Thing 23

Good gracious, Stumble upon. As my daughter would say " procrastination extraordinaire"!  Where did those hours go? Loads of interesting things to look at. A good way to finish up the 23 Things training.  Thanks to Team 23 for the support. I think it was a very successful exercise in mass training and other than the occasional frustrating bits, a fair amount of fun.

Quotes

Alice

Alice Kussler Lusk was born in New York. She married Doctor John Webster from  Shediac and they lived and raised a family there. The Websters were two of the greatest benefactors of the New Brunswick Museum. This portrait  hangs in the Canadian Art gallery  in our museum here in Saint John. "The former Art Department, established by Alice Lusk Webster, collected art to further her goal of providing a visual resource from New Brunswick and beyond for the pleasure and education of the Province's artists and the general public. The collection comprises paintings and sculpture by noted Canadian artists, including some whose work bears a relationship to art in New Brunswick."

I love this painting and visit it a couple of times every year. Someday I'd love to own a print but that seems unlikely. 

Bustling along...

So Bustle.com has a great article this week entitled :Libraries are surprisingly popular and, oh yeah, they also make you awesome!   We already know this but the article is (totally) worth the read. :D


//www.bustle.com/articles/18379-libraries-are-surprisingly-popular-and-oh-yeah-they-also-make-you-awesome

Reflections

As I reflect on the last few months I realize that my favourite "thing" is the way 23 Things is organized. Learning at our own pace gives us time to absorb the material and make and correct mistakes. I remember how to do something new  if I figure it out by myself rather that being shown how. So that makes 23 Things  perfect for me. In general I support the idea, especially for library workers, that a large scale, self-directed training course is completely practical. Instead of bringing all staff to a central library for a day of technology training we can do it ourselves. It also makes it fun and unique when we try our apps and activities using so many different types of technology and devices. I know from googling around the internet that this is not such a completely new idea as highlighted in the following cartoon. The question remains: is it worth the time spent? I say yes, that technology is always changing and as people who work in libraries we should make the most of what's available to us so as to remain current and because it's just smart to invest in our own development.












What was the most useful thing? Facing my fears about learning so much new technology in a relatively short period of time. It's given me the confidence to try almost anything. Will I tweet more? Probably not, but I know how.   I'll keep up the blog (sort of a diary by now) and definitely find more apps to play with. Learning how to manipulate photos has been a good exercise  for me. Joining Goodreads, for example, connected me with friends who have similar reading interests. And I guess that's really the point of the whole thing. Being able to make connections in our social media-savvy world!