Looking to the past

The end is near!

2007-05-08T11:15:00.000-07:00

I am amazed on how fast these past twelve weeks have gone!!! I have really enjoyed working the the 27 things and I have learned a lot. Although my son goes to different sites and probably knows more than I do, I feel that I have learned enough skills these past weeks to compete with him.

I don't know how much I will use these skills in my present job, but you never know. Having places that a work unit can all log into to get information is becoming a real need. If someone were to ask me questions about these different sites, I think that I would feel comfortable enough now to help them out. Away from work, I will probably contine to use my blog; I mentioned in the beginning that I would love to have one that is based on the families genealogy. In order for my family members to use it though, I will need to get them comfortable with the technology as well. I will probably also continue to use Flickr; I really enjoy posting my photos for all to see and to be able to see what others are taking pictures of. I did come to realize that there are a lot of CMS staff members that take professional grade pictures; I never realized how popular it was.

I don't know that I was really surprised by any of the excercises; MySpace was a little confusing to begin with, but I found that if you feel comfortable playing around and seeing what does what, you become more familiar with it all and it becomes a little easier. I probably won't continue to use my account in MySpace; although for a while my older sister and I were chatting with the instant messages, which was fun.

I think there was plenty of help around, if you needed it. I really found it enjoyable working with those I normally don't work with and the coming together as a group to figure something out. What would I do differently? For those who wish to work ahead, maybe have the lessons posted ahead of time, but still concentrate on those for the week for everyone else. Otherwise, I think the team did a really good job in the whole presentation. It had to have been a lot of work for you, so thank you!! I would love to see similar training opportunities as new technologies come available.

If I were to go back in time and decide again on whether or not to participate in the program, would I? You bet I would, and not just because I would be awarded with an MP3 player if I completed it all. I am always telling my co-workers that I need to learn at least one new thing each day to be completely happy. These past 12 weeks, I think I probably did more than that. By the way, the picture at the top of the page represents a giant light bulb coming on in my head (it actually is an example of a light that lighthouses use).

What else would I be interested in learning? There are new things being created on the web daily and it would be very hard to keep up with it all. I guess if KCLS got wind of something special that may help us in our everyday work environment, I would love to know about it and have the opportunity to learn more. I would love to create a web page, and I experienced the way to do that during one of our excercises; but that wouldn't really be associated with work, so I will leave it at that. Again, thank you to all who made this learning possible!

Audio, Video, podcasts

2007-04-30T10:03:00.000-07:00

Monday's excercise is to discover YouTube. There is something for everyone on there! Since this was for work, I thought I would search for videos associated with libraries. I discovered the video "Ducky at the Reg"; this helps to explain what goes on in the library, when things are quiet!
I can see YouTube being useful in the library setting; having storytimes on there would be great for the kids! There is so much on there, you could spend tons of time watching everything!
For Tuesday, discover podcasts. You can get these from everywhere; TV news station have them available for weather forecasts, even the San Diego Zoo offers them. I checked out all three sites podcast.net, podcastalley.com, and Yahoo podcasts. I don't know if any of them stood out above the others; I think they all have something to offer. I checked out some of the library podcasts, but nothing jumped out at me, so I did a search on genealogy. I am always looking for more on the subject and I came across one that is set up for beginners. The site is called Juliann.net-Roots Rookie Podcast ; she talks about how to go about researching your family tree. I have subscribe to this on Bloglines and have also included it here on my blog, if any of you are interested in listening to it. Of course, since I grew up in San Diego, I also subscribed to the zoo's podcast. You can find it at http://www.sandiegozoo.org/podcast/. I think that podcasts are only going to become more popular.

Because I never had an MP3 player, I never had the need to explore the Overdrive catalog; until now. There is so much more available than I ever though. Just browsing through the video collection, I saw many that would be very interesting. It is bad enough that I am now hooked on blogging and Flickr, but now I am also going to be using the e-books quite a bit; now I need to pass the addiction on to my family so that they too understand what fun it can be and what I am always spending time doing at home!!

And then there is more

2007-04-23T09:50:00.000-07:00

Today I tried out Google docs and Zoho. I really like the idea behind them both; we have statistic sheets that are kept by groups of employees. If we didn't have Fuller here at the Service Center, we would definately use one of these programs; my preference is Zoho. It is easy to use and looks nice. It is nice to have the ability to have a group of people to be able to edit and view a sheet; as well as giving someone the ability to just view the sheet. This is the ability I currently need. I need to share a stats sheet with someone in another location that doesn't have access to Fuller and currently I need to attach the file to an e-mail. With this, he could go in at his convenience to look at it. Hmmmm, the posibilities!!
The second less this week is to check out Google labs for some of the up-and-coming programs. The first one I checked out was Google Page Creator; although I didn't have the time to create a web page at the time, it appeared fairly easy to do. I always wanted to start one about genealogy and now I think I will (I just need to find the time to do it!). I also checked out Google Transit Labs ; out of curiosity, I wanted to see if it could create a transit schedule and route from Renton to the Service Center. It did, although it had me walking 2-3 miles to catch a bus, when there is one that stops right in front of my house. It confirmed for me that it would take four different buses to get me to Issaquah and it is only 15 miles away! The last one I tried, as suggested, was Google Trends. It was interesting to see what people are searching for. However, I was a little disappointed to find out there was no data found for KCLS! When I did searches on Flickr, and some of the other 27things, I saw that they were all on an uphill climb. I guess that tells you that we are right on track.
For our third excercise, I checked out the Web 2.0 award nominees; I am interested in anything to do with posting of digital pictures. I went to Slide where you can create slideshows of your pictures that you can post on your blog or My Space or many other places. To create a slideshow was very easy! You just need to upload your pictures from Flickr; which was very quick and easy. I also played with the site last-FM. This is a great place for music, like a giant jukebox. You can browse through thousands of songs by labels, artist, etc. Although you can sign up for free; if you join and pay a yearly free, you have more options for the things you can do. I just had fun browsing through the music and listening to songs of the 70's. I even had my husband dancing around with the dog (not a pretty site!).

Week 9

2007-04-18T08:28:00.000-07:00

This week I explored search tools with Rollyo and Google; Although Rollyo looks nicer, I think my preference is google (http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=006534592377454888764%3Aehuekldxj0o). It seems easier to use and I really like the idea of not having to have an additional login and password. You can check out the beginning of my travel site above. How much would I personally use these sites? Probably not often; however, I can see the usefulness for a business.
I also read about Web 2.0 and Library 2.0. Out of curiosity, I went ahead and read all 5 articles. I think my favorite was probably "To A Temporary Place in Time" by Dr. Wendy Schultz. When it comes to the web, I think that everything is temporary. Twenty five years ago when I first started with KCLS, I don't think we ever would have imagined the roll that computers would play in libraries. I remember when we first got a computer in the department and what a big deal it was to learn just how to use word and now look at us...the whole system has the opportunity to learn 27 things. No matter how advanced we get, I think that there is always going to be the need for a library full of books. I don't know about anyone else, but I still enjoy curling up with a good book; curling up with a computer, just isn't the same.

Let's Play

2007-04-12T17:03:00.000-07:00

This week we get to play and here is a sampling of my playing. I have kept up on all the lessons so far and since this week is Spring Break, it gives me the opportunity to continue to keep up! As you can see, I have created my South Park character. This really fits since I just spent five days out on the Oregon coast.

I also enjoyed checking out Nietzsche Family Circus Generator. I grew up reading the Family Circus cartoon and this site makes it a little more modern. I also created a sign on the

Hollywood sign generator site. Can you imagine what would happen if we put something like this on a hillside? We are already busy!!

The motivator enables you to create motivational posters out of your pictures posted on Flickr. Here is one of mine.

Have fun playing!!

Wikis

2007-04-02T12:39:00.000-07:00

Today's lesson is regarding Wikis; I think we all have used Wikipedia when doing research and that is probably one of the most popular ones. I took a look at all the suggested wikis and I really liked the ALA MidWinter 2007 wiki and the book lovers wiki at the Princeton Public Library and the need to have them. Here in CAPS, each work unit has an online manual and I think that a wiki would come in handy for this purpose.

Librarything

2007-03-28T20:00:00.000-07:00

Today's lesson was to explore librarything. I set up my account at http://www.librarything.com/profile.php?view=read4fun2. For avid book collectors, I could see that this site would be very useful; for me however, since I work for one of the greatest library systems, I don't buy a lot of books. I have added five that I found around the house though.

Del.icio.us

2007-03-26T09:25:00.000-07:00

Today's lesson is to explore Del.icio.us; I went one step further and created my own account. I could see this being useful in the workplace where similar workgroups need to access the same sites. It is very easy to use and for me, I think that it will come in handy since I have three different computers that I use. My account now has all our excercises (blogspot / Flickr / bloglines / Myspace) gathered together in one spot.

Big Huge Labs

2007-03-22T16:31:00.000-07:00

When browsing bloglines for my RSS feeds, I came across the following site on librarybytes; you can create motivational posters using your own pictures, the site is big huge labs. It will easily hook up to Flickr so that you can upload your pictures. There is a great site that has many motivational and inspiration quotes and by putting your picture with them, you can come up with nice posters. This is one that I put together quickly. The picture is one that I took last weekend at Windmill Gardens in Sumner. I have found that there are a bunch of neat sites like this one out there and now that I am more aware of some of this technology, I am stumbling across them. I will continue to share them with you, so that you to can share in the fun.

2007-03-19T09:33:00.000-07:00

Our first assignment this week, is to read about Myspace and some of the other programs that are available. I was off last Thursday and Friday and I spent quite a bit of time setting up my own Myspace page. I can't say that the site is real user friendly, it takes quite a bit of playing around to see what does what and then remembering how you did it. I was successful in setting it up and I now have Friends (that is always a good feeling)! I was thinking of setting up a group, but you have to have your account for seven days before you can do that; so I have to wait. So for now, I will continue to play with it. I sent an e-mail out after starting my page to solicite friends and my older sister also joined; she said that it is great that KCLS is giving up this opportunity and that she hopes that I continue to share with the family everything I learn.

Picasa

2007-03-17T20:26:00.000-07:00

For those of you who haven't discovered Picasa for downloading and e-mailing your digital pictures, check out the site. They make it extremely easy and they also have a button to blog this!
By the way, Spring is in the air at Windmill Gardens in Sumner; we were out that way today and thought we would stop by along with everyone else. It looks like everyone is very anxious for Spring to arrive!!!

I Dug up some pictures

2007-03-15T11:05:00.000-07:00

I have been with KCLS for almost 25 years now and I became the keeper of many of the old photos from the shipping department. I thought I would share a couple of the Service Center (then and now). As you may recall, the old Service Center was at 300 8th Ave N in Seattle. This picture was taken on June 28, 2000 the last day there, in the Shipping Dept.; the following Monday, we reported to the new Service Center in Issaquah. The New Service Center? That was almost 7 years ago!!!! Time flies when you're having fun!
Without a blog, I wouldn't be able to share these pictures with so many people!

2007-03-15T11:00:00.000-07:00

2007-03-12T13:45:00.000-07:00

This week's lesson with KCLS is to learn about RSS feeds. When I first read about them, I was royally confused, but once I started playing with it, it made much more sense. I subscribed to all my co-worker's blogs; as well as Rachael Ray's show (because I always like good and fast ideas for dinner). However, as assigned, I also subscribed to the Seattle PI and the National Weather Service. I think it will help to have everything in one place, but there are A LOT of user names and passwords that we have to remember!

2007-03-07T10:44:00.000-08:00

I am feeling so proud of myself; I was actually able to help my, almost 16 year, old son create a blog last night. He had a big project due in language arts regarding the renaissance period and had become a little too ambitious in creating a webpage. Since he was having trouble with that, I made the suggestion of creating a blog. "Oh mom, that wouldn't work", he says. Because he was running out of time, he decided he better listen to me. So, with my help, he created a blog about Leon Battista Alberti and made it so that it was Leon writing his posts. He even had a few comments from Leonardo da Vinci, Michaelangelo, and William Shakespeare and "Greensleeves" playing in the background (http://lbalberti.blogspot.com). I think the end result turned out very nice and when he gets his A, he will have KCLS to thank for allowing their employees to learn new things.

2007-03-06T09:05:00.000-08:00

Today's lesson in KCLS Learning 2.0 - 27 things is basically to play with Flickr mashups; that was a lot of fun. I think my favorite application was the trading card; you can see my final product here. Retrievr was fun to play with as well, but since I am not very good at drawing, the pictures I was hoping for weren't coming up. Okay, I drew a flower and dog pictures came up; that should say it all!! People have always told me I couldn't draw and now I am convinced. I will leave my art ability to the camera, it draws much prettier pictures.

2007-03-05T11:21:00.000-08:00

Okay, I didn't have a problem creating my blog and I didn't have a problem creating my Flickr account; when it came to getting my picture from Flickr to my Blog, I had problems. Thank you Suzy for your help!

2007-03-04T18:29:00.000-08:00

Although creating a Blog was initiated by training at work, I have decided that keeping a blog on something that is of interest to me will help me to carry it on after the training is completed. I will try to get in the habit of making regular posts regarding genealogy; be it different sites or tidbits on the family. If you have any sites that you like to use regularly, please let me know!

2007-02-28T07:18:00.000-08:00

I am sure glad that KCLS gave us the opportunity to learn new things! I never knew anything before about blogs and now I am addicted. I have sent my link to all my family members hoping that they will make comments, but this is new to them as well. I have helped my husband start on one and my next goal is to have my son do one. They are a lot of fun; but they are also take a little work (mainly thinking)!

2007-02-27T14:08:00.000-08:00

My cousin recently called to asked me to send him my grandmother's family line information; he was going to be going to Ireland and wanted to visit some of the sites where the family lived. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to trace that line of the family to Ireland; we are very English!! I would love to go to England and the United Kingdom some day and visit the two castles that our ancestors lived in (there are pictures of them on my blog). Can you imagine living in a castle? They must have been very drafty; good thing there was no electricity then because they would have been very expensive to heat!

2007-02-24T10:34:00.000-08:00

Let me tell you about my grandmother, Letha, who will be 95 years old this July! Back in 1998, we had the opportunity to listen while she told us stories of growing up in Turkey Ford, Oklahoma. Things were much simpler back then and they didn't have all the gadgets that we do now, but they got along fine! She was the third of six children that were born and lived in a 4 room house which had only 2 bedrooms and a fireplace. They would sleep cross-wise in the bed, especially when they had company. They lived on a small farm; "Dad did sharecropping for Mr. Guffey. We had corn, wheat, lots of garden stuff, also chickens and cows." Speaking of those chickens, Letha remembers her mother having to go away for a short time somewhere and she had asked her to take care of the chickens. By the time her mother had returned, most of the poor chickens had died. When farming and plowing, they used to find lots of Indian arrow heads.

It wasn't all work on this small farm; they would play games around the house like Flying Dutchman, Drop the Handkerchief and hide and go seek. Most of her friends were relatives.

Because they lived 2 miles from the Cowskin River, there used to be big community fish-fries. They would catch so many perch, catfish and bass, that they ended up giving them away.

Eventually they moved from Turkey Ford to Zinville and it was all done in a wagon. Because times were tough and work was hard to come by, they moved often. Letha's father, Ruben, went to work in a lead and zinc mine, which unfortunately caused him to come down with black lung, which contributed to his death later on. But times were hard and you had to do whatever was needed. Times were so hard that they had to gather water in barrels and then drain them to get their water.

Letha's parents bought and ran a 28 room boarding house. They charged $8.00 a week for room and board. There were no bathrooms, but there was one outhouse. The boarding house burned almost completely down about 1925. Letha always suspected her mother set fire to the house. They then moved to Pitchers after the fire and lived in a small 2 room house there. Her mother would take in washing from some of the local families to earn a little money.

A year later, they moved to Miami, OK, where eventually she would meet up with my grandfather and together create three children, including my dad.

2007-02-24T09:34:00.000-08:00

According to the Webster dictionary, "a family is a group of persons of common ancestry". What would it feel like not to have a "family" or to know where you are from? Thank goodness, I have never had to know this. Those that have been adopted must think of this often. I speak of this because my great- great grandmother, Barberry Hill is somewhat of a mystery for those who have searched for her family tree. Some believe her to have been orphaned and left on the doorstep of a family named Hill, but this is only speculation with no documentation to back it up. Though the family knows nothing of her past before she married my great- great grandfather, John Lafayette Rhodes, they most certainly know about her life thereafter; together, they had ten children. Unfortunately two of her sons died at an eary age, but she lived to see her other eight children grown and have families of their own.

Although you may not always like them, be thankful for the family you have!

2007-02-22T06:50:00.000-08:00

When I was back in high school, I really didn't enjoy history; it didn't mean anything to me. That is very unfortunate because if I had really gotten into history at that time, I might have discovered genealogy a lot sooner and more of my relatives would have been around to contribute information. Maybe that is something that the schools should look into adding as an elective; not only would kids be able to learn about their past, but it also helps to bring history alive!

2007-02-21T17:34:00.000-08:00

For the past 5 years, my husband and I have become addicted to genealogy and opening the door to the past. We have discovered Jesse Hiatt, the creator of the red delicious apple on my husband side and Francis Rodes, one of the judges to convict Mary Queen of Scots to death on my side. Although we both had ancestors that served as part of the confederate army, we agree more with what the Union side believed in.