At Last! Podcasting!

Which library podcasts did you listen to?
I listened to A Conversation with Stephen Abrams through OPAL (Online Programming for All Libraries). Stephen discusses the myriad of technologies at our fingertips now and how libraries are evolving. The discussion is thought provoking and worthwhile. To listen to Stephen click here .

Do you see podcasting as a useful tool for Sno-Isle Libraries?
I believe podcasts are super for many apps in Sno-Isle, everything from updating staff on new practices, interviews with authors, to training everyone in new applications. As far as patrons go, the availability of podcasts for every interest whether you are a student doing research; a business person staying current in their field; or a senior who wants to investigate new interests are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what can be done with this technology.

Any ideas about which topics our patrons might be interested in hearing?
The range of topics is as broad as the range of patrons who use our libraries. I listen to an assortment of podcasts, everything from: Tech Republic, Free Talk Live, Gizmodo, Lifehacker, to Common Sense with Dan Carlin. I can quickly download them to my MP3 player at lunch or on a break to listen to at my leisure at home. I think patrons would enjoy this opportunity as well.

Do you have any experience with listening to, or creating podcasts?

Podcasts are one of those things I have been listening to for about three years now. I started while in college partly because of curiosity, but also because the tech topics available were a huge help in my understanding the subjects I was studying. Some folks, and I am one of them, find it difficult to get printed information to write to their organic hard drive. The addition of audio and visual formats seems to make concepts more concrete than print alone can achieve.
Also, there are some favorite radio programs that I can’t get the normal way because I live in the mountains, so I latched on to getting them online as soon as I discovered I could. I had never signed into a reader before to collect my favorite broadcasts together though, and I am now finding the convenience of a reader a boon. This is definitely something I will use a lot.

Sure you can Rollyo(ur own), and you can Dogpile em’, but for me Mamma knows best.

At the Lundquist homestead, among a myriad of other hobbies, we collect plants. Right now I am looking for rhododendrons and azaleas with northwest names for a new garden.
I chose a simple search, I typed in “rhododendrons”. On Google and Yahoo, I found three sites selling rhody’s and a long list of pages with rhododendron culture, photos, and a slew of university web pages on the same.
Task #15 was the perfect chance to see if I could do better with one of the metasearch engines.
While Rollyo and Dogpile both elicited more relevant pages than Google and Yahoo, Mamma was the hands down winner in my search.
I got eight Sponsored links of nurseries, and another half-dozen more nurseries along with pages that either had pictures of rhody’s or detailed their culture. This was on my first “roll”.
I made another attempt with the same terms on all three and, surprisingly, on my second try, Dogpile had a larger list than before, Mamma seemed about the same, and Rollyo got worse, although I can’t figure out why that would happen. I have tagged Mamma to refer to in future on Del.icio.us, and I will keep testing both Dogpile and Rollyo on other searches to see what pops up.

Imag-ine Yourself Online

Whew! Talk about your intense experience. While the process of downloading my picture and formatting it is not that tough, trying to figure out what to do with it almost made me crazy! I am one of those folks who never goes into 31 flavors because I will spend an hour figuring out that I want Vanilla. That said, I picked one to show my husband that will make him laugh, and one for this project. I wanted a Star Wars Imperial Walker, but I couldn't find it, and the idea of having Bill Gates posing over my pic on a monitor was a wee bit too creepy. So I am now the next great X-Box 360 game. I can see how one can get quite wrapped up in the fun. Not sure there is an application for Patrons unless they need a quick, cute card frame for something.