John Watson's HCL blog

LATI: Here we go!

2008-02-12T07:48:00.000-08:00

Greetings, everyone!

It's a pleasure to jump on board for the journey and participate in this learning process with you all. My name is John Watson, from the Howard County Library, and I serve as the Support Services Manager for our system.

What I like best about my job is working with folks to get things done and make things happen. Listening, observing, questioning, negotiating, consulting, orchestrating, and bringing projects through to completion are the processes of my job I enjoy especially.

One thing about me that is non-job-related is that I am Baha'i. As with anything else, you are welcome to ask me about it.

The Howard County Library has made the news increasingly due to gathering momentum in migrating its computer systems from proprietary software applications to open source software solutions. One recent example of this is that we made the decision to migrate from our current ILS to an open source ILS called Koha. Feel free to find out more about our initiatives by checking out the following two news links:
http://www.bizmonthly.com/12_2007_focus/f_12.shtml
https://publications.techsource.ala.org/products/archive.pl?article=2609

Howard County Library operates six branches, located in a suburban setting between Baltimore and Washington, DC. It serves as a key partner in education, enriching culture and strengthening community.

Learning quote... Here are words of wisdom that speak to me about learning and working and living:
"Let your vision be world-embracing, rather than confined to your own self." --Baha'u'llah

Again, it's a pleasure to be involved with you in this educative and transformative process.

Sincerely,
John

We are home. This is...

2007-11-23T21:01:00.001-08:00

We are home. This is the final (23 Things) posting. listen

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Thing #23: Summary

2007-11-23T20:49:00.001-08:00

My favorite discoveries during this exercise were:
Thing #18: Productivity Tools
Thing #20: YouTube

Thing #22: Audiobooks

2007-11-23T20:46:00.001-08:00

Rather than setting up an additional account to complete this exercise, I bypassed Overdrive and NetLibrary and went straight to Project Gutenberg, finding several eBook titles that can be downloaded and read on my PDA or some other system. This is really phenomenal. Folks can help the project by proofing one page a day. With enough contributors, the library digital collection grows. This is a great project.

Thing #21: Podcast Directories

2007-11-23T20:40:00.001-08:00

I dabbled with a few podcast directories, not finding much of interest in the limited time I allowed for the exercise. However, a while back, someone told me about a cool podcasting tool called Jott (which I posted about between Thing #s 8 and 9). Using Jott, I created a podcast within the post. You can link to the post here and the podcast here.

Thing #20: YouTube

2007-11-23T20:35:00.001-08:00

Please refer to my posts on Thing #s 7 and 24 to see how I've used YouTube during this discovery exercise.

Thing #19: Web 2.0 Awards

2007-11-23T20:26:00.001-08:00

I've been hearing about Craiglist for who knows how long. Since it's one of seomoz.org's Web 2.0 Awards winners, I decided to take a look at it. This is a good networking tool to find all kinds of things one might want, from conversations to relationships, cars to homes, jobs to recreational activities. There's a lot there.

Thing #18: Productivity Tools

2007-11-23T20:19:00.001-08:00

Google Docs is fantastic! I use it to create and share documents and spreadsheets with others. Whether it be for editing minutes of a meeting prior to being approved at the next meeting, taking a tally of who can do what in preparation for an event, this is a great tool to facilitate collaboration between teammates.

Thing #17: Sandbox Wiki

2007-11-23T20:12:00.001-08:00

Editing and adding content to a wiki is easy. I added my blog to the Favorite Blogs page of the Maryland Libraries Sandbox.

Thing #16: Wikis

2007-11-23T20:05:00.001-08:00

Wikipedia was my first wiki experience. Aside from overcoming my lack of trust issues with something that could be updated by anyone as recently as the moment before I viewed the page, I frequently turn to Wikipedia as a starting point for investigating an idea. Other wikis I have found helpful are those related to conferences or events, which help those involved prepare for what to expect. One wiki I enjoyed frequenting prior to a major event was the Official Wiki of the 2007 ALA Annual Conference, which helped me get a clearer picture of what was going on during the conference this past summer, as well as other cultural highlights in the vicinity of the conference.

Thing #15: Web 2.0

2007-11-23T19:54:00.001-08:00

What does Web 2.0 boil down to? It reduces barriers, enabling the free and quick exchange of information and ideas. This concept is well illustrated in the video The Machine is Us/ing Us, which demonstrates the fluidity in the access and sharing of information. As a result of this new phase in our evolution, libraries definitely have to adapt. Rick Anderson, Director of Resource Acquisition at the University of Nevada, identifies three major potential obstacles that must be avoided if libraries are to remain relevant. You can read his opinion here.

Thing #14: Technorati

2007-11-23T19:47:00.001-08:00

Technorati is a neat way to keep up with the evolving blogosphere. Folks can do keyword searches for posts, blogs, videos and photos. Doing a search using the same keyword(s) within each area of interest will bring up different results.

Thing #13: Del.icio.us

2007-11-23T19:37:00.001-08:00

Using del.icio.us was a helpful exercise that enabled me to put my bookmarks online and access them from anywhere. Tagging helps me to not have to remember a bookmarked site's name, simply plugging in a related keyword I have used to describe the site, and linking from the results list. You can check out my short list of bookmarks here.

Thing #12: Rollyo

2007-11-02T14:12:00.000-07:00

Rollyo seems to be a good way to narrow my searches to just the sites I trust. For the sake of this exercise, I created my own Diabetes Health Search. I'm not sure how much I'll use it, but at least I have the option now. If you're interested, you may try the Rollyo widget on the right-hand panel of this screen.

Thing #11: LibraryThing

2007-10-25T13:20:00.000-07:00

It's been a few months now that I've been on LibraryThing, which is a nifty tool I use to catalog books I have read. Once a good chunk of my collection was cataloged, I then used that information to find other readers with similar interests or collections.

Initially, it's a lot of fun, adding title after title and seeing one's collection grow. But then the excitement dies off, especially since few folks (especially myself) can complete reading a book as fast as they can add it to their virtual collection. The greatest benefit of the tool, however, is to network with others and learn, based on shared interests, what else is out there that can further expand one's knowledge or admiration of a subject.

As of this posting, LibraryThing has 288,899 members who have cataloged 19,761,412 books. You can get a glimpse of my virtual collection through the widget on the right-hand side of this page or visit my library by clicking here.

Thing #10: Image Generators

2007-10-23T10:14:00.000-07:00

Here's an image I generated using LetterJames.com's image generator.

Here's another simple image generated using GlassGiant.com's Ticket Generator.

Thing #9: Explore MERLIN and other blogs/feeds

2007-10-23T07:01:00.000-07:00

Although MERLIN is having difficulty living up to its name (as "Maryland's Essential Resource for Library Information Networks"), having a few widgets along the sides and only two posts within the last month, it was interesting to read into the history of this networking tool, which began back in January 2006. I added its feed to my Bloglines feed reader, and I may check back in with its calendar periodically to see what training programs are being offered.

Regarding methods of finding and adding RSS feeds to my feed readers, the easiest and most preferred method for doing so is to find the little icon, click it, and add the feed. It's really simple (syndication).

Jott: Hello world! ...

2007-10-22T07:45:00.001-07:00

Jott, Hello world. This is John submitting a post to his blog by speaking into his cell phone. I am using Jott, a convenient new service that automatically transcribes ones voice into text. Try it out.
Click here to listen

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Thing #8: RSS

2007-10-11T09:24:00.000-07:00

RSS offers up-to-the-minute awareness of news and other changes on the web. I've signed up with two blog and news feed sites called Bloglines and NewsGator. From a cursory analysis, it appears that they both pretty much provide the same services. Frankly, at this point in my life, I'm not interested in such prompt updates. However, I do enjoy using these tools periodically to aggregate information having to do with certain themes and areas of interest.

Thing #24: Revolution OS

2007-09-27T13:10:00.000-07:00

This video presentation of GNU/Linux history, entitled Revolution OS, is an eye-opener for anyone curious to see how the open source movement began and evolved in parallel in different places. The whole open source philosophy appears to be egalitarian, fair, efficient, and economically stimulating. It's neat to see the varying brilliant personalities behind the movement: Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds, Michael Tiemann, etc.

Although the producers of the video may have wished to prejudice the viewer against Bill Gates by reading his open letter in the voice it was read, doing so only increased my admiration for him by demonstrating the even wider gap he had to cross between his more self-centered point of view then and his selfless global philanthropic point of view now, which he puts into practice through the projects of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (truly remarkable). To view his newest open letter--and hear a far different voice than the one presented in the video--you may read the article entitled "Saving the World Is Within Our Grasp" in the 1 October 2007 issue of Newsweek by clicking here. Check it out!

Thing #6: Flickr Tools

2007-09-27T07:56:00.000-07:00

There's a lot of stuff out there, and I wasn't impressed with much of it. Initially, I was drawn to the idea of something called Mappr (which purportedly places geographic images on a map of the US using tag information), but the site's server never responded. Finally, I came across something called Flickriver, which continuously streams Flickr photos in an "infinite scroll" so you don't have refresh the screen or click next to view more images. Kinda cool.

Thing #7: Shift Happens, and all that... New Age music

2007-09-17T14:45:00.001-07:00

Perceptive Pixel by Jeff Han [Official VIDEO]

For anyone who has seen the movie Minority Report and marveled at that holographic GUI Tom Cruise was fiddling with, well... here's a glimpse of how we are getting there. Check out Jeff Han's demo of the multi-touch system being developed by his company Perceptive Pixel, Inc. Even if you're not fascinated by this stuff, you can simply enjoy the music. So, turn up the volume, kick back, relax, and enjoy the show...

If you want an even clearer view of this video, you can either go to the official site or find it here.

Thing #5: Flickr-Angkor Wat Sunrise

2007-07-31T08:46:00.001-07:00

Angkor Wat Sunrise
Originally uploaded by Cap'n Surly

Much of my extended family comes from Cambodia. Seeing this image of Angkor Wat at such a serene time of day is refreshing. I long to go there and see for myself this majestic bridge between heaven and earth.

7 1/2 Habits of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners

2007-07-12T08:30:00.000-07:00

The Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County has put together an excellent online presentation/tutorial on how to nurture one's own learning. Check it out at:

http://www.plcmc.org/public/learning/player.html

I think the habit that poses the biggest hurdle to me is #7 1/2: "Play!" A close second is habit #3: "View problems as challenges". The habit that is probably the easiest for me is #1: "Begin with the end in mind". Seeing the "end" at the beginning of a process is usually pretty easy for me. Even some of the most difficult situations have a way of working themselves out in the end (with help, of course), which is one of the reasons I often have a positive outlook on things.

23 Things

2007-07-12T08:09:00.001-07:00

Hey there! This first posting is to confirm that I've completed step 3 of the 23 Things exercise we are doing at Howard County Library.