Electronic books - off-topic but INTERESTING

This isn't one of the 'things' but I found out about this one recently.

Has anybody else noticed the big push Amazon.com is giving to their Kindle hand-held electronic reader? I know it's not the first electronic reader available but they really seem to be putting their economic muscle behind it! It shows up very prominently on their home page - it's impossible to miss it! I really noticed it today when I didn't have to keep my eyes open for customers. I even listened to two of the videos related to Kindle. Amazon claims availability of 80,000 titles for this thing with a majority of the current bestseller titles available in this format.

The unit currently has a $399 price tag which is high but if this whole thing takes off, that price will come down! The money to keep this little engine running will come from the software sales, not the hardware. When you go into the entry for a book you're looking for, it lists if the title is available in Kindle format as well as all other formats. They even have an ad for publishers to (re)publish their title in Kindle format, if they haven't already. This really looks like something that could really take off.

Opinions, anyone??

Gorgeous photo from my link

I love that NASA site with astronomy photos of the day! Here are photos from Saturday 11/24 = "Galaxies in Pegasus"; Sunday 11/25 = "Iridescent Cloud over Colorado." Today's (11/26) is "Moon over Pigeon Point Lighthouse."

Aren't they gorgeous! (Just wish I could move them around on this post for a better placement. I had to change the text I'd written to match the way the photos uploaded.) Now to publish this post and hope it looks the way I want!

Trying to catch up!

I'm still working on the 'back' lessons but I thought I'd also try to catch up to "where I'm supposed to be!" So this post is related to the wiki lesson. There are so many uses libraries could make of wikis; of course, with OIT's security restrictions, it will probably be a very long time until we can have a public wiki. It's a shame we can't use these tools for the public bu then, I don't think any of us want someone to crash the whole system - 'just because they can'
But with so many staff members now and in the future learning about web 2.0, staff wikis would seem to be our limit. Just after the SEFLIN Energize seminar, I created a wiki for our branch staff to post planned programs. I was hoping that it would be a good central place for us to use so we'd know what everyone had planned, what times/days were involved, etc. It's kinda fallen off the branch radar but maybe we will get back to it now. http://imperialdoings.pbwiki.com/
is the link to it.

Before I get to Flickr ...

...thought I'd try uploading at least one photo I've taken. We just finished setting up our Big Read display case and I took some photos. As you can see we made sure that we got copies of Joy Luck Club and Sagwa into the case. The little red book next to them is The Chinese Language for Beginners, my personal copy.

Here are a couple of other photos of our display:

This one shows a book on Chinese Brush Painting in back of a Chinese Yixing (ee-shing) teapot and cups. Yixing teapots are special unglazed vessels which are prized for brewing tea, especially oolong teas. They are also produced in a huge variety of shapes, some of them pretty fanciful! This one is a 'Sutra' teapot which indicates that it has a poem or other writing engraved on it in traditional Chinese calligraphy. (Sorry it doesn't show up!!)



The next photo does show the calligraphy fairly well (when you can see through the glare in the display area's glass!) But one thing I've found out doing this entry is that it is NOT easy to move the photos around on the page. Unless someone knows a trick that I don't??

ASTRONOMY PIX!

Oo, ooo, ooo! I love the NASA daily Astronomy photo site I just added to my links. Look at some of these great photos - the one for October 20th is stunning, dontcha think??

Sometimes the photos are not quite as impressive but they're always fascinating.

(Thought I had added this to my postings but found out that it only got saved as a draft. So I'll try to 'publish' it now. I really do want people to be able to see the site!!)

Library-related bloglines feed

OK, how many other people have added David Lee King and Stephen Abrams (DynixSirsi) to your library feeds?
Lots of library 2.0 stuff with these . Any of y'all who were at the SEFLIN Energize 2.0 had a chance to hear these two guys in person. They were great speakers, very inspiring. And they've got some great links to other gems.

Some feeds to my Bloglines account

I added feeds to two of the reviewing websites I use to keep up-to-date on titles for my Bookletter! Great! Now I can use it to keep current from any computer. That'll help a lot. I tried one of the big publishers in the fiction area I cover but didn't find a RSS feed button. But thast makes an area I can investigate. The publishers often offer an electronic newsletter that arrives via email but I find them less than helpful. They often cover their non-fiction in their newsletters and I'm interested in fiction.

Seven-and-a-half learning habits

Well, I just realized that I forgot to answer the learning habits questions on hardest and easiest habits.

For me, the easiest learning habit is to 'have fun!' My approach is "And to think they're paying me to play with these computers!" Specialists make the point that having fun, playing is such a very effective way for little chilldren to learn. They don't even realize they're learning. Pretty painless, right?

So it's not surprising perhaps to realize that the hardest habit for me (at least in informal learning situations) is to 'Begin with the End in mind.' In an informal situation, I'm more likely to find myself in the middle of learning something because it caught my interest rather than having a goal in mind.

Bloglines

I had a bloglines account that I set up at the SEFLIN Engergize 2.0 conference. Unfortunately I hadn't really followed up with it once I set it up. These activities ought to get me going again! (If I could just keep straight which passwords I used with which of these new 'things'!!) Is anybody else finding themselves with "password-overload"?? I was always taught NOT to write them down - which now seems to be backfiring somewhat. LOL



I'm hoping to discover some great RSS feeds (and blogs) that I'll find helpful/useful/FUN. Sorta like Debby Bradford's cute cat sites! Think I'll link to the Daily Kitten myself.

First-ever blogpost!

Alright! I just finished creating my blog and it really was simple. The #7 1/2 Lifelong Learning secret was to "Play!" I think I can do that with no problem; what about you, Dear Reader?

Debby B suggested I blog this information I found so other people could check out this list:
http://librariansmatter.com/blog/2007/07/06/20-reasons-learning-emerging-techologies-is-part-of-every-librarians-job/#comments:
Reasons 1, 5, 7,12, & 15 - especially 7! - might be useful to use with OIT, should they be unhappy with us. And there's another link in the top of the article to help convince reluctant librarians why they should learn these things - OR let their staff members do so. Some things never change, no matter whether you're in the U.S. or in Australia, right?