Thing 4: Flickr once more

Well, we added to the Minnesota State Law Library tour. (I am working with Elizabeth who has custody of our camera and is also doing 23 Things.) See http://www.flickr.com/photos/9201331@N04/sets/72157600431218715/ . Click on the Slideshow, then click the “I” in the middle of the photo to turn on the captions. The ones we added were the art, the display case and the Depository Library. We were amazed this morning to find that someone had added our tour to his Flickr favorites.

I did figure out how to add hyperlinks and it was indeed obvious--just needed to add html code. I went back and added links to the new book shelf Flickr page that had frustrated me in an earlier post. See http://www.flickr.com/photos/blankann/2572372299/. The way our physical bookshelf is structured, I wouldn’t be able to highlight every new book with its own comment. Even using TinyURL I wasn’t able to put links into the comments that held several titles. The comment space just isn’t big enough. That’s okay, though. We put the books we want to highlight on the stands anyway. Based on the amount of time it took me to create this page, I could probably make a pictorial new books list in about an hour.

Thing 6: online image generators

Our Minnesota State Law Library motto is a little long for a license plate.

But we look good in marble



For those who believe every library should have a cat



Toon Doo cartoons look like fun, but somehow I don’t think they would be dignified enough for my library. Never say never, however.

Thing 4: Flickr

MSLL New Books June 2008
Originally uploaded by acherry9000

I wanted to see how much time it would take to create a new books list in Flickr format, thinking it would be a more visually interesting alternative to the e-mail list we send out.

This is a picture of our actual new-books shelf, so I didn't have to set anything up specially. There were 22 new books this month. I put in comments with each title, plus a few of the more interesting new books from prior months. The process went surprisingly quickly, until I wanted to add a hyperlink to the catalog like our friends at Clemens library did. How did they do that? Look at the book in the upper right hand corner to see how far I got. None of the linked tutorials helped. There must be something obvious that I am missing. If anyone knows the secret, let me know.

Thing 5: Fun with Flickr

First, a confession: much my time on Flickr has been spent looking at pictures of cute puppies. I am working on adding to the library's online tour that is already on Flickr, so more on that later. Right now, though, I am playing with the thing 5 things.

We may be able to use some of these to make our posted announcements and our changing displays in the library more colorful.

As to online photo sharing generally, it seems an easy way to let geographically far flung family members keep in touch.

Thing 3: RSS a day later

Checked my RSS reader and found 26 new posts after 24 hours. And Unshelved hasn't posted yet.

Fortunately, it is quick to browse the titles. I think I am going to like having my news aggregated.

I was thinking this morning how the technology is not there yet to replace reading the newspaper with my morning cereal. You also can't put a Kindle on the bottom of the birdcage; or at least it won't work there as well as newspaper.

Thing 3 RSS feeds

I have been meaning to try RSS feeds for what seems a long time now, so this is exciting. Signing up sounds really simple and mostly it is, although I found the Google page to be something less than transparent. This just means, of course, that I didn’t design it. What seems obvious to one person can be totally confusing to someone else. (Trust me, I’ve written user manuals and designed tutorials.)

This also gave me the excuse to sign up for the Unshelved feed. I love that comic, but never seem to remember to click on its bookmark. Will I find time now to click on my RSS reader?

Recommendations and serendipity may be the best way to find RSS feeds. Looking through lists and searching just seemed to be overwhelming. The Web sites you visit the most regularly are the most likely to have feeds you would be interested in seeing. I just found an interesting feed in the Library Journal—their In the Bookroom Blog: http://www.libraryjournal.com/blog/770000077.html

oops, meant to add a link

For anyone interested. The link to Wex (see last post) is http://straylight.law.cornell.edu/wex/index.php/Category:Overview