A recipe for reading . . . . . .

ISS07 Project YES I Can! Science Project

2007-10-05T11:26:00.000-07:00

I hope you will check out the joint project between
YES I Can! Science
and Space Center Houston.

Classes from grades 3-12 can register to communicate through the project blog with astronaut Flight Engineer
Clayton Anderson
while he is on his mission to the International Space Station.

The focus areas suggest activities that can be done with the students that correspond with activities that are being done on board the ISS.

This project is free of charge from McMaster University YES I Can! Science project in partnership with the Space Center Houston.

Metadata for Digital Collections

2007-10-05T07:36:00.000-07:00

I am looking forward to the online course I am taking at the end of October

Metadata for Digital Collections

at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, School of Information Studies.

This course appealed to me as it is hands on assigning exercises to teach how to create metadata as well as when and how to use it. You will learn how to create metadata for digital images and text using Dublin Core, MODS and VRA.

The course is taught by Steven Miller, Senior Lecturer at the UWM School of Information Studies. I will post further about the course in December.

NEW at the Library

2007-08-30T07:12:00.001-07:00

I thought the

NEW at the Library

section of the

Readers’ Café – A Feast for Book Lovers

at the

Hamilton Public Library

was a great idea.

New titles added to the library in the past three months can be searched monthly by item type whether fiction or non fiction, adult, teen or children’s and DVD, music CD, large print or graphic novel.

When reviewing the new selections offered the catalogue gives you the number of requests, reservable copies and availability for each item. Other good options found at the bottom of the page received include Interlibrary Loans, Suggestion for Purchase and Online Databases and One Stop Search.

I wonder if we will see features like this become interactive and allow for readers to rate books online and attach tags drawing their attention to other users.

There are other great features available on the Readers Café page like Book Clubs, May We Suggest…….. and Special Features. I hope you will check it out!!!!!

YouTube Teen Extreme Reading Machine Video Contest

2007-08-07T15:00:00.000-07:00

The Teen Annex

at London Public Library is running a YouTube Video Contest this summer! Anyone 12 and over can create a video, one to five minutes in length about a book they’ve read this summer.

The video can be anything you liked about the book, a song or poem, a play or simply reading from the book. You choose! Once you’ve posted the video on

YouTube

you need to send an e-mail to teens@lpl.london.on.ca to let them know.

Voting will take place August 15th to September 7th, 2007 and the winning video announced September 8th, 2007. Here are the complete

rules and regulations.

Teens enjoy using these 2.0 technologies and seeing the feedback from others. This is a great way for the library to connect with users. I will post a link to YouTube of the winning entry in September!!!!!!!!!!

Book Camp

2007-07-03T15:16:00.001-07:00

I like the idea of a Book Camp. Some of the camps I checked out for children were :

Burlington Public Library

Vancouver Public Library

and

Brantford Book Camp .

There was also an

Adult Writer’s Camp .

These camps offer students and adults the chance to receive instruction from authors, illustrators and at the adult writer’s camp publishers and editors. The counselors at the Brantford book Camp are Nipissing University education students.

I hope to see more of these camps. I have a children’s book called “Bear Paw” which I have been writing in my head for the last couple of years. Just reading about these camps has inspired me to get out a pencil and paper and get writing!

Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum

2007-06-29T13:04:00.000-07:00

I enjoy visiting the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum. They have the largest group of warplanes in Canada. I have chaperoned students while on an educational tour for grade 6: Science of Aviation. One of the planes I was fascinated to see was the Lancaster Bomber. It is the black plane shown in the background of this picture!

I hope to one day “Experience the Thrill” and take a ride in one of the planes as they offer a

Legends Ride Program

where you can ride in either a North American Harvard IV or Boeing Stearman PT-27 Kaydet.

The Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum offer many varied programs both at the museum or they will come out and visit you bringing slide shows or audio/visual presentations. I would like to one day attend the special afternoon of dramatic readings

Letters from George Street – Letters from the Jungle

My Reading History

2007-06-24T16:44:00.000-07:00

I found a neat feature at the

Kitchener Public Library

which records

My Reading History

.

I love to read and tend to read eventually everything that an author has written. Over time I may forget the title of a book and put it on hold not realizing I have already read it. I would also find this feature helpful when recommending books I have read to my friends and checking the catalogue for new books to put on hold from my list of favourite authors.

This is a useful feature that requires you to log onto your library account online and activate the "My Reading History" feature by clicking the "Opt In" link. You have the ability to delete any or all materials listed on your Reading History.

I hope they make this option available at my public library!!!!!!!!!

Good Book Psychic

2007-05-27T19:15:00.000-07:00

I checked out the

Crystal Blog

at Burlington Public Library this week and saw the Pick of the Week was The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill. You can find out more about this book in the McMaster University library catalog. This book is available in the

Mills Library

.

The Good Book Psychic will help you choose books to read. You can download a

PDF form

and drop it off at the information desk at any branch or e-mail the attachment to bookpsychic@bpl.on.ca and within three weeks receive a listing of 10 books to read tailored specifically for you.

I think this is a fun and very web 2.0 way to offer this service to patrons. It grabbed my attention when I saw it on the Burlington Public Library

home page

With increasing time constraints I don't think patrons have time to spend perusing the shelves.

I think people often look at the top 10 fiction and non-fiction books at Chapters as they are unsure what to read and want to see what other people are reading. I think the "Good Book Psychic" is a good option for patrons. I am going to send in a request and find out which books are in my future for the summer!

Oakville Public Library Teen Wiki

2007-05-15T16:45:00.000-07:00

OPL has replaced their teen web page with a

Teen Wiki

.

The wiki describes blogging, connects you to author sites and blogs like author Tamora Pierce. Other pages on the wiki include Book Club, Events, Enrichment, Volunteering, Online Databases and I’m sure a popular one “ Booksmagsmusic”.

There is a search box and you can log on to contribute to the wiki. They have a disclaimer on the site "OPL is not responsible for the content" as anyone can access the wiki.

There is a newly created

opl teen blog

with no comments yet.

I am excited to see the public library trying out this new 2.0 technology. There have been over 1300 visits to the site so far. I will follow this site to see its growth!

The End of Learning 2.0 @ Mac

2007-05-09T19:06:00.000-07:00

I don't think of this as the "end" but the "beginning" for me. I welcome the opportunity to learn about and try new technologies. I think the drop in sessions were helpful and liked that I had a team leader I could contact when I needed help. I would definitely participate in another discovery programme in the future.

I did find it difficult personally to have a new activity each week. I was working on the activities at home and thought it would be easier if you had a week for discovery and then another week to blog about it. Thank goodness for the catch up weeks :)

I am surprised at how much we learned in such a short time. I can remember looking at some of the blogs at the beginning and when you compare them to now they are really amazing!

I think this experience has helped me dive in to new technologies faster than I would before and I am comfortable doing that now. I liked that you gave us options so you could choose the technology you were interested in exploring, for example, Online Applications and Tools I chose Library Thing.

The technologies we explored were useful and it is exciting to see them being used in the workplace. I can't wait to see what we're doing next ???!!!

Facebook

2007-05-09T17:47:00.000-07:00

I opened an account on

Facebook

and found it easy to locate my "group" Learning 2.0 @ Mac.

I am familiar with MSN. I think students like to keep in touch with each other and use MSN to not only "chat" with their friends but to collaborate on projects and help each other with homework. They have it minimized and post icons like "away" when they are not available. They enjoy adding emoticons like smiles, nudges and winks to express themselves.

I found Facebook to be a fun, interactive experience. I invited co-workers to be friends, poked a few people, uploaded photos, wrote on walls and posted messages. Facebook allows you to upload unlimited photos whereas MySpace sets a limit on the number of photos you can upload.

Facebook like my blog appeal to the creative side of me. I like adding to it and making it a reflection of me. I need to look for other groups on Facebook and invite some of my friends to join. I have been using e-mail to communicate with neighbours that have moved away and like the idea of talking to them online rather than waiting for an e-mail.

I feel more connected with my group since joining Facebook. It has been fun reading the profiles and finding out more about each other!

Browser Tools

2007-05-08T10:30:00.000-07:00

Firefox was loaded on to my computer and I only needed to upgrade it to the new version available. I quickly added Forecastfox. These add-ons are easy to install. It is the ability to customize Firefox that appeals to me allowing you to add on only what you want and as little or as much as you want.

The Morris Bookmarklets that I added to my Favorites were Subject, Subject Keyword(s) - ONLINE, Subject Keyword(s), Author or Title Keywords.

I visited the web page Canadian War Museum and found you needed to be very specific in selecting your search terms. When I highlighted "Map of Vimy Ridge" the bookmarklet provided the result "Sorry, could not find anything matching Map of Vimy Ridge" whereas when I searched only "Vimy Ridge" I had a better result giving me 10 Search Results for Vimy Ridge including cartographic material from the catalogue.

I think over time I will add all of the bookmarklets as I did find them useful. It saved time and clicking giving me the information I wanted.

Gaming

2007-05-01T18:09:00.000-07:00

I dropped into the Gaming Demo held by Kelly in the Wong e-Classroom on Tuesday, April 17th. I was interested to find out what everyone was talking about. It was neat to see Instant IMVU Messenger, MUSHES, X-Men Retribution and World of Warcraft. The graphics were amazing!

I have Nintendo Gamecube at home and have played games like Luigi’s Mansion, Mario Superstar Baseball, Mario Power Tennis and danced to Karaoke Revolution Party. I have also tried some of the Pop Cap Games like Tiger Shark. These games are fun and I have 4 controllers hooked up to our Gamecube so a group can play together.

I find these games are challenging and unreadable. You never know what’s going to happen whereas when I am playing a board game it’s predictable. I find it’s interesting to look at the animation and the characters are fun to play as. The games are hard but not so hard that you have to play them over and over again.

There are different types of game genres to play depending on your personal preference. You not only follow the journey of the main character but you also get to experience what the main character does and to see what happens after you defeat the game. In Super Mario Sunshine, at the end, after you beat Bowser you finally get to go on vacation which is the whole point of the game. It shows a clip of Mario and Peach partying at the beach. Its fun to see what happens after you finally beat the game!

I think fighting games would be popular with the ability to level up, getting new powers and defeating bosses. You learn new combinations and strategies to weaken your opponent. The more experienced you get the more knowledgeable you become and find it easier to defeat opponents. I think I will have to give World of Warcraft a try!

I think that students are interested in gaming and libraries need to find ways to support this interest!!!!! It might be fun to have a Gaming Day(s) in the library, maybe a DDR tournament where you could participate one on one or as a team. What do you think?

LibraryThing

2007-04-26T15:19:00.000-07:00

Last Friday I had the privilege of attending the

OLITA 2007 Digital Odyssey

.

Notes from the workshop can be found on the left sidebar under Recent Posts. It was wonderful to see so many professionals dedicated to continuing to improve their academic, public, special and school libraries. Jeffrey Trzeciak, University Librarian at McMaster University set the tone for the day with his talk “Preparing the Library of Today for the User of Tomorrow”. It is exciting to be part of the transformation!

The closing keynote speaker Tim Spalding, creator of

LibraryThing

inspired me to open an account and start my own library catalog. I was intrigued by the idea of creating a catalog about me and my choices. I will slowly add more books and explore the many social features available like tagging your books, recommendations from Book Suggester and displaying your books on a virtual shelf. This is fun! Check out some of the books I have in my collection in the sidebar. I love these blog widgets :-)

Flickr

2007-03-25T12:55:00.000-07:00

I finally found time down to download the puppy pictures on my camera to the computer and upload them to a Flickr account. I had forgotten how busy it is to have a new puppy in the house :-)

Normally, I put my pictures on CD-R's and had considered using

Kodak Easy Share Gallery

which only allows you to view someone's photos if they have given you their user name and password.

It was easy and free to sign up for Flickr and upload my photos. I liked that you can add RSS feeds to your picture gallery and the build a badge feature allows you to show photos on another website.

Alex, one problem I had was changing the copyright from public to All rights reserved like Krista has on her photos. I'm wondering if you can help me out with this? Thanks!

del.icio.us

2007-03-24T11:58:00.000-07:00

I searched del.icio.us for the topics "fastpitch" and "softball" and found that other people have used these same tags. I found similar sites on Google as I did on del.icio.us. There were just a lot more hits on Google than on del.icio.us. Most of the tags were what I thought they should be and I did not find any confusing.

When I set up my account on

del.icio.us

I liked the ability to bundle similar tags together under one main heading. I decided to put buttons on my browser toolbar. This account will be convenient when I'm using my husband's laptop on the deck this summer and his Favorites list is different than mine ;-)

Wiki

2007-03-23T19:19:00.000-07:00

The PBWiki & Wetpaint are very similar to a seedwiki I had contributed to for a course I had taken at Mohawk College. We used the seedwiki to add resources and ideas throughout the course. I think this is a great way to share resources!

The page I added to the PBWiki

B.A.'s
Waiting to Read

and to Wetpaint

Library listservs

I did enjoy using the Smiley's and font colors available on the PBWiki. I think they catch your eye and draw your attention. This feature is not available on Wetpaint. Both sites allowed you to change the size of the font - which I did.

I liked the Page Information and Wiki Information on the bottom of the home page for the PBWiki and the Latest Page Update at the bottom of the Wetpaint site.

Alex I was not able to figure out how to tag on the PBWiki site? Could you help me out with this? As well, I wanted to add a Smiley to this post using the keyboard. I have tried a number of things in case anyone viewed my post in process like: \def\smiley{\hbox{$\large\bigcirc$\hspace{-.88em}%? Do you know how I can add this? I tried the Blogger Help Group Discussion and had no luck. Thanks.

RSS

2007-03-04T13:12:00.000-08:00

I used Bloglines to set up my RSS feeds. I found it easy to unsubscribe to a feed like

Word of the Day

and

Quotes of the Day

after a few days.

The number in brackets beside the feed is a nice feature telling you how many postings you have to read and the "Mark All Read" feature allows you to skip those postings you don't have time for. I made a folder for my group and dragged all of my blog feeds into it. I had fun sorting my folder alphabetically and then by newest and oldest. As I add more feeds I will need to make more folders so that it is manageable (and hides how many feeds I have) and I can check a folder a day. I want to read some of the forums too.

I am having fun adding to my blog! Thanks to Alex for showing me how to add links to my sidebar:-)

What do you think of my "rainbow effect"?

Library 10 "in tune with the times"

2007-02-26T07:24:00.000-08:00

I hope you will check out this cool public library in Helsinki, Finland
Library 10
.

The library collection consists of 34,000 music recordings, DVDs, sheet music and musical literature. There is a music studio with guitars and keyboards available to loan. You can play music or make a music video. I think I would enjoy the leather sofas in the baroque corner and maybe check out the travel books!

The music, Information Gas Station, 40 computer stations and automatons for self-service borrowing and returning appeal to the young male citizens of Helsinki who were not using the other library branches. This branch opened in 2005 and is visited by 4,000 people each day!

I will have to put this on my list of libraries I would like to visit!!!

Oakville Images

2007-02-14T10:43:00.000-08:00

On Thursday, February 8, 2007 I attended the launch of Oakville Images at the Oakville Public Library celebrating Oakville's Heritage. This is an interactive site that allows you to view historical photos, videos, interviews of Oakville.

One of the Featured Sites Oakville at War allows you to send via e-mail an electronic postcard; click on World War I, Postcards, Image Details, Create electronic postcard.

Another neat feature was Oakville stereoviews under Featured collections on the Oakville Images page. I will put some 3-D glasses on my desk in Bibliographic Services along with some of the pamphlets I collected for anyone who would like to try this feature.

Here is a link to one of my favorite stereoviews

Oakville Harbor, 1908