Thing 15: Creative Commons

As with the previous exercises I find myself musing on ways to put Creative Commons to use. Most obvious to me would be using images in presentations. And that could be a useful for students. So yes, an explanation of Creative Commons licensing could benefit students. But students are often overwhelmed by the volume of information presented to them. An explanation on the library site rather than part of a library orientation would be best.  I would have to come up with something share-worthy before putting it out on Creative Commons.

Thing 14 : Online Surveys

Not only being the nosy person I am but also to gather information for future reader's advisory these are questions I frequently ask people:

Thing 13 : Document Sharing

Right away I can see how Dropbox could make things so much easier. Sometimes I am working on something on the workroom computer. I don't save it to a flashdrive or email it to myself, but when I get out to the idesk I think, Gee, I would like to take a look at that. Now I have a way to do it.

Currently I am working on a wish list of DVDs for the sections of the collection I am responsible for. A google doc could turn that into a collaborative effort. Many students work on group projects both in the library and at home. Google docs would make collaboration easier for them. Or a family could contribute to a multi-perspective Christmas letter.

Thing 11 : Shortening a URL

To practice shortening a URL I chose the library webpage: http://bit.ly/gF75hQ and the library blog: http://bit.ly/edEZfv. This would be valuable if you tweeted or if you needed to give someone a web address verbally, such as over the telephone. It would be less helpful for email--instead you could hyperlink a word to serve as a URL(Thank-you Suzanne!). I found bitly easy to use. By shortening the URL you conceal the identity of an address--is that sneaky or smart?

Thing 10 : Searching Twitter.

Twitter as a research tool?  I was reading a few months ago that Twitter has donated its entire digital archive of public tweets to the Library of Congress. As a primary source of popular culture Twitter would be a fantastic research tool sometime in the future. Although with only 140 characters is is difficult to get any context. I searched several topics but I kept feeling like I was missing the story. I suppose if I became a devoted follower the story would be clearer but like the RSS feeds and the Image Generators feels like a huge time drain.

Thing 9.5: Image Generators

This was a lot of fun. Here is a sign pointing the way to information literacy.

I found this image generator on Imagechef. I would like to spend more time with this. One I would have liked to try is FdFlickrToys but it was blocked at my library. Apparently it is considered to be a gaming site. All of these programs make blogs and websites visually interesting.

Thing 9: Photos and Images Option One

Here is a picture from Colonial Williamsburg.

Wow! It works!

It was interesting to see what images came up when I searched my library. I think if someone else such as a prospective student would do a similar search they would be impressed.