Here it is, the last day to finish 20 things and I wait until 8:45 at night to finish up. Granted, I had a tooth emergency today, but really I could have finished this over the weekend.

2o Things has been a good experience for me. I experimented with things I found fun - editing pictures, Library Thing and flickr. I am using Library Thing at home (I became a life member) and flickr is helping me figure out my pictures from Israel.

I am not sure I will ever look Rollyo again, but others have told me that they really like that. And please someone help me understand Technorati - I just haven't figured out how to use it.

I want to thank all the people who worked hard to make this a good experience. Fran, the other Sls, the reference department all helped with this project. Special thanks to the staff who played, finished or at least tried to finish. Life long learners are fun to work with.

Can't wait to see what other ways we can play on the Internets - Readers' Advisory blogging, anyone?

Patty

I have been a weaver for almost 30 years and the number of knots I have tied on the loom are definitely fewer than 1000. The narrator of this story, The Blood of Flowers could do 1000 knots in less than an afternoon. I love to weave, but I have never been interested in creating rugs. Knotting rugs is a tedious, but amazing process – one I now know more about, thanks to this incredible historical novel by Anita Amirrezvani.

It was the rug making that helped me choose this book for the BAM challenge for March. (See the blog for this at: http://bamchallenge.wordpress.com/.) We were to find a book for National Craft Month – using any meaning for the word craft.

However, it was the “yarn” that the author spun that kept me reading. Amirrezvani uses Iranian folk tales to seize the reader’s interest. The very first line caught me and held me – “First there wasn’t and then there was. Before God, no one was.” The narrative proceeds to tell us a folk tale that links directly with the heroine’s life.

Amirrezvani has created the story of a very unusual girl who is living in 17^th century Persia. This unnamed heroine has bad luck that exceeds any you could imagine -from having no dowry, to relatives from hell, to a best friend who might not be such a good friend after all. Then to top it off, she is headstrong and determined to make her way in a man’s world – weaving and knotting rugs. Once I got involved in this story, I had to know the ending. I had to know how this young woman was going to make it through life.

I read to discover new worlds, to meet new people and to feel like I have lived in those worlds with the characters. This book taught me about a period of time I knew nothing about. I was drawn into the life of a character I could not have imagined on my own. I did not want to leave 17^th century Persia. This place and the heroine caught a special place in my heart. The yarn told by Amirrezani will weave its way into your heart also.

I am on a real roll here and have just done my third thing in one day. Only one more to do after this.

Podcasts are something I have been using for awhile. I can't always listen to my favorite NPR shows when they come on our local station, so I have listened to Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me and This American Life among others on my computer.

I just finished listening to the podcast that Nancy Pearl (super librarian) does for a Seattle radio station. I couldn't figure out how to download that RSS feed, so I downloaded the RSS feed for the New York Times podcast.

Podcasts seem to have become ubiquitous. If you search book reviews - podcasts on Google, there are lots of choices. I can't even imagine how many hits you get if you just search podcasts.

Okay, now I am up to the 18th thing.

In my usual fashion, I did not pay attention to Carolyn's warning that with so much to explore, we should just start with one.

She was right - I just lost about two hours looking at a variety of sites. I spent much of my time on Etsy. People's defintions of handmade are a bit elastic.

Also, I found some clothing that I think Humbert would have liked seeing Lolita in. I decided not to think too long or too hard about why this might be a popular clothing line.

However, there are lots of beautiful things and I could easily spend a lot of time and money at Etsy.

So, now I have looked at Google Docs and I really can understand why people find these things so useful. I wish my mom knew how to use this - we could edit her thoughts about Israel on the web and then we could both use it.

I think I will try to create my trip presentation here so that I can have it with me wherever I go. I would like that ability rather than trying to remember to e-mail it to myself or putting in on a flash drive.

I am looking forward to the training we will be having with Google Docs later this year.

Hurray - I am finally tackling the 16th thing - wikis. I have been using Wikipedia for some time. There have been things for which is very helpful and other things that I just can't believe that anyone would post on.

Did you know that if you go to Wikipedia, you can find "To Kill a Mockingbird in popular culture"? This will tell you what comics, movies and television shows have referenced Harper Lee's book. How many people need to know that Debra in Everybody loves Raymond wrote her college thesis on this book? Since I don't watch this show, I can't even imagine why this might be a plot element.

So what else are Wikis good for? I would think that some of the collaborative work we do on policies and procedures might be done on a Wiki. I did see that a library did their long range plan on a wiki and I would like to know more about that. I need to get to our 17th thing and figure out why we might use Google docs instead of Wiki. That is next so I will write about that after I do that work.

By the way, I found this to be quite useful:
http://www.commoncraft.com/video-wikis-plain-english
I also liked their zombie animation.

Second Life

Unfortunately, neither the library or my home network really has enough bandwidth to show Second Life to its best advantage. Sometime, I would like to get on the site and really play around. However, I am not sure about that flying part :>)

I did go to U-tube and check out several videos. Some of them were just plain weird and some of them told me how to make objects on Second Life. I don't plan to get that involved with SL. However, I liked this video. It was sort of like a vacation (as promised): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgtGcTHL2dI

I was glad to hear from Jaime that her professors were using Second Life. I do think it has some very practical as well as some very fun uses.

For me, if I am going to spend time on the web, I am looking for mindless activities like Bubble Shooter or Tetris. I work my brain hard enough at other times.

Library 2.0

Looking at all those articles that Carolyn suggested, I feel like we are very far behind. Most of them were posted in 2005 or 2006. So I went looking for some other things. I went to Taming the Web; Library Crunch; I googled Library 2.0. Once again I was looking at many things from 2005 and 2006. Is this all old news? Should I retire and give it up? I decided not.

I read on one of the blogs (Library Crunch) some comments on "radical trust". And I was glad to realize that I am not the only one to think that libraries have been doing this for quite sometime. When I was 10 and went to the public library by myself and the library staff let me check out that I was totally responsible for- that was radical trust. How did they know that I would even manage to get those books down the hill to my house, let alone back to the library several weeks later? I hope that this is one part of Library 2.0 that I have under control. I hope I never stop trusting our patrons. I also hope that I never stop trusting our staff either. That will definitely be the time for me to retire. We can't run a library system without the assistance of everyone and I mean everyone.

The other thing I read was that Library 2.0 involves constant change and evaluation. I think I may have a bit of experience here too. I hope that the changes we have implemented at Pamunkey during my tenure have been mostly good. The evaluation process may need some work, but change has been an integral part of doing good business at Pamunkey.

What did you know about New Orleans before Katrina hit? Had you visited the city? Maybe for Mardi Gras? I had never been to New Orleans or even Lousiana. Neither had my husband.

However, after Katrina, my husband, two colleagues and a group of students went to New Orleans the January after the hurricane to tear down houses. It changed Bill's life. It gave both of us lots of questions about why such things could even happen.

Heart Like Water by Joshua Clark has given me more food for thought. It also gave me an opportunity to see into New Orleans at its most trying time. Clark stayed in the French Quarter for the whole terrible mess. He saw things that I can't even imagine.

As Kirkus says this is a "difficult and joyless read". It probably wasn't the book for the month of hearts and love. But thanks to the Book of the month challenge, I found it and I am not sorry to read it. I just hope and pray we can avoid another tragedy like this in our national history.

Here we are in our last month of Pamunkey's 20 things. I want to check all the other staff blogs and see who finished their 20 things. But first, I am going to finish my own.

I have just looked at the post on Technorati on our library's 20 Things page: (http://pamunkey20things.blogspot.com) for the second time. I think I have finally figured out what Technorati does. And I guess your average blogger wants the rest of the world to see their blog. So Technorati is helping a lot of people.

However, once again, I am not sure how I feel about the whole public/privacy thing. How much of my life do you really want to know?

I signed up for the Book a Month challenge at this webpage: http://bamchallenge.wordpress.com/. I read at least a book a week, so I figured how hard could this be. However, since I spent January in Israel, I never did get around to posting the book I read for this challenge.

I hope it is not too late.

Title: The Nazarene
Author: Sholem Asch
Genre: Historical Fiction
Reading Level: Adult

I read The Nazarene by Sholem Asch. It was the perfect book to read while on my trip. It was also a good read for books on time, since it was book with time travel of a sorts as the method for telling the story of Rabbi Yeshua ben Joseph, otherwise known as Jesus.

Asch was a Polish born novelist who wrote much of his work in Yiddish. However, in 1939 he chose to write the life of Jesus - this book - The Nazarene. Many of the places that I visited on my tour of Israel were in this book so I spent a lot of the trip saying - I just read about that.

What I can't figure out is why Asch wrote this book. According to Ellen Umansky, Asch started this project after visiting Palestine in 1909. "Since that time I have never thought of Judaism or Christianity separately," Asch told a reporter of the New York Herald Tribune. "For me it is one culture and one civilization, on which all our peace, our security and our freedom are dependent." However, in 1939 it was the height of Hitler's power. The Jewish people could not have wanted to read about the G-d of their oppressors. Why didn't Asch just stick with what he had made popular.

Umansky's article (http://www.nextbook.org/cultural/feature.html?id=117) is an excellent introduction to Asch and his Passion trilogy. And it does give some reasons why Asch may have chosen to write his trilogy.

I am not going to rush out to recommend this book to all and sundry. One of the early paragraphs went on for two whole pages. This is not the type of reading that an average 21st century reader is going to rush out and grab off the shelf.

However, if you want very different telling of Jesus' life - this is the book for you. I guarantee you this is not the story from Sunday School.

I really like tagging on Library Thing. And I have found tagging very easy here on my blog.

So I figure I just haven't "gotten" del.icio.us. It probably would be easier to figure all this out if I wasn't trying to also get ready for my trip. According to my counter, I leave in two days. It is a bit off, but I will be in Israel on the 9th ready or not.

I think I better go get ready...

... one last housekeeping item. I am trying the Book A Month Challenge on this blog: http://bamchallenge.wordpress.com/ I am going to read The Nazarene by Scholem Asch. It fits the challenge and since my Kindle didn't come, I am trying to take the fattest book in my library.

Now I really am going to go pack.

I am almost caught up. That is what happens when you do three tasks in one afternoon. If you go to the very bottom of my blog, you will see my Rollyo list.

Eventually, I will stop hoping that hand weaving and computers have any links to each other. I know that there are looms that are operated by computers, but there are very few links on the web to actual weaving and weavers. So my first Rollyo was not very helpful.

However I made a Rollyo on RA. I am hoping I find that more useful.

Merry Christmas to one and all!

My creation
Originally uploaded by weavinglibrarian

Three tries must be the charm. This is what I created with FD toys.

I played with Cool Text and the Generator Blog. As you can see to the left, I have managed to post a date from the Generator Blog. I made an image on the Cool Text generator, but could not make it do what I wanted it to do.

I wanted to post it here. I just couldn't make it work. So instead I tried another generator and I did no better with that one. I guess I will come back to this after I talk to some other staff.

At least I got the countdown to work.

So now, I am working on the 9th thing which makes me about four weeks behind on Pamunkey's 20 things. The 9th thing was feeds - again. I am not sure what I was supposed to gain here. I tried all four tools that were suggested and the first time round I used the term public libraries.

To be honest, I did not find much that interested me. I think it was the terms I used. Maybe public libraries are just not of great interest except to librarians. ;>)

So I went back and tried books and reading. Much, much better. I found a number of blogs to read; some best of 2007 lists and a couple of news articles. Obviously I have learned two things - try several terms and when people talk about libraries they may not mean a library like PRL.

I am so glad we have gotten to Library Thing. I never wanted to be a cataloger, but I love Library Thing. I have been a lifetime member since May 2007. I do not have all of my books in my library yet, but what is in there might surprise you.

I buy adult fiction for Pamunkey and have a great time doing it. Also if you looked at my reading log, you would see that I read mostly fiction. So wouldn't it make sense that my library at Library Thing would tend to be fiction?

I have put random books on the left hand side of this page. I think this service from Library Thing is fun. Plus it proves that I have added at least five books so I have completed my 8th thing.

However, when you look over there - what do you see? I have 271 books in my library and 260 of them have the tag non-fiction. This is a good reflection of my personal library. SO, what books did you add to Library Thing?

I suspect that I will eventually catch up on my 20 Things, I think I am only a couple of weeks behind.
Has anyone found that having the RSS feeds are helping them keep up with the world? I am subscribed to these feeds through Bloglines:
About Contemporary Literature
Blogging for a Good Book
Bloglines News
LibraryCrunch
NYT Book Review
The Shifted Librarian
Tame The Web: Libraries and Technology
But now I have to remember to go and read them. How have you integrated RSS into your life? I am really looking for some help here. Thanks, Patty

Well, I am trying to catch up with our 20 things. So I just spent time on My Space. It is not the place for me, unfortunately.

There are plenty of people with my name, but no real way for me to find my favorite hobby - weaving. I tried weaving, handweaving, looms and even yarn. I suspect that looms and handweaving are not something that many My Spacers lists.

I have many family members on Facebook. Some day maybe I will try there.

Although I can see the attraction of all these places, I will save my computer time for some other sites, blogs, wikis, etc.

office 001
Originally uploaded by weavinglibrarian

Finally, I get around to task #5 on Pamunkey's 20 things.
Flickr is very easy to use and I had no trouble becoming a member. I can see lots of uses for this site - maybe I will post my pictures from Israel. If I ever get there and back again.

I took two pictures of my office. One highlighting the candy jar. This is everyone's favorite part of my desk and the one place I try to keep uncovered.

Hope that the rest of you all had fun with this.