A Responce to 'A Whole New Mind'

For my LATI program I have read the first three chapters of Daniel H. Pink's book A Whole New Mind.

To briefly summarize:
The book is a statement by Pink that the days of valuing strictly Left-brained, or highly technical, skills is over. He postulates that because of economic changes, Americans today must excessive creativity, empathy, and other more creative thinking processes to be competitive in the job market today.

Pinks book also includes fun creativity challenges that illustrate what kind of creative thinking he believes will be important in the new Right brained economy. I just might try a few of his suggestions like browsing magazines I would not normally look at to get a different perspective of what someone with very different interests from my own might be reading/thinking/buying etc.

Three questions I would ask Pink about the first three chapters of his book are:

1. Right Brain Rising: I am not sure about some of the technical aspects of Pinks 'right brain / left brain' dichotomy. He himself states that it is more of a label than the fact that creative and empathetic tasks/thoughts come just from the right Brian but I wonder if Pink would consider a different label for this concept of creativity and synthesis vs. more logic and numbers based thinking and what would such labels be?

2. Automation, Abundance and Asia: I wonder if Pink has taken into account in this chapter the growing government positions in Homeland Security, and defence. Chemists are in as much demand in this country today as ever, and their demand in government and defence contracting cannot be shipped over seas for security reasons. I may be overly sensitive to this issue because of the proximity of a prominent government testing and research base in my area, but I believe that there are many highly technical 'L-brained' jobs that will never be farmed out to the A's. My question to Pink is, do you think we produce enough graduates with a high enough technical skill set to fulfill these positions now? I don't and I wonder if we do not already tend to prize 'R-brained skills over L in many instances of education in the US.

3. High Concept, High Touch: As for this chapter, I wonder how Pink proposes we should teach something like creativity and humor. While it is possible to nurture artistic and other such abilities it is generally considered that they are in-born. How would Pink challenge that assumption and suggest we teach R-brained skills to those who are highly L-brained and seek to gain some of the skills that be believes are becoming more essential in today's economy.

As for the impact of Automation, Abundance and Asia on libraries, I believe that these changes increase the need and use of libraries as apposed to decreasing them. As LATI has taught me, one of the most important jobs a librarian has is finding out what question the patron REALLY needs to ask. Sometimes a person does not even know themselves. That kind of work requires empathy and creativity. Our positions are local community positions so they cannot be affected by Asia, and no mater how abundant resources are, the library will always be able to provide a greater selection and set of resources than a person would be able to buy on their own, or would use enough to warrant buying. While the way we deliver this information/entertainment may shift and change, libraries seem to be the kind of place the new right mindedness Pink champions can flourish.

-M

A decided lack of mystery in the mystery section

I have read mystery books. Certainly mystery tv shows (although you'd never turn a tv on these days without catching part of one mystery show or another). But I've never been a big fan. I think it's because I'm fairly good at reading foreshadowing. It's often obvious to me when an author is purposefully leading me along to a certain character while holding several other less likely suspects in the wings to side slam me with. I see it, and like those overly sentimental books like Daniele Steel, I don't like it. I don't want to be toyed with. So, other than Janet Evanovich novels which I love for their humor, eccentric sociology of the state of New Jersey, and the charming romance, I generally dislike mysteries.

So I gave mysteries another shot as one of my less read generas for LATI. I read a book titled 'Whisky Sour' a Jack Daniels mystery by somebody who's name I forget at the moment but I will look up and add later.

I liked the book enough that it was no big fight to make my self slug thorough it but I wouldn't read another part of the series. I liked the again slightly sassy female lead named Jack Daniels (my affinity for the drink is, I admit the reason I picked up the book) and I liked the humor in the book. Not as sassy as Evanovich but still it's own quality of fun.

The murder element whoever was a bit over the top even for me. The victims in this book are tortured by this crazy serial killer before they are killed. The perverted sicko who rapes the massive stab wounds he makes in his victims. This gruesome element would make me hesitate to recommend it to many patrons. The main character is also 40ish, and I find readers often relate best to main characters in their same peer group. So finding someone in their 40s who isn't upset by raped stab wounds...that puts the book in a difficult category. I am sure some of my patrons would be fine reading it like me but there is nothing special to redeem the book.

I am somewhat familiar with mystery titles as my mother is an avid reader but this book has not swayed me to the genre. I think I'll stick to my TV shows like 'Bones' and 'Pushing up Daisies' for my mystery fix.

-M

My 1st YA book for LATI

For LATI I am required to read 2 books outside a genre I normally read as well as 2 young adult books. I am a slow and fickle reader, so as soon as I found out about this project I began to get started, trying to find books I might be interested in and starting to read them. I am actually very bad about reading books I am not interested in. I quickly loose interest and often leave books (even the ones I chose to read for fun) in the middle and never come back. I am not that excited about reading 2 books outside my usual genres. I do read from a wide variety of books (although I do have my somewhat unique criteria for what I chose to read. I tend to read things that are a bit on the eccentric side). And the genres I do not read in (like inspirational books especially) I am strongly disinterested in. But I was looking forward to the YA part of the assignment. I have actually read several YA books throughout the past year on my own even though it is not a section I am particularly responsible for. I still enjoy YA books and I was glad to have an excuse to read a few.

The first YA book I chose to read Is tittled "Bloody Jack: being an account of the curious adventures of Mary 'Jacky' Faber, Ship's Boy" By L.A. Meyer.

I LOVED the book. I always enjoy a sassy female lead and this book has a wonderfully spunky young female lead character. The humor in the book also kept my attention, and the plot was high paced and full of action.

The book did have that YA/J children's book quality of letting every bad situation be a near miss that every important character, including the main character, comes out of alright in the end.

I would recommend this book to young readers, and to librarians leading books for young readers because it is an engaging book and it lends it's self to discussion of current and historic gender roles and class distinction. It is also the first book in a longer series that would encourage readers to keep on reading.

In fact, I enjoyed the book so much, I intend to read the rest of the series myself.

I have a few other YA books checked out to read for my second book but I will try to get one of the 2 adult books outside my normal genre's under my belt so I'm off to read "Hard Core Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies, and the Truth About Reality" by Brad Warner a Non-Fiction book.

-M

Thing # 21 Podcasts

Podcasts

Podcast.net and podcastalley.com both yielded interesting podcasts, but I have to admit I'm not a big fan of podcasts for the same reason I dislike audio books. I just cannot concentrate on a recorded voice the way I can on a person speaking or on a page of text. I would almost always prefer to read a blog than listen to a pod cast. However, I think I would be better at keeping up with creating pod casts than I would with writing my own personal blog.

When searching a place like podcast.net I found tags to be very effective ways of finding relevant podcasts. Searches were just not as useful for some reason. I find i-tunes to be the most useful way of keeping up with, and finding podcasts I am most interested in, but bloglines offers a nice alternative that is accessible from any computer.

-M

Thing # 20 You Tube

About You Tube.

This video is a funny little skit about libraries. Its the kind of thing that kids spend their time looking at. Random, humorous little bits of visual, audio and video information that make up so much of what they consume in a day. As such I think it just might be a very good way to communicate with teens. Although they are not so likely to search for the key word 'library' as I am but 'Ninja' might get their notice.

As for features that the Youtube site uses libraries could use, feature videos/ most viewed/ favorite could be replaced by feature new books/videos etc. feature book reviews, most checked out books, etc. This site offers many ways to see what other people are viewing, and libraries could incorporate these features as a way to provide readers with a way to learn about new books they might be interested in. It's like readers advisory without the staff. Sites like amazon.com use this kind of linking of liked materials or popular materials to help customers find new and different products and libraries could make their websites serve this function for our patrons as well.

-M

Thing #14 tagging in technorati

The Terrible Truth about Tagging on Technorati

I get it. Tagging a post is different than tagging a blog. A blog with a tagg is going to have posts about the subject on a regular basis. Just searching a post only gives you recent examples of when anyone discussed a subject. This is useful if you are looking for info or opinions on a particular event or product, (say you want to know more about the new I-phone) you would be best served to search posts. Searching for the blog tagg will help you find a blog that is going to be consistently (at least partially) about the topic you are interested in (Japanese poetry, economics in Uganda, whatever). So think of the blogg taggs as searching for the title of a journal, and the post taggs as searching for a specific article in said journal. What is better? Depends on what your looking for. For the purpose of learning 2.0, I found that the blogg tagg results were more relevant and useful.

As for the top searches...why would you search for a blog about myspace? I guess there is a great deal of varying opinion and argument over the issue but I mean really? Popularity doesn't = credibility so you can keep the top 100.

On a side bar, what is this authority stuff on technorati? I suppose I should find out but my guess is it's like seller ratings on e-bay and what does that really tell you about someones actual authority on an issue? I think not so much.

-M

Thing #17 Sandbox Wiki

Editing a sandbox/wiki

I think that wiki totally open to the public (or any very large population) can easily get out of control with too many creative voices and not enough accountability for ones actions. But I have to admit they are fun. The actual editing process on this particular sandbox was very easy. I haven't had much experience on a sandbox or wiki and I had no trouble posting to the site.

I'm afraid that's about all I have to say about that.

-M

Thing #5 Flickr

Exploring Flickr

I was actually surprised not to see MORE photos of summer reading displays! We all work so hard to get our libraries all jazzed up for summer reading with colorful displays and amazing programs. Sharing the fruits of those labors could inspire others.

I was impressed, for example by the Worthington Libraries in Ohio (who also have a very impressive website http://www.worthingtonlibraries.org/).

The Northwest branch, where the pictures were taken, really went all out jazzing up the place with hanging records, music notes, a music stand complete with sheet music, and a violin. The part of the decor which stuck out in my mind the most were these lovely silhouettes.

Photo Posted By: Worthington Libraries

at Flickr: Northwest Library summer reading decorations, 2006.

-M

Thing #15 Library 2.0

After reading the commentarys about web 2.0 at http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/1.htm I have one over arching comment: What about the computer illiterate? All these ideas about moving all our resources on to the web and updating our libraries misses one key feature, we still have many people in this society who are grossly computer illiterate. While the number will fall as the number of people who grew up around computers grows, even in my limited experience as a public librarian I still encounter many people everyday who lack even basic computer skills. I love many of the ideas that library 2.0 suggests to us in this profession, but we cannot afford to leave high percentages of our patronage that are either completely computer illiterate, or are at least computer shy, behind. The point of libraries has always been to democratize information and offer priceless information to everyone. Be they digitally challenged or financially challenged, a library should be the place where you can what ever kind of information you want or need.

On a lighter note one specific thing that struck me "quite a change from monolithic...long development times and software release cycles web 2.0..." I hope everyone gets that...that web 2.0, that name is based on the idea that it is the second cycle or software release of the web. And it's funny how the author of this comment was referring directly to the software cycles that gave it it's name.

And I LOVE the NCSU library's catalog http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/!
The flexibility that the catalog hat is the best way to search.

A quote that exemplifies learning (LATI)

Find a quote that exemplifies what you think and feel about learning. Note why this quote resonates with you.

As often as a study is cultivated by narrow minds, they will draw from it narrow conclusions. [Auguste Comte and Positivism (1865)]Mill, John Stuart (1806 - 1873)English philosopher, economist and reformer

This quote resonates with me because I believe it contains an important caution about learning. If we do not approach information with an open mind, we learn absolutely nothing. This is not to say that one should except every item of information that is presented to him or her, but that each piece of information should be given fair and carefuly consideration before it should be accepted. If you build your knowledge up on false assumptions made by quickly rejecting or embracing certain thoughts or theories (or even alleged facts) than everything else you build upon it is subject to fall apart if this basic concept does not hold up to scrutiny.

-M

Week 9 Thing 23 Summery

1. My favorite discovery exercise was online productivity exercise I Had never used an online word processor before and I think it is one of the most useful web 2.0 type resources in the whole program. As I mentioned in my post for that 'thing' I believe it could be a very useful resource for patrons who have trouble moving data around.

2. This program has not affected my life long learning goals. I already had goals before this program and I still have them after.

3. My favorite take-away from this program was Pandora.com an online radio station that you can program by telling it what kind of music you like and do not like. Personally, that was my favorite part of the program.

4. To improve this program I would recommend a more careful consideration of the 'things' used and/or how one is directed to look at them. There is a difference between familiarizing ones self with a professional resource that may be used to help staff field questions, or may be useful to staff and patrons, and poking around a site like youtube, that you familiarize yourself with to help patrons navigate the site. I think that discovery excesses could be more carefully tailored to each purpose. Such as giving staff a question to answer using the site, or a specific topic to search. Having a reason to use a site or application in a specific manner would help familiarize a learner with it in a much more real way than just asking us to poke around.

5. I would chose to participate in future programs if offered CEUs.

6. 23 things, a bunch of moderately useful stuff you might not have heard of yet. (Hows that for marketing?)

-M

Week 9 Thing 22 e-books and e-audio books

Generally speaking, I am not a big fan of audio books. I just don't pay attention to sounds the way I pay attention to written words. I end up letting the sound be background like I do with music and I concentrate on something else because I feel like I'm not doing anything when I'm just listening to a CD.

I also hate reading large bodies of text on a monitor. when ever I have an article or something to read online that's longer than a couple pages I print it out. So needless to say, all e-books and e-audio books are not high on my interest list.

That being said, I did find and download several audio books of the Maryland Consortium site. (the two sites listed for the 23 things do not appear to be available for Cecil County) I found several titles I was interested in, and three that I could download without a wait on a hold list. Project Gutenberg looked like it would have been a good resource when I was in school as it seems to have works with a more scholarly feel to them. I will have to look around more some time I am in a brainy mood.

I have one very real complaint however.

I INTENSELY dislike the fact that I have to download a special media player to listen to the books on cd. I already have 5 or 6 media players. I don't want a 7th. I want to use winamp or iTunes to listen to my book on tape. I'm sure they can figure out all the petty little 'you can't transfer or save or whatever this file' into mp3 format so I can listen to it like I do every other piece of audio I get off the net. Forcing users to download a special player limits the use of theses e-files as people at public computers (for example IN A LIBRARY!) may not be able to install programs on the computer they are working at. Mp3 format is so standard that almost any machine you can find today already has at least one program that can play these kinds of files.

Mp3 format. It's not to much to ask.

That's my 4 cents on the matter. You can keep the change.
-M

Thing #19 Web 2.0 Awards

When I frist try to access the web 2.o awards site it was down, so I turned to google and punched in web 2.0. I ran across a really great web 2.0 site that catalogs web 2.0 sites. ( This could get complicated your thinking but thats the end of the redundancy). What was nice about this site, http://www.go2web20.net/ is that it uses tags in a could to let you pic out a site by the type, ie a site about videos, music, social networking, shopping ect. Through this site I found a very fun cooking site that uses user generated tags to lets me search for shared recipes by ingredient or taste.

After finally getting to the web.20 awards I was not impressed. The awards mostly featured sites that are already popular and familiar to many users, and I did not find that many of the sites that interesting with the exception of www.pandora.com which is an awesome Internet radio type site that lets you select an artist or song you like and it builds a radio station of similar music. As the play list rolls you can tell the program if you liked or disliked a certain song and this will alter what kind of songs will appear on the station in the feature. Since the basic service is free you do get more b-sides, live tracks, and slightly odder tunes, but talk about the ultimate radio experience! The adds are visual so all that is required to ignore them is a minimized explorer window.

-M

Thing # 18

Alright, this looks like a fairly scaled down version of word. It would take a while to figure out if it had all the same applications that are available in word but the basics appear to be covered.

The program also seems to have several useful templates. And anything with an emoticon is all good!

Why, with a lack of auto formatting, Zoho may be even more useful than word.

I am also interested in the idea of collaborating on a document. I have never used this feature in word either and I wonder how well it works.

Basically, while this application has some potential to get around some of the problems of word, it will surely have it's own frustrations. I'm not that excited about it, but it is good to know about for helping patrons who are having technical issues related to moving between computers.

Which makes me think that it might be great for public libraries who limit computer usage where a patron could get shut out of the computer that his or her work is saved on, to recommend this web app. since it would be accessible from any computer with the Internet. Start it at home, work on it at the library, pull it up for the teacher at school with no worries about losing disks or different versions of word. Leaving your documents accessible from anywhere without a storage device, now that part sound useful.

Guess I just might become a fan.

-M

Thing # 16 Wikis

I must admit that I've had some negative perceptions of wikis in the past and while I admire the ability to do something like a Wiki I have never found one that I was overly interested in as an author and a reader. (although I admit to using wikipedia for a general idea on an unfamiliar subject.) So In completing this thing, I tried to concentrate on wiki use in the library and forget all the negative experiences I have had with wikis in the past. Takeing a look at what other libraries are doing with wikis was a big help.

I thought that the subject guide that St. Joseph county Public Library turned into a Wiki was a very good way to assist patrons in finding materials they were looking for but it is not exactly a Wiki due to the very limited scope of who is editing the content. What is the difference between a highly restricted wiki and a homepage? Not much.

http://www.libraryforlife.org/subjectguides/index.php/Main_Page

I was more impressed with Book Lover's Wiki created by the Princeton Public Library. While still limited, allowing at least some patrons to add content to the Wiki makes the page more in line with the idea of web2.0. While I am sure they request submissions to be sent via e-mail to ensure that nothing inappropriate is posted, it would be more user-friendly to allow patrons to use an online application without sending an e-mail. I know that in forums and news group posts can be held until they approved by the moderator of the discussion. I am not sure about the technical difficulty's of using that within the scope of the WIKI tools being used by this library system, but I think patrons would prefer to type on the page and hit a submit button without having to switch over to their e-mail ect.

Over all, Wiki's look like a fun way to get patrons involved, and I very much like the idea of a WIKI for book recommendation and review. I think this would be especially successfull with teens and older kids, and may keep them interested and talking to each other about books. Teens and older children are much more interested in what their peers think about something than what a grown up does. They are the ultimate experts on what other teens might want, and they love sites where they are in control of the content. While it might mean some extra supervisory work, bring kids together on the library web page could have as much impact as bringing them together in the library.
I feel that at least in my branch, fewer adults are as techno-savvy and spend as much time surfing the Internet, but this same kind of book review application would be good for adults as well. I think in Cecil County, it might not be as popular with adults as it could be for teens and older elementary students but it could encourage younger adults to be more involved in the library.

-M

Thing 13 Tagging

Personally I don't find tagging that...innovative. Tagging is sort of every day. Take our library catalogs for example. They use tagging in their own way to create connects between books by the same author, and books with a similar subject.

Allowing users to tagg their own whatever it is your tagging is all well and good except that every little difference (like misspelling or capitalization) can create a new tag categories. So if one person types tomato and another person types Tomato than there is a disconnect. So in this way, user tagging is much less effective than when their is a set category list that is used to tag an item.

On the other hand, tagging does provide a much wider range of possibilities for users.

It is useful for entertainment purposes, or following one kind of news post, but over all, besides all our mucking about the Internet it don't seem like a powerful tool in the same way RSS feeds are.

-M

Thing 10

So I skipped this one while I was working on things during down time at work because I had no images to play with.

I like this site Dumpr.net site where you can change a photo into a sketch! That's a picture from the wedding I was in a while ago!






And here is the avatar. I advocate strongly against these avatars. They are addictive! I spent way too much time picking out cloths. Give me my life back!

Week Thing 12

I enjoy Rollyo quite a bit. The system is very easy to navigate and the search rolls are very very simple to do.

For those of us working the reference desk this could be a very powerful, time saving tool.
I'm interested in exploring if you could add your own rollyo search to firefox and the new I-explorer's feature which enables searching different sites from the top right of your browser. That would be even more useful on the desk.
*Update* Rollyo has a simple feature to do this with firefox! Long live free open-source software!

-M

Select...Manga PublishersSearch The Web

Week 5 Thing 11 Library Thing

This whole LibraryThing is addictive.
That's about all I've got to say about it really.
Except...this could be a good way to recommend to patrons who read many books and tend to lose track, to keep a list of the books they have read (as apposed to own). It would also work as a readers advisory tool for patrons that do use it as a reading log of sorts.

This might be a good resource to recommend to teens who love to read as well.

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/Lessa_Winters

Week 4 Thing 9 searching for feeds

I found that blogglines.com had many good ways to search for feeds and that just poking around some of the sites I regularly visit provided me with more than enough feeds coming in. Personally I think that having too many feeds going into an organizer like bloglines would reduce it's usefulness for me and start to overload me with more information or news articles than I am interested in.

Searching for blogs was not that important to me.

Also, Google naturally has a search tool for finding blogs. I found this site much more easy to navigate than some of the other recommended sites like syndic8.com but that may just be because I am familiar with working with Google searches and I am used to how the format results etc.

So far I have found news feeds about actual news most useful to me but I have come across some useful links and information from library blogs as I use and check my news feeds.

Week 4 Thing 8 Rss Feeds

Concerning RSS newsreaders, I kind of like the live bookmarks you can use with firefox better than bloglines. I mean you have to go to bloglines and sign in and all but with the live bookmarks on firefox you just go to your bookmarks, find the rss and the arrow shows you the new info.

Although I think I would like bloglines better for more text heavy feeds like news reports but for things that I just want to see what's new, the live bookmarks work better. And they don't disappear if your forget to check them(yes I could mess with the features I'm sure but with the live bookmarks I don't HAVE to).

http://www.bloglines.com/public/mithgarthrmeg


I win. That link was way too hard to find.
-M

Week 3 Thing 7 anything technology related

So since we have to think of something technology related I was thinking about how we could incorporate some of these little gems of technology with our current library system.

I was thinking that we could use a blog to post fun, informal staff book reviews on the web site. Staff members could take turns writing up a short synopsis and review of a book that they are reading for themselves that they enjoy. I was thinking that this would be interesting for patrons who are looking for something to read, and useful for other librarians who might be exposed to other writers or genras they are not familiar with or in which they have no personal interest. It could also be a fun way to personalize the staff to the public. One of the reasons we can often offer such great customer service to our regular patrons is because we have personal connections to them.

Or we could just create a blog for the reviews that are already being written for the paper ( If I remember from training Morgan was writing reviews for the whig?). This would require little extra effort for staff (Set up blog and integrate it w/ website, copy and past review) , but would make the website more technologically edgy.

It would also be interesting if we could find a way to inform patrons when we have gotten a new book in by the author they select or in a particular item type (large print, DVD, etc. ) (although we do have the new materials section). I know that at some websites you can request e-mail updates about a brand or news topic. I don't know what kind of technology is required for that or if you could somehow use an RSS feed to the same end but it would be an interesting service to offer patrons. (It will be less and less feasible to do this personal for our patrons as the system grows.

There I think I earned my gold star for that 'thing'.
-M

Week 3 Thing 6 Explor Flickr mashups

I found this image by using one of the flikcr services. With the retriever tool by system one labs you can draw a rough outline into a box and the program comes up with flickr images that match the color and shape. By drawing a blue circular swirl, I found this picture by Xip, from Dec. 22 2005. This particular add on to flickr is an addictive little tool that was a ton of fun to play with.

-M

Week 2 Thing 3 -Setting up your blog

I am very(x100) happy to see spell check on this.

The option to view and edit the HTML is also interesting but the few things I tried didn't work very well. Although I have to admit I am not a master coder of the HTML.
I also like the option to change fonts.
The auto save also seems like a very nice feature.

And now I have run out of things to say.
-M

Week 1 Thing 2 - Pointers from Life Long Learners

I would say the easiest of the 7 1/2 life long learning habbits for me is play. After all that is how I have learned most of what I know about computers. The real trick is to just sit down and give it a shot and see what you can figure out.

I am most challenged by viewing problems as learning opportunities. I mean, after I'm done with the problem I might think that, but not during the solving stage. Although that depends on the type of problem I suppose.

I also dislike setting goals. I like working with a vague idea and letting things develop as they may. Which is probably why I so intensely disliked that whole 'Learning Contract' business.

And I am sorry to whoever wrote the program...but that whole mono log about giving one's self one's signature is cheesy(in a bad way) and teetering on the line between the acceptable and motivational speaking (please read as a synonym for unacceptable). Can we just get on with the learning things?
-M

Week 1 Thing 1 - About This Program

I feel somewhat paranoid about this step.

I feel like I missed something...I mean all I did was read a couple pages on the site. I hope that was all I was supposed to do.

Does something like that merit -Thingmanship-? (I believe I just might trademark that word).

I also wonder about labeling those sound files as pod-casts. I was under the assumption that pod-casts were something that one subscribed to that were supposed to eventually end up on one's I-pod(hence the name). They are supposed to be like radio programs that are regularly published or newsletters that are periodically published. What we have on that site is...well it's a sound file on a web site.

-M