Update...after how many years?

Well, there's nothing like a four-year lag to make a person pause and think about whether this is really worth it, but who knows?  Maybe I'm turning over a new leaf and ready to keep an online journal after all.  So, updates:  Alice is married to Mike Goyanes and is now a resident at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.  Patrick is living a working in Berlin, teaching online English classes to various Europeans.  Jim and I are still hanging in there, going to work, letting the dog in and out, letting the cat in and out, feeding said animals, reading lots of books, watching movies, and so on and so forth.  I'll try to publish some pictures soon, just to let everyone know that we do exist, dog, cat, husband and wife, etc. 

Ten More Things

OK, it's been a long time since I've posted to this. Library school got in the way, and now I just have to give myself some time to fill in some blanks in my life. For right now, however, I'm ready to begin work on ten more 2.1 things for even more fun on the Web. So let's get started by first getting that wiki response in place.

White Coat Ceremony

On 26 October 2007, Alice had her White Coat Ceremony at Temple University School of Medicine. You know, Alice has a connection to Temple, besides all of her friends who went to Temple, besides her Temple Rome semester. In fact, her great-grandmother's cousin taught there - Negley Teeters, who was a famous criminologist. He advocated for prison reform in Pennsylvania and probably visited the very prison that is near Alice's apartment (no longer a prison, but a historical site that is also a haunted house at Halloween). Alice, however, is not impressed with her Temple connection. I keep telling her that her family is full of advocates for the underdogs, fighters for social justice and so forth, but she just sighs.

Anyway, armed with this little bit of family history, we went to the White Coat Ceremony, at which time Alice was given her white coat by a physician attached to the medical school, in her case, the Dean himself, signifying her entrance into the world of medicine. She also took the Oath of Geneva as well. It was a moving ceremony, very profound.

Want to see a picture? Here she is, with her white coat. Now she can see patients...well, not treat and prescribe medicine, I imagine, but you know, stand around the patient's bed, with other medical students, and try to determine the ailment and then suggest proper treatments, that sort of thing.

We are just so proud of her, as you can tell.

Afterwards, we had dinner with her and Mike, her beau, at a restaurant down the street from her apartment.

Dinner was really fine, but the best part was watching Alice and Mike. They just seem to enjoy each other's company so much. I like Mike a lot and think Alice has very good taste.

So you see, it's been quite a busy and wonderful past few months.

The Wedding and beyond

OK, OK, I haven't been here for a while, but I've been really, really busy, with lots of great stuff going on, including....Patrick and Maya's wedding in the UK.

First, we traveled to the London on the last day of July.

Here's a picture of my sister Joanne in London on the first of August. It was a pleasant day for walking around and seeing the sights. We stayed in Russell Square because we are familiar with the area and because we like it there. This is, in fact, Russell Square.

I think I may have made Jo look weird with this picture, but I'll try to fix it sometime. Anyway, we went to London for a couple of days, and then we took a train to Maidstone, where the wedding was to be held. Here is Alice in Victoria Station, where we all met to travel to Kent.

Oooh, I get it. It's the jpeg stuff...not so good.

Oh well...you get the picture (so to speak).
Alice traveled very lightly, with just a carryon, and she met up with us on the morning of August 2, so that we could all go to Maidstone together. It was such a thrill seeing her crossing the station floor, after her trip from the US. It was as though everything was coming together as planned. A good omen...

And then we had the prenuptual dinner that evening with the Dases at the White Horse Inn on Bearstead. We met Maya's entire family and ate and drank wine and just generally laughed it up. You might like to see the White Horse Inn. Very quaint on the outside, very sleek and modern on the inside...

OK, so then the next day, we went to Hollingbourne where Leeds Castle is actually located. That's very near Maidstone. Hollingbourne was the town where Maya had her first job, working in the notorious Windmill, notorious because it paid poor wages and just did not provide a nice work environment. Want to see it?

I think Maya has bad memories from this experience, so I probably should not post this picture, but then again, you can avoid the Windmill if ever you are in Hollingbourne. You know what it looks like now.

That very day, we got ourselves all dressed up and went to Leeds Castle. Now, that is a sight to see.

It was a gorgeous day, unlike the previous four or so weeks, which had been filled with rain and clouds and coolish temperatures. We had lots of bright sunlight and warm temperatures. Before the ceremony, before the guests arrived, before it all began, we waited in the library.

Here are Patrick and Alice, looking kind of jpeg funny in the library.

And then we had the ceremony, and it was magical. In fact, the entire day was magical. In fact, the entire experience was magical.

Here they are, the happy couple, Patrick Macgill and Maya Das-Macgill, right after the ceremony. We went on to have a lovely dinner, at which time, I spilled some red-current gravy on my pretty silk dress, making it a one-occasion dress, since the stain will not come out. Still, the entire trip was just wonderful.

Now Patrick and Maya are living in Birmingham. We hope to visit them when I am finished school and when the dollar is doing better. Meanwhile, we make calls and email and all that.
Ahhh...

Jihad and Second Life

I've been wanting to share this article with you since our trip to the UK last week. In the 5 August 2007 issue of the Sunday Times was this article (link below) concerning militant Islamic jihadists using Second Life for various purposes.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article2199193.ece

Interesting...but then would I ever have guessed that the Internet would become such a major source for pornography? Well, I should have guessed, I suppose, since the Internet and the Web are open to access from nearly everyone. Anyway, it's an interesting article. I guess our jihadists are just thinking innovatively.

And off she goes!

Whew! It's been a while since I've touched base here, and so much has happened, such as the wedding of Maya and Patrick, but more on that later. Meanwhile, Alice has started medical school at Temple University School of Medicine. In fact, she started her gross anatomy class on this past Monday. I asked her what she'd be cutting up, and she said a back and an upper arm - still attached to a person, of course. Fascinating.

So we'll have more on all this later.

Off they go!

We're about to travel to the U.K. for the wedding of my son, Patrick Macgill, to Maya Das. I do believe the deluge has ended over there, and the flood waters are receding. Maybe the temperature will rise and the sun will shine. In any case, the wedding will be a delight, no matter what the weather.

The ceremony will take place on Friday, August 3, at Leeds Castle in Maidstone, followed by dinner and dancing until late in the evening. We plan to celebrate with much jollity.

Although we do not plan to stay long in England, at least not this trip, we do intend to pack a lot in - our prenuptual dinner, the wedding itself, a breakfast afterwards, and maybe a visit to a museum or two, once we are back in London. Since only a few family members will be joining us, we plan to have family and friends join us later in Bel Air for an American reception, as we are calling it. The newly weds will join us and then travel to Kyoto for a conference later in August. Such a busy life!

Patrick will be working for Public Service UK, a publishing house that focuses on public policy. He will be working on an online journal called Defense Management. I think with his background in modern European history, he should do fine.

Maya will continue her studies for her doctorate in English literature. In fact, the trip to Kyoto is for a conference where she will be delivering a paper.

How exciting this all is. And just think, in a few weeks, I'll be back at school and life will once again be tedious and difficult and full of work. Oh well...

The Blog Continues...

Hi, I've been away from this for a while, but now I'm back, adding thoughts and opinions to my blog. First of all, I'm going to try for now to relate this to my work, thus justifying my typing on the job, so here goes...

I spent the weekend in Paradise...well, really, Batesville, Virginia, at my friend's house, but it may as well be Paradise. Lisa lives on top of a mountain, with lots of trees, wildlife, and fresh air. We talked a lot about technology, because I had just finished my 23 Things, and she is the technology resource person in her elementary school where she teaches. I did show her my blog, and we talked about Del.icio.us and Rollyo, Technorati, YouTube, and so much more. She knew of many of those, but some were new to her. I wish I had recalled ZohoWriter and GoogleDocs, because she really could have used them in her fifth grade class. Another time...
She was particularly intrigued with RSS feeds, again, a useful resource for a teacher.

I hope to have some images on my Flickr account so that I can share them with you, so that you also can see what I mean about how lovely it is there. I have to get my images uploaded first. Then I'll share.

Then, last night, my sister stopped by for a visit. We sat on the deck, sipping tea in the cool evening air, discussing - what else? - books. She likes Miss Read and Dorothy Simpson, neither of which I have read, but HCPL has many Simpson mysteries. Maybe I will add them to my Library Thing account (www.librarything.com) . I recommended Alexander McCall Smith's books to her, because she does seem to go for the gentle reads - well, her mystery writers may have corpses in them, but like me, I think she'd prefer not to have the graphic descriptions of blood and guts.

That's sort of an issue with my book club (book discussion group). Not all of us share the same tastes, which makes the group interesting, although I must admit we do end up with similar likes and dislikes. Anyway, some books may be offensive to some readers, with language and descriptions or characters that offend one's sensibilities. It's hard to know what lies on that next page. I don't think I've ever stopped reading a book because of language or whatever, but a few I've wished I hadn't read, especially if the descriptions are gross. Is that really necessary? I don't know.

So the book group is now reading Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. I thought the language was really interesting, kind of Old World, and since it takes place in another era, mid-Twentieth Century, I remarked to a group member that I thought it was really skillful how the author made the book sound like a translation - kind of formal, with those flourishes of language that translations sometimes have. She looked at me oddly and pointed out that it was, in fact, a translation. Duh...well, the author lives in Los Angeles. How would I know? (I could have looked more closely at the title page!) Anyway, I had to return the book unfinished because I'm off to the U.K next week, and the book was due and I was only half way through. So another book not finished. No matter, this group won't throw me out if I don't finish a book for discussion. It's more about friendship anyway, just getting together. Books do that for people, whether it's two sisters on a back porch discussing mysteries or a group of pals sitting around, eating snacks, and sharing thoughts on a common book read.

Week 9 - Thing #23 - The End (not really)

You know, I actually had a hard time with this one, this essay of reflection, Thing #23, because it means that the training is coming to an end - not that I plan to retire all I've learned, but it means that the adventurous, new basics of the training are over, the new, excitement of looking at the next Thing. I guess you can see that I've really enjoyed this experience, and I do actually feel a deep appreciation for our library system, the fact that it's been so encouraging for us to join in and complete our 23 Things.

What did I like best? I know I enjoyed all of this, every exercise, and although a few took some real thought to work out the ins and outs, most were not hard. I'm not sure all of the Things are particularly useful, but I am very glad I know of each one of these Web 2.0 applications. I'd like to do more of this. I think RSS feeds and Del.icio.us have been my favorites and the ones I see the most practical use for in my everyday life. But then there is Rollyo and wikis (I refer to Wikipedia all the time), and Flickr, and I like the practicality of online applications, such as Google docs, and I found the YouTube experience really, really fun. So choosing a best, favorite experience is really hard, I suppose.

What can you do differently if you plan some more training? I'm not sure, but I do think a bit more explanation would help here and there. I had to fill in some gaps to figure out how to do some of these Things, but eventually, I got it. Nothing was too hard, but I guess the newness made for a few rough spots. So maybe a little more explanation would help here and there. Nevertheless, I think this was a very well organized exercise, and the emphasis on fun was very important, so that any anxiety we might feel would be lessened. Nice job, liaisons!

If you offered this again, would I sign up? You bet, without a second thought. Can we explore open source more? Would you explain the advantages or using Firefox as a browser? Can we take a closer look at tagging? I'm not so interested in avatars and the such, but I do think that whole area - the psychology behind it, the kind of longing or need people seem to have for a different (or not so different) identity - is a fascinating development in our time. I wonder where it will go, how far people will absorb themselves in their avatars. Can we learn more about social networking? So, yes, sign me up now for further training in Web 2.0 technologies, because there are lots more things/Things to learn.

I must admit that although I know completing the 23 Things does not really put me on the cutting edge, since much of this has been around for a while, but among my friends, I seem like a real expert. They are fascinated (well, maybe that is too strong a word) by my training and what I've learned. Hey, and listen, I'm not stopping here. I've enjoyed every moment of learning in this training. Do you think I'm going to let it all go to waste? No way. I use Del.icio.us probably every day, and my RSS feeds are very active.

As for a brief, coherent description, I'll give it a go:

This has been an adventure of sorts, an opportunity to delve into Web 2.0 technologies that I had heard of but had not had a chance to experience. And it was fun. I did not want the 23 Things to come to an end. Can we go on to those 43 Things mentioned earlier? I'm ready.

Week 9, Thing #22 - Audiobooks

Although I am looking forward to listening to audiobooks through NetLibrary, I was a bit disappointed in the holdings of both NetLibrary and Overdrive. Neither had anything by Ursula K. Le Guin, and I had trouble locating the children's literature I would have enjoyed listening to. I also had trouble searching, but then I got smart and looked at "help" on NetLibrary. Whew! That cleared things up a bit. I think users might not think to go to help to find out proper searches, but that's OK. Sooner or later, they'll get it right. I'd rather not wait until later, however.
OK, so I finally got a couple of Alexander McCall Smith novels in my Favorites folder, and when I finish my 23 Things (really, really soon), maybe I will then get to listen to one of them. No, all of them! I don't think I will try to download anything yet, because I would have to do that on my home computer, and I really, really don't want to listen to these in front of a computer. I'll wait...deferred gratification.

Week 9 - Thing #21 - Podcasts

I've listened to podcasts before, in connection with the Maryland Library Association conference this year. We used it as a way to promote the upcoming conference events. So podcassting as a medium wasn't entirely new, but I've never explored podcasting directories, and I had never known that so much was out there, just waiting to find a listener.

I actually had a difficult time dealing with Podcast.net and with Podcastalley.com, but Yahoo Podcasts were well organized and easier to figure out. I did manage to include the NPR Story of the Day on my Bloglines account, and considering that these stories are usually about 3 or 4 minutes long, I should be able to enjoy hearing them each day they are broadcast...oops, I mean, podcast! Today's story was about moving massive pieces of scultpture at MOMA and how difficult it is. Not only is it scary because these are valuable pieces of sculpture, but this task is dangerous because sometimes the sculptures fall and kill the movers. I'm glad I am just listening to this and not moving those big things.

Week 9 - Thing #20 (cont.) - my cat and turtle

This is not really my cat nor my turtle, but they sure are cute. Just some fun stuff from YouTube.

Week 9 - Thing #20 - YouTube and more

I think I may be altering this a bit later while I do a longer search of YouTube - full of mildly amusing, mostly amateurish, and occasionally informative videos. I'd like you to see the "My cat and turtle" video or maybe the "Lego Millenium Falcon Stop Motion" video or even the ever popular Keith Olbermann "Special Comment: Bush and Cheney Resign Now" video. But first, I am going to open a YouTube account and see if I can figure out how to place a video directly into my blog.



I guess what I like about YouTube is that, like so many Web 2.0 "things," it allows for anyone to be a star. It's anarchic and democratic. But like so much else on the Internet, there is an awful lot of junk, just really stupid, crude, even cruel videos not worth the thirty-or-so seconds it takes to realize that what is on the screen is not going to get any better and so just stop it and search for something else that actually might be worth it to watch.



I chose to watch the cat and turtle video because it's cute and short, and I didn't think it would involve cruelty. I liked the idea of the little turtle chasing the cat around, being very tenacious and just scaring the cat or at least annoying it. (I like cats but I like turtles too.) I watched the Keith Olbermann special comment because I wanted to see how something political or something of current interest could reach anyone signed on YouTube and interested enough to watch a ten-minute tirade. The Lego one I chose because I like animation, and I think stop gap animation, like claymation, takes skill and patience and can be enormously creative. However, it ended rather anticlimatically and amateurishly. Still, it was pretty well done.



As for YouTube's use in libraries, I'm not certain. Maybe general videos for training in various library activities (proper way to set up a program or clean a book or something of that sort) could be shared with the larger world via YouTube. I guess we could use YouTube for maybe some programming, and not just YA programming. I've seen some very amusing and relevant YouTube videos on books and the Web and the Internet, although I haven't been able to find them again. I also think a bit of humor can be fun too, so a blend of humor and libraries might find a place on YouTube. I suspect that most people look at YouTube as a means of entertainment, so if libraries used YouTube, entertainment might be the chief focus.



Now, let me see if I can place a video inside my blog. More later...

Week 8 - Thing #19 continued

I was just looking through some of the other award-winning sites on the seomoz.org 2007 Web 2.0 Awards, and I realized that craigslist (first prize winner for Classifieds and Directories) has a lost and found category. Sadly, I read of lost dogs in the Baltimore metropolitan area, but do keep in mind that this is a terrific place to look if you've lost an animal companion. I had not known craigslist included this. Just good to know...

Week 8 - Thing #19 - Web 2.0 award winners

I've been playing around with Citysearch, an Honorable Mention under the City Guides and Reviews category. If you want to include your own city, you may. I entered Belcamp, because I'm trying to keep my stuff related to work. But the real value is looking around your area for places to eat or explore or have fun. I haven't decided if it is as good as some of the other winners. I think it's a bit clunky and not as clearly explained in its purpose as the winners, so I guess that is why it's gotten an honorable mention and not a ribbon. It also has lots of ads. Still, I am enjoying searching these winning sites.
See www.citysearch.com.

Week 8 - Thing #18 - Online Applications

Hello, out there.

I just want to experiment a bit with this document-creation application. I have used Writely (when it was called "Writely," that is) before for online collaboration, but Zoho Writer is new to me. So I think I'll play around, with colors and with typefaces as well.
Let's try some characters, like the British £. OK, now for something irrelevant and silly: .

Let's try something else - Background Color. Oooh...very cool.

I wonder if I can export this to my blog. Well, let's try.

Oh, very cool - I just published this from my Zoho Writer account. And my little experiments showed up just fine: my background color, my colored text, my smiley face, all that good stuff.

Now maybe I'll go play around with Google Docs (or Writely, as I remember it).

Week 7 - Thing #17 Playing in the Sandbox

I glanced at some of the other blogs yesterday, and I realized that everyone else seems to be having a lot more fun with this. I'm diligently and studiously working through my 23 Things, and each one is an interesting task, but the keyword here is "task," as in work. So I'm going to have fun from now on, following the very good example of my library pals who are just having some fun.

So of course, the first thing I do is get very serious about which Favorite Books to include in the Maryland Libraries Sandbox, and instead of saying "any Nancy Drew book," I say something about Heinrich Boll, who writes about Catholic existentialism and war and turmoil of the soul, all that heavy German stuff. I need to tell myself, "Lighten up!!"

I've added my blog to the blog place and all that.

So what is this for? Well, I have the information at hand now to create a wiki for, let's say, planning our big trip this summer to be part of my son's wedding. (I'll keep it private, of course.) Or maybe we members of the Public Services Division steering committee of MLA could set up a wiki for our next program scheduled for the fall. Hmmm...that might work. Or maybe I could use a wiki to plan my annual end-of-the-summer party for my friends, when we can hang out in my backyard and drink cosmopolitans. Yes, the possibilities are endless.

Just for fun, this is what a cosmopolitan looks like:

Week 7 - Thing #16 - Wikis

Wikis could have lots of uses for us in the library and the larger library community of users. For one, I think people, and I don't mean just library staff, creating their own subject categories for materials makes a lot of sense. I can also see group collaboration in many areas for library staff - planning for meetings and training workshops, organizing committee projects, preparing for conferences, the list goes on.

I particularly liked the Book Lovers Wiki fromPrincton Public Library, and thought it was a terrific idea. We already have Readers Place, which provides lots of opportunities for readers to submit their reviews of books, but our Readers Place coordinator has a certain amount of (necessary) editorial control over what is posted. I see the need for some control on a site such as that. But suppose beyond Readers Place, we also provided for an Amazon-like opportunity for people to write brief reviews, kind of snippets about books that they particularly liked. OK, so the reviews might not be masterpieces of writing, but neither are Amazon's user reviews. Readers can give honest impressions of books and maybe drum up some conversations about our materials.

I wonder if HCPL could use a wiki to provide users with an opportunity to add community information. Is that animal rescue organization holding a fundraiser in Forest Hill? Hey, HCPL has the community wiki resource available to post information about where and when. Is the town of Bel Air holding a community concert next Wednesday night? Great, post that information on our community wiki information board and get the word out. Maybe other entities could provide wikis as well - Harford County government, the towns of Havre de Grace, Aberdeen, and Bel Air, and other community groups - and we could all link from one to another. One world indeed! Linked from one to another...

Didn't we have a community resource guide once? (Maybe we still do, but I don't think I've used it for years - don't even know where it is.) Well, what if we have a wiki that allows community groups - non-profits, government agencies, and so on - to post information about the organizations - name, contact persons, addresses, telephone numbers, links to Web sites, purpose statement, and so on. Let the community keep the information up to date. And yes, occasionally, we or someone will need to clean up the wiki, to clear out entries for groups that no longer exist, but each group would be responsible for keeping information accurate and up to date. Just some ideas on using wikis...

Week 6 - Thing #15 - Whew! Web 2.0 and beyond

I'm reeling a bit from our readings, with all sorts of heady thoughts. Consider Rick Anderson's "Away from the 'Icebergs'" and the various icebergs we are encountering in our workplaces, and then consider Web 3D and by extension Library 3D in Dr. Wendy Schultz's "To a Temporary Place in Time." Do we want to start thinking about that paperless library, that collection of monitors and computers but not books? This is very, very exciting - a library as an Internet cafe and more, where people can come for their Web and Internet needs, interacting with one another in virtual space, meeting, gathering information, sharing ideas in blogs, consulting wikis for information, and on and on.

But where are we in this? I think we have a very large part to play in just providing that space and that access to information. Yes, I know Anderson questions the entire notion of a book-filled collection, and so here I am, a selector of materials, that is, hold-it-in-your-hands content and not virtual content, and I'm thinking, "Oops, there goes my job." But wait...what of virtual content? People will still need information and will still want to have access to dependable, good, solid, accurate content. Might we continue then to play a part in delivering all that?

I think as Michael Stephens points out, we must continue to sharpen our Web 2.0 skills and at the same time open our minds to collaboration. Why not allow users to create subject tags for materials? If that makes it easier for them to access that resource the next time they use the library, fine. The tags worked. Why not collaborate with other library systems to generate our own ILS through open source software? Then when the Dynixes of the future go away, we won't have to worry about disruption in our systems.

This is a very exciting time to be in library work. We needn't fear losing our jobs or even losing that traditional sense of "library" for now, at least, since plenty of people will still want us to give them readers' advice on mysteries and to facilitate book discussion groups and to point them to the appropriate reference source for information on that odd insect that is eating their rhododendrons, but as the years pass (and they are passing swiftly), more and more of our users will be shifting to Web 2.0 applications and, hey, Web 3D applications as well. But you know, I'm really looking forward to our future training in...Library 3D.

Week 6, Thing #14 - Technorati

I've set up a Technorati account to claim my blog, so now I'm part of that scene. I looked up "Learning 2.0" as instructed in our Thing #14, and I got lots of blogging on Web 2.0. Lots of buzz on that one. I can see Technorati as something that grows more useful as I read blogs more. Like, keeping track of favorites and all that. But until then, I'm not sure how much I will use it. I think as the 2008 election year approaches, I'll be reading more and more of what people are saying about the various races, and I then will need to use my Learning 2.0 experiences with these 23 Things to keep track of what's what.