My creation

My creation
Originally uploaded by kristenrstewart

I was playing some more with Flickr and Warholized this picture I took a couple of summers ago. We look so cute!!

My photo mosaice

My photo mosaice
Originally uploaded by kristenrstewart

I used the fd Flickr toys to create this photo mosaic for my blog. There are some other really cool toys out there to play with your Flickr pictures. I even made a librarian trading card last year that can be found in my Flickr photostream.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Friday afternoon

So, I've started yet another blog for a big project at work, based on Charlotte-Mecklinburg library's Web 2.0 thing. And now that blog is blocked because Google thought it was a spam blog. Never even heard of a spam blog! I submitted the form for it to be unlocked, so I can continue to use it! Crazy.

On the topic of Florida

I've been a reference librarian down here in S. FL for about 3 months now. Weird. I can hardly believe it's been that long! I'm settling in. I'm finally legal with the driver's license and license plates and everything. And now I have a few patrons who ask for me. It's pretty nice to be appreciated. :)

I'm looking forward to moving with a new project myself and another ref. librarian were tossing around last week. We teach several lecture style computer classes that are mostly attended by seniors. We don't have a computer lab, so we make do with small group classes to do hands on with a mobile laptop lab. Our idea is to help some of our not seasonal people form a club in which they can set the agenda, use the library space and computers, and utilize a librarian to learn more about computers and the internet. We have observed how much they really want to learn, but it's hard to do so without hands on experience. And at the desk we can't really walk them through everything we'd like to because of staffing and time constraints. Plus they really enjoy the social aspects of teach and learning from each other. If they get to set their own agenda, then they learn specific things about Ebay or email, or even Facebook. There are a lot of proud grandparents that like to be able to see their grandchildren's accomplishments online. But anyway, we're still in the planning and research part of the project. Yay!

Service to seniors is something that I'm learning to love. Sometimes it can be frustrating for them and us, but it usually turns out to be very rewarding. :)

Happy Holidays!!

Happy Holidays Everyone!!

Some thoughts about technology

Well, today was an interesting day at the reference desk. I usually have computer questions and issues to sort out for patrons, especially because we have a PC Reservation system and it's not perfect. Today I had a lot of requests for in depth help for people who'd never used a computer before. I also learned that as our desk gets so busy, we can't sit next to people and teach them how to sign up for an email address. It just isn't feasible. This lack of computer experience seemed so strange to me when I first started this job a month ago, but I'm realizing that while there are many tech savvy seniors, there are many more not at all savvy ones. We do offer a basic computer instruction/intro class for patrons and it's filling up for the session next week. We try to offer it about once a month. This is all a new world to me and it's good to be reminded that many people don't know how to operate in an online environment.

Meanwhile I'm glad to report that I work tomorrow and then I have two days off in a row! Friday and Saturday I have to myself. I need to finish up Christmas shopping and take care of the marketing too. I also have plans to watch the next disc of the first season of Big Love. Fascinating show.