Thing 3: Photo-Sharing

I have had a Flickr account for a number of years.  Originally, I set it up as a back up for my photos, after losing a number of them when my computer crashed.  Now, I like it for that purpose as well as in having a place where I can share photos with my friends and family. 

Although I was intrigued by the narrators compelling reasons in the Common Craft video, Online Photo Sharing in Plain English,  for making ones photos Public, I believe I will still keep my pictures private, to be shared with only family and friends.  I have a lot of pictures of my little girl in my account, and there are just too many sickos out there.

Even more interesting in this weeks "Thing" was the blog from librarian.net [http://www.librarian.net/stax/3053/leaving-des-moines/] about the problems she ran into when taking pictures at the Des Moines Public Library.  The comments after her  blog were especially intriguing and made me really think.  As I sit in a public library typing this (as a patron), I don't think I would feel comfortable if some stranger came around and started taking pictures of me, but I also understand wanting to take pictures of a beautiful library. The feedback from different architects weighing in on the issue was also intriguing.

I can see the use of having a public Flikr account for one's library.  If I did it, I would create a separate Flikr account for that use, I would not tie it to my personal account.  Since I work as a school librarian however, in order to do such a thing, I would need to get a lot of permissions to do it.  Principal, superintendent, parents, most likely the Board of Education.  I'm wondering how many of my peers have gone through all this yet, and if they find it worth the effort?

Thing 2-RSS Part 2

I like the idea of RSS Readers and have had a Bloglines account for years (thanks to Polly's Tech Camp at Rensselaerville Institute several years ago).  My biggest problem is remembering to check the account!   Months and months can go by without me doing it.  I need to make a commitment, now that I created an iGoogle page, to check the site and updates regularly.  I feel like I am making a New Year's Resolution, but truly hope to keep this one!

RSS readers can be SO useful to librarians.  We know there is so much info. out there on the web and it truly is hard to keep up with it all.  By creating and CHECKING our RSS Readers, it is so much easier to keep up to date on the latest news, technology, books, authors, etc.

As I keep using my iGoogle page, I hope to update this blog on what I have learned.

Thing 2-RSS

So first I created an I Google account.  It was much easier than I thought it would be.  That said, I did have a tough time picking the picture for the top!  It was fun to practice moving things around on the page and adding links.

That said, I had a lot of trouble adding RSS Feeds when I would go to sites and click on the quick link.  I was much more successful when I would cut and paste the URL into the reader add RSS feature.

After reading Polly's Q & A's about this week's "thing", I realize I might be more successful using Firefox instead of Explorer.  I'll try that next time.

Children's Book Festival

This past Saturday, I took my mother and daughter to the Children's Book Festival held at the Albany Academies.  We had a blast meeting authors, doing crafts, and looking at books.  It took a lot of will power not to break the bank buying books, but my seven year old's book collection definitely grew this weekend.