A Stick has helped me to do more, and to try to start organizing. The ZOHO that we have used at work for over a year has been very useful for meeting agendas and minutes, and especially for a project that the librarians have been working on to redesign our subject pages. When we work at multiple campuses, and do not see each other often, it is a great way to keep current without needing to send countless email messages.

The readings on Cloud Computing were very interesting. A major concern seems to be security. I need to do more exploring of the options available, especially for libraries, that I began learning about in Thing 45.

Thing 44! The Economy

Thing 44 provides many helpful sites for living in today's economy. Because we have recently redesigned our subject web pages, I was happy to find good sites to add for ECONOMICS. On the right, I added a variety from Thing 44 for The Economy.

The drawback that I found in living in a rural area was using sites that had nothing for my zip code of 56143. An example is the Printable Coupons one with "Nothing found today". It is better to hunt for a specific store like Wal-Mart (not my favorite place to shop) than to put in my zip code. Another example is Erideshare . When I put in my zip code with a 40 mile radius (the distance that I drive to work), there were no results. This site would probably be useful in a metro area. The Freecycle site also had nothing for my zip code, but I could browse what was listed for others.

With the popularity of gardening this year following Michelle Obama's planting of a White House garden, I think the Victory Garden site and University of Minnesota Extension sites are good.

I have used online banking for years, but did not add accounts to any of the suggested sites here for doing budgeting. The convenience of online banking is great. If I forget to write an amount for a check in my check book, I can check for it a few days later online.

Thing 43! Online TV & Video

Thing 43 was new for me as I had not used the online video sources Hulu and Joost before for watching programming. I watched a segment from Meet the Press on Hulu and added a widget here on recent commentary on the Obama administration. On Joost I watched a Jon Stewart segment from Comedy Central. I am not a regular watcher of any situation comedies, but am happy to know about sources to watch any programming that I might have missed and want to watch later. I have a relative currently doing video at the College World Series in Omaha, but did not find any coverage of that to watch.

Services like Hulu and Joost change the typical TV viewing habits for many people. If someone misses an episode of their favorite program, it is easy to watch it at any time, and much simpler than setting a VCR.

Thing 42! Music 2.0

For the last few months at work, I have been listening to MPR online on my work computer when I am back in my office area. I listen to news, and had not tried any of the music sites from Thing 41 until now. It was really fun to "customize" my Pandora list with artists I wanted. I will probably add more later. There is a link to the Pandora artists I selected on the sidebar of the blog. The QuickMix option is my favorite. I also established accounts with live365 and Receiva Internet Radio, and selected some favorites there to return to later.

After Jim Ed Poole retired, and the MPR Morning Show stopped broadcasting, Dale Connelly began Radio Heartland online. In the February 2009 issue of Minnesota Monthly, he said, "As people become accustomed to using their computers as radios, and as digital broadcasting becomes more commonplace, they will discover that it's just as easy to see what we're up to as it's been for the past 25 years." My listening habits have changed, and will continue as I discover more online options. (Thanks to De Bijloke for this photo of Jazz at Lincoln Center on Flickr, 07/07/07).

Thing 41! Mashup Your Life.

powered by lifestream.fm!

There are now many sites to combine different accounts, and I just signed up for a few today. I like FriendFeed for Twitter, and found nine there, but none of my 113 friends from Facebook. Being I already had the Twitter and Delicious accounts on the sidebar, I put the new Lifestream one here. Later, I will probably omit the separate listings, if I decide to keep this, but I do not know how many accounts that I want!

Thing 40! Mashup the Web

Today I tried MANY of the suggested sites for Thing 40.

For MUSIC, I enjoyed searching and saving selections in Pandora.FM. The link for Splice did not work.

For BOOKS, I checked all of the sites listed.

For SOCIAL, I did an account for Ping.fm. It is good to be able to combine account information for Facebook, Delicious and Twitter. I also tried the Lunchbox and Wheel of Food sites. These sites are more useful when using a zip code such as 55423 in the Twin Cities area rather than our local rural zip code which yields no results. As I have not had lunch yet, thinking of the food sites makes me hungry!

Of the PHOTO/FLICKR sites, my favorite is Interestingness. I had fun doing random views of the photos.

For the VIDEO sites, I enjoyed TimeTube where I used Supreme Court as a search topic and now have a reminder when it is updated.

For GOOGLE, I did a search for a neighborhood under Walkable.


Being I had used Big Huge Labs before, I tried new mashup options, and posted a simple Palyvore fashion one below:

Thing 39! Digital Storytelling

Digital Storytelling is fun and can be useful for libraries. I did accounts for Scrapblog and Smilebox, and want to use both later. Both have many options for doing a graduation page. Scrapblog allows downloading of photos already in Facebook, so I did that for a quick page.

Thing 38! Screencasting

I had not done Screencasting before, and see how useful it could be for library webpages and library tutorials. After watching the ten minute Jing video, I downloaded Jing. I also watched the demo for Skitch. ScreenToaster was the last one I looked at, and I registered at the site. I was surprised how easy ScreenToaster was to use, but after the June 20th deadline, I definitely need to work on this THING. I had fun with WORDLE, but whatever I tried there did not upload to my blog, so I just did a screencast of one to add here. There is music on other THINGS near this one, so I did not add music.

Free online screencasting tool

Thing 37! Photo Tales - # 2

Like the previous one, I spent hours on Thing 37, but feel like it was just a start! It will be fun to do some more "polished" photo presentations after I finish all of the Things. After the first 23 Things, I enjoyed using FLICKR and PictureTrail for more presentations. Today I just did a quick video with some of my Washington photos from Spring Break in March. Animoto is fun and easy to use. After that, I used SLIDE for family photos. There are SO many options there that I kept changing my mind on which theme to select. I also want to try One True Media for a montage. Even though these sites are useful for library uses, I am probably thinking more of personal photos, and looking forward to doing something fun with Alaska photos after we return in August. I have done other digital slideshows with music, but just used the options available from the sites that I used today even if not the most appropriate. With Image Mosaic Generator, I used a sunflower photo which I added to the blog, but it looks much better in the full size. CaptionBubble.com is also a fun site.

Thing 37! Photo Tales - Family Photos

Thing 36 ! Comic Relief # 3

ago answer blog book checked com comic comments congress dc delicious enjoyed explore facebook finding follow found free fun http interesting kayh labels library link minnesota mla news online pages people places plan pm posted questions reading reference relief shelfari sites state things travel twitter updates washington west widget year

created at TagCrowd.com

I have spent WAY too much time on THING 36, so need to move on . . . A newspaper headline that I generated was added to my blog, and I did a Dewey Decimal number for my name. I tried most of the comic strip generators, and had fun with one for children. WORDLE was one of my favorites for this thing, and I plan to return to that again. It will probably be useful for library applications and maybe for making signs. I was amazed how the same information could generate so many different results. The tiny label maker was another fun one. Now I better move on as June 20th approaches . . .

Thing 36! Comic Relief # 2

Thanks to POSEYGALORE on ToonDoo for adding this comic in April, 2009.

Thing 36! Comic Relief

/http://235169358mn.blogspot.com/

Marcia's Dewey Decimal Section:
709 Historical, geographic & persons treatment
Marcia = 318391 = 318+391 = 709

Class:
700 Arts & Recreation

Contains:
Architecture, drawing, painting, music, sports.

What it says about you:
You're creative and fun, and you're good at motivating the people around you. You're attracted to things that are visually interesting. Other people might not always understand your taste or style, but it's yours.

Find your Dewey Decimal Section at Spacefem.com

Thing 35! Books 2.0

Plundered from book sutlers in various ports!
Originally uploaded by lunawhimsy

Thing 35 is a very useful one for me. We just finished our third year of the Minnesota West Book Club. There are about 12 people in the group, but not all are able to attend each time. We meet once a month at noon and have more staff people than faculty attending now. This year I have had our selections posted on the sidebar of this blog. After Thing 35, I am happy for new sources such as Reading Group Choices. Now I am also following Twitterlit and Book Browse on Twitter. I also enjoyed looking at Reading Trails and What Should I Read Next?

In the academic library where I work, books are checked out less often now with students preferring to find most reference sources online. Some students still enjoy reading books. This year I remember how happy a student was to find the new book OUTLIERS by Malcolm Gladwell with our NEW BOOKS display. She said that at her public library she would be on a long waiting list for it.

I think that the sites in Thing 35 enhance rather than detract from reading. Before I did the first 23 Things, I had accounts with Library Thing, Shelfari, and Good Reads. I have Shelfari on the sidebar of this blog, and have a link to Library Thing for Thing 14. A friend invited me to use a books application from Facebook, so I plan to add that option after completing Thing 35.

(Thanks to lunawhimsey for orginally loading the photo, "Plundered from book sutlers in various ports" (Flickr)

Thing 34! Is it Competition? Online Answer Sites

1 How do you get rid of a chest cough?

2. When does fall semester start at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah?

3. Does anyone still use a VCR?

4. What caused Amy Grant and Gary Chapman to divorce?

5. What books can you recommend for a 3 year old?

The above questions were some that I found on sites I explored in Thing 34 today. At a public library, they may not be unusual questions, but at our college library I am more likely to be asked if I can refill paper in the printer or help someone with the copy machine. Finding "instant answers" is motivation for people to use popular Internet sites. Other questions I found like "How do you find true love?" seemed to be something that one might post, but not ask a reference librarian. After browsing many sites, I have a better appreciation of them. Not all were satisfying to me. The ChaCha one was interesting for the many types of questions. At the SnappyFingers site which searches frequently asked questions, I had to ask about six questions before finding one with an answer. The one that I thought of that finally was answered was "What date will Easter be on in 2010?." I did ask a reference question of the Library of Congress, so will be interested to see if I have an answer in my e-mail in a few days. (Update: I had a response in less than 24 hours). While asking several questions, I did not try to answer any, so should try that soon.

For some questions, the collective wisdom of the responders may be more helpful than asking one reference librarian. The accuracy of the answers can be an issue. Slam the Boards is something I enjoyed reading about, and want to explore more.

The readings for Thing 34 on the future of reference were fascinating. I liked the one by Scott Carlson of the University of California - Merced from the Chronicle of Higher Education. I also enjoyed reading the views of Helene Blowers who is credited with the 23 Things, and enjoyed learning more about the origin of the project. It was interesting to me that she mentioned RSS as one of the most important when I have recently been reading of the predicted decline of RSS. At our college, the reference desk changed in the last few years. Although we still have a presence at the circulation desk, I found agreement with the article talking about our "reference questions" now having more to do with computer and printer problems. With the proliferation of Internet answer sites as explored in Thing 34, I will be interested to see the future of reference as libraries continue to evolve.





ImageChef.com Poetry Blender

Thing 33! Travel 2.0

Thing 33 was a fun one for me! I enjoyed exploring many of the travel sites listed. Lost Girls was an interesting blog. It was fun to check Baden-Baden (where we were years ago) in My Kugelhopf. In Notes from the Road, I enjoyed the great photos. The Texas Hill Country, Harmony and Lanesboro, MN and the SPAM Museum in Austin were places I checked. For review sites, I liked the collective wisdom of http://www.boo.com/ and plan to return to that site. It was fun to see what I could find on the Prague Castle and other places where we had been in Prague. I also checked the opinions of the Holiday Inn Capitol in Washington, DC where we stayed in March and found that I agreed with them. The Newseum http://www.newseum.org/index.aspx in Washington DC, is just a little more than a year old, so with nothing listed for it, I can add something myself! Gusto was fun for 10 Great Places on Earth You Don't Want to Miss. On http://www.vcarious.com/ I enjoyed the photos of Barcelona.

I definitely plan to do more exploring of Travel 2.0 and added some travel entries to Delicious. We booked hotels in Anchorage and Vancouver for this summer earlier. Now I plan to read more about them on sites that I learned about in Thing 33.

Although the sites in Thing 33 may apply more to public libraries, I could probably find some use in the Research QuickStart subject pages that we are adding to our library site at Minnesota West.

Thing 32! Google Maps

View My Saved Places in a larger map


I spent MANY hours with GOOGLE MAPS and did MANY of them. When I tried to load them for THING 32, I had problems. On June 17th after finishing most of the THINGS, when I tried adding a Lanesboro map, it worked on the first try! When I looked at the map, it was not the one that I wanted where I had identified where we stayed and places we ate on a fun "Sisters Weekend" last September. I had added comments and photos. Maybe later, I can add the detailed one that I really wanted, but for now I am just happy that one loaded, and will leave this simple one. GOOGLE MAPS are great, and I really did spend a long time with this THING even though that is not reflected in my simple map.

Thing 31! More Twitter

1. After being on Twitter since February 25th, Thing 31 reminds me of what a novice I am! According to the Five Stages of Twitter article, I might be categorized as a "Presence".

2. I am more of a "Follower" than one who is followed. The ones I follow tend to be more news-related organizations (MPR, MinnPost, New York Times) than individuals. I do enjoy following Esme Murphy of WCCO.

3. Since joining Twitter, I spend less time on Facebook, but still prefer it to Twitter for communicating with people I know. I find it interesting that Facebook changed to have an appearance more like Twitter.

4. I really do not care to know who is tired or hungry.

5. Twitter is great for keeping up with current news - like who won the game. I check Twitter at noon and before going home from work each day.

6. After watching the House and Senate in action, I am enjoying TweetCongress. The members of Congress really depend on their Blackberries when they are on the floor.

7. It has been fun finding other Things on a Stick participants on Twitter, and following their progress.

8. I want to use the Twitter Yellow Pages and explore more of the options in Thing 31 later.

9. The articles for Thing 31 were very interesting. I have saved quite a few Twitter articles in Delicious.

10. After reading about celebrities like Lance Armstrong and Shaquille O'Neal on Twitter (StarTribune, April 3, 2009), I decided to try finding some to follow.

11. One never knows who might show up on Twitter. Today when searching Bemidji State in the Frozen Four, I was surprised to find MnSCU (Minnesota State Colleges & Universities). Now I follow them, and they follow me . . .

12. I notice that I have been reading online newspapers less since being on Twitter. The down side of that may be that I read lots of litle "tweets" about news rather than more in-depth articles.

13. It was fun to be on Twitter when I was on Spring Break in Washington, DC. I commented on what we did each day, and was able to find updates while we were there. Now I follow Ford's Theatre, the National Air and Space Museum and other places where we were that week.

14. I found that my Twitter profile is worth $ 25.00.

15. The Twitter Grader gave me 74 out of 100 possible points.

16. According to a punctuation quiz, I am a comma.

17. I enjoyed some of the sites showing trends with a popular one now being the British singing sensation, Susan Boyle.

18. As it becomes warmer outside, I want to spend more time there rather than with Twitter!

Thing 30! More Ways to Use RSS and Delicious

The only RSS feed that I have on my blog is the Google News one, but I have others on my iGoogle page. Being I have widgets for CNN and Politico on my blog, I do not want to clutter it up too much. Thing 30 introducted me to MANY RSS sites, tricks and tips that I did not previously know about. I looked at all of the sites selected for Thing 30, bookmarked some on Delicious, and now have accounts with Tabbloid and Spreed. After setting up the Spreed account, I thought of my mother who was such a speed reader and said that you don't need to read every a, and and the! I looked at the .govFeeds and rssWeather.com. Now I should spend less time on Facebook and Twitter for awhile and concentrate on RSS feeds for a few days. Too many THINGS to read!

I have had a delicious account before I did the 23 Things. When I set up my original blog, I added a link to it before I did any of the "Things". Now I removed that link and added the linkroll to the sidebar so the most recent entries are visible. I want to organize my tags. Now I have an account with 43marks.com and added my bookmarks to Insuggest.

Thing 29! Google Tools

After a spring break trip to Washington, DC, and trying to "catch up" at work, I am back to the "Things". Google Tools are fun to explore. I added two Google Alerts, so will enjoy keeping up with them. Now I have used a Google Calendar, and hope to expand on that use. I also made some changes to my Google home page and read the articles associated with Thing 29.

The Goog 411 is a good feature, and I plan to add 1-800-GOOG-411 to my cell phone. I also enjoyed using the Google Maps.

In Google News, I enjoyed the latest news from the Newseum in Washington where we spent a whole day during spring break. In archives, it was fun to find an article from 1913 about Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst, a British militant suffragette, who was not allowed to land on the pier at Ellis Island. I explored the Google Health option, and think that would be a useful addition. One could spend lots of time exploring the Google Tools! (Thanks to busiguy6 for the Tools photo on Flickr).

Thing 28! Customized Home Pages

I have had iGoogle for awhile, but had not been a recent user, so gave it a new look with lots of updates and some widgets. After doing that, I explored Pageflakes which is now my homepage. I probably like the appearance of iGoogle better, but had fun with all of the options to explore at Pageflakes. Now I have a calendar there, link to Daily Kos, and daily horoscope. I like having Facebook and Twitter available on my Pageflakes page. Maybe I should put iGoogle as my page on my home computer, and Pageflakes at work. I will continue to explore the many options available. There are so many ways to customize and personalize. I want to explore Netvibes more.

Thing 27! Twitter

I had been hearing about Twitter, and thought that it might be in the first 23 Things. A few weeks ago, the Minneapolis and Saint Paul Sunday papers both had stories on Twitter. The Pioneer Press one said that "the median age of Twitter users is 31 compared to 26 on Facebook."

The day that I joined this week, when I was driving to work I heard that WCCO Radio was now on Twitter. In the Mark Halperin site that I follow on my blog, I noticed a Twitter option. When I joined, I became a follower of them first and since have added Minnesota Gopher sports, the Pioneer Press, MPR, Minn Post and other sites to follow. The first night that I was on Twitter, Nightline broadcast a segment on it, so it was fun to follow the comments about it online while I as listening to the TV in the next room.

I spend enough time on Facebook that I do not need to do the same with Twitter. Since joining Twitter, I prefer to do searches on topics rather than find followers. The best use I found so far was to do a search on Minnesota writer Bill Holm yesterday after I knew of his death. It was interesting to read the many comments and see the sources of information about him. I also have checked out comments from the 23 Things folks. The Hibbing Library is a good example of a library using Twitter, and I will be interested to see if more libraries will embrace Twitter.

Now you can follow me on Twitter by finding the link on the sidebar near the bottom right of my blog. After a few weeks of use, I will see if I agree with author Tim Ferriss (The 4-Hour Work Week) who called Twitter, "Pointless email on steroids."

Thing 26! Join the 23 Things Ning

For Thing 26, I have been participating in the new MnSCU group. I have sent a few messages to members, made some comments on photos and posts, and added four of my photos. Being the "Ning Thing" is earlier in this round, I think the use will be much greater than in the first round. There are more applications to explore that I have not used yet. New groups are forming with increased interest and activity. I did check the site after finishing the 23 Things, but look forward to more interaction with More Things than with 23 Things.

I added a 23 Things Ning badge to the sidebar of the blog.

Thing 25! Bloggers' Toolkit

The first thing I did was try the Typealyze as I am interested in Myers-Briggs and had recently been referring to the book Please Understand Me by David Keirsey and Marilyn Bates, about the types. I am an ENFP, so thought that it was interesting that my blog was rated as ESTP. Now I want to check some other blogs!

I spent TOO many hours on all of the other options for Thing 25 with trying many gadgets and photos. I added the snow effect, star rating and a CNN news feed. After registering for the PIC APP, I explored many photos there and added a Valentine one for Thing 25. I tried clocks and calendars, but do not want too many widgets on my blog. A FLICKR photo one and several newspaper feeds are also options that I tried and may return to later. Like the girl trying to make a selection below, there are too many choices!

Later: Decided to remove the snow effect now being we are in June!

Thing 24! Refresh

Hi again!

Even though I had been using my blog since finishing 23 Things last September, I had not looked at the new "Things" until today. My blog has a new look with a different color scheme. I decided to give the avatar a new background and hairstyle. The blog has been a good place for recording information on conferences (MLA and MnPALS) that I attended. I also have added some links that I like, and check some of them almost every day. With the snow melting this week, I added a countdown clock today with the number of days left until spring.

Thing 20 (Faceback) is one that I surprised myself with by using so much! I now have more than 80 friends, and check the site most days. At first my friends were college students and the children of my friends, but now I have more relatives, classmates and people around my age. TIME magazine had an interesting page by Lev Grossman in the February 23rd issue, "Facebook is for Old People," about the baby boomers now "hijacking" Facebook.

From the "increased traffic" on the 23 Things Ning, I knew that a lot of people have "taken off' with the new Things. There are many photos posted since my sunflower was the last one. This week I was happy to find a group for MnSCU librarians, and became the third member.