Booktrailers

So by far booktrailers has been my favorite "thing" of all 23 things.  I had so much fun making my trailer, from picking my book, to deciding what text to use, to picking the pictures and music to putting it all together.  I found it surprisingly easy as well.  It was a little time consuming but that was just because I got a little bit picky. The text had to be the right font and color and size.  The music had to swell at a certain picture.  You get the idea.

So I leave you with my finished book trailer of The Fault in our Stars by John Green.  Enjoy!

Podcasting

I do not have much experience listening or viewing podcasts but I am familiar with them.  I'm just a visual person that I would be more likely to watch a video podcast than listen to an audio podcast.

I do know of some libraries who have created podcasts. The Greenwood Public Library for example lets teens record podcasts on whatever topic they are interested.  They have a page titled "Speak Your Mind" and teens can submit stories and poems but they can also email a librarian to set up a recording time for podcasts.  I remember a couple of years ago they actually had a "talk show" of sorts with teens from their Teen Advisory Board talk about and review books.

I googled: Young Adult books podcasts and found this site: http://yalitlovers.oklibshare.org
It is a blog that posts podcasts periodically.  It seems pretty up to date since the last entry was from May 11, 2012.  It was fun to listen to because it was just a bunch of librarians sitting around talking about books. I ended up adding this blog to my google reader so I can listen to new entries.

Webjunction

I have used Webjunction before.  I have taken a couple of classes on there.  I knew that I had a username and password but since I signed up about 4 years ago I had trouble remembering what they were.  Webjunction as also not very forgiving of how many times you can try and log in.  After trying two times it made me sign up for an account but when I tried to sign for an account it said that an account with my email address already existed! Sheesh!

I did end up signing up for a new account with my gmail address.

Update: May 30
I finally got logged in to the course access.  You have to have TWO accounts. One for webjunction and then a separate one for course access.  Webjunction has changed so much than when I took courses 4 years ago. 

I browsed through the catalog and found a few classes I would be interested in taking.
Readers' Advisory Services (LibraryU) 

Weeding the Library Collection (LibraryU) 

Social Networking for Users 

There wasn't much offered that really interested me but the three that I chose from the offerings would benefit me the most in my current job. 

Screencasting

We have actually discussed using screen-casting to create tutorials in the Youth Department.  These would be great for creating TIPCAT or database tutorials to send to schools. 

I watched the video for How to Make a Jeopardy Powerpoint.  This was helpful as I could use Jeopardy games in my teen programs.

I searched the internet for a screencasts of a game I like to play on my iPod touch called "Where's My Water?" There was a level I just could not complete.  After watching the screencast I was able to figure it out!  

Skype

The only knowledge I have of skype comes from work.  I have done two teen programs where we have skyped with an author and both were a success.  The first year we skyped with author Carrie Ryan as part of a zombie program.  The second year we skyped with author Lindsey Leavitt as part of a teen writing workshop.

Because I have skyped with these two ladies, I already have a Skype account and added them (plus 2 people from Automation) to my contacts.  Before I skyped with my authors I did test calls with automation. 

I hope to continue skyping with authors as it is a great way for teens to meet and talk with their favorite authors without having to travel and spend a lot of money to meet them.

Instant Messaging

I have a lot of experience with instant messaging.  That was all I did throughout college.  I would have my AIM up all the time and would chat with friends even if they were across the hall from me.  Sometimes my roommate and I would have the most deep conversations with each other while we were sitting right next to each other.  I don't use AIM anymore but I still sometimes chat with people through facebook.  I can chat also through my phone instead of texting people. 

I remember in middle school, before IM became popular, I would go to this one chat room that was designed for teens. We would trade codes with each other so we could type in pretty colors and emoticons. We also emailed a lot back then.

I worked at another library that used instant messaging in the reference department. I had to observe the reference department for a library school class I was taking and helped answer a few questions they received through IM. Sometimes they would just get IMs from patrons using the computers requesting more internet time but they received a fair amount of real reference questions as well.

Wikis

Might as well continue on.  I have had some experience editing wikis in the past.  Most of my experience with wikis is reading them.  Obviously I'm familiar with Wikipedia but I'm also familiar with wikiHow. I find a lot of craft ideas and step by step DIY type projects on there. I have also used YALSA's wiki but have found it very confusing and unwieldy to use. For collaborating and sharing information with co-workers I'd much rather use a blog or google docs.  

I added a line to the story for the discovery exercise and created a page about Shih Tzus.

Google Calendar

My, my it's been awhile.  I need to knuckle down if I'm going to complete all 23 Things by the deadline.  I'm so close to the finish line I can taste it!  Well, not really but you get the idea.

Anyway, google calendar was a pretty easy module.  I have used so many different calendars at work that it was very easy for me to pick up.  So, I create a calendar titled "Teen Programs" and added 2 or 3 of my summer programs to it.  Then I added a second calendar titled "Melissa's Meetings" and added 2 or 3 of my upcoming meetings.

It was cool to see all of my events highlighted when both calendars were "active".  I went ahead and shared my teen program calendar with the 23Things gmail account. 

Google Docs

I think Google Docs is a wonderful tool that we could be utilizing here in the library.  I think it is "safer" to use than the shared server because it backs up your documents in case something is deleted that wasn't supposed to be.  I know I have accidentally deleted a file on the shared server that I didn't mean to or forgot to save a document and lost what I was working on.  I've also collaborated on documents with co-workers and it would have been easier and more time-efficient to have been using google docs. 

I really enjoyed collaborating on the "powerpoint" presentation. I added a slide with my favorite book, The Giver by Lois Lowry.

I ended up uploading a document rather and trying to figure out what kind of document to create.  I uploaded a booktalk I did of Hunger Games for Jefferson High School students a couple of years ago.  Here is the link: http://dft.ba/-293k

Enjoy and feel free to change or add to my document!  I can always go back to a previous revision if I don't like what you changed ;-)

VYou

VYou isn't one of our 23 Things but I discovered this a few months back. I think I've mentioned how I'm a big fan of John Green and his Vlogbrother's YouTube channel he has with his brother.  At the end of one of his videos he mentioned that we was now on VYou.  I clicked over and found that it is question/answer type website where the questioner can submit a question and the answerer will answer that question via video.  It's a very interesting premise.

I got to thinking about how libraries could use VYou. A librarian could record videos answering patron questions. But, what types of questions would patrons ask?  What types of questions would the library be willing to answer? I could see how it might be fun as a Young Adult librarian to have teens ask questions of me. It's very interesting to think about.

Anyway, here are both John and Hank Green's VYou pages so you can see a little bit what I'm talking about. They have a very strong nerdfighter community so a lot of the questions they answer are about that.

http://vyou.com/johngreen
http://vyou.com/hankgreen

Social Bookmarking

So, apparently I already have a Delicious account.  I must have learned about it in library school, or clicked on that little delicious icon sometime.  I vaguely remembered having an account so I logged it to see if it was still active and it was!

Wanna here about what I had bookmarked back then?  The anticipation is killing you right?  Ok, ok I'll tell you!
1. FAIL blog
2. Not Always Right
3. EW.com
4. Unshelved
5. IMDb

I still read these blogs/websites but I usually just "google" them to get to the right website.  I can see how having a delicious account will keep them organized for you but I don't know that I visit enough websites to really warrant using it all that much.

I did create a new account just for 23 Things: ageekylibrarian
It has changed a lot since I first remember using it.  I don't remember there being an option to create stacks back when I first joined. I did share a link with the 23 Things Blog - Awful Library Books. 

I also added a few links from some of our previous 23 Things that I liked the best and will probably still use after this. I put those into one stack and created another stack for "funny" links. I shared the stack of my favorite 23 Things links with tcpl23things.

Some ways I could use this in my work: I could create an account to share links with teens such as: Goodreads, Figment, Teen Ink, etc. 

 

Online Surveys

Hello, remember me?  Your friendly geeky librarian?  I can't believe how long this post has taken me to post.  I started this blog post on February 8 and have just finished it.

This reminds me of the early days of having my own email account in college (it was a pretty big deal for me to have my own email account back then!).  My friends would send me forwards of emails title things like, "Let's get to know each other!" with questions like, "What are you wearing right now?" and "What is your favorite ice cream?" and "Who was the last person you spoke to?"

Usually these surveys were right in the email but sometimes they would send them in a format similar to survey monkey.  Friends would also send quizzes to each other too.  Once everyone got a facebook account my friends would send these surveys/quizzes in facebook.

Anyway, when I first started thinking about survey monkey I thought that I wouldn't be able to use it for work.  After talking with some of my co-workers I realized I could survey the teens to find out what types of programs they would like to see.  Since they don't always make it to all of my programs I never have all of my regulars in the same room at the same time it can be hard to ask them these questions in person.

I did start a potential survey for teens here. I will not send it out until I have permission to do so but I do think an online survey like this would really help me in planning future programs.

Image Generators

Wow, I haven't posted in a very long time.

I found this exercise kind of fun.  I had played around with BigHugeLabs before, both for work and my personal use.  For work I had played around with the Framer option.  I was not familiar with the other image generators before this exercise.

I did end up trying out Image Chef because I like the word mosaic on the 23 things blog.  I ended up putting in a few YA booktitles to make my own mosaic.  I think this could be a fun way to promote award winners, specific genres, etc.  The fun thing about image chef is you can upload your own shapes. 

I had played around with word clouds before and I think they are kind of fun. I have previously made word clouds using Wordle. Here is one I made with the Best Fiction for Young Adults list including the summaries. 

The interesting thing about Wordle is that it makes the more prominent or most repeated words larger than the rest.  I really like both of these options.  I like Image Chef because your word cloud/mosaic can be in any shape that you want but I like Wordle because it uses every word you type in.