The Barefoot Librarian

More Wonderful Hawaiian Music

2008-04-20T12:46:00.005-07:00

Bruddah Iz

Keali'i Reichel

Cecilio and Kapono

The end of the journey... or just the beginning

2008-03-20T15:17:00.005-07:00

This has been one amazing surfing experience. I've learned so much! I shot the curl of the RSS feed and podcast pipeline.

I rode some radical waves at blogs beach.

I embedded myself on the white sandy beach of flickrs and blogs. [check out this performance by Bruddah Iz.]

And I rode the wiki wiki bus to the wonderful world of wikis! Amazing. My favorites? Wikis, blogs, and Technorati. My least favorite? Facebook. It's an important tool to be aware of, but it's a world that, I believe, should be reserved for those under 30. But I'm glad that I was able to take a walk on that beach as well.

Overall, an ono experience. ALOHA!

The many colors of the Greater Phx Digital Library rainbow

2008-03-20T14:46:00.003-07:00

Ahhhhh. Rainbows. Gotta love 'em. Peaking through the clouds of print materials, the brilliant colors of audiobooks slowly emerge. So pretty.

I find the Greater Phoenix Digital Library's site very easy to use. The listings not only tell you whether or not a copy is available, but also how many are available, and how long the waiting list is. Very neat. Tonight I'll go home and download one onto my computer. That way, I'll be all ready for the big moment when I get my new mp3 player for finishing this course!!! Yay!!!!

Surfing the podcast pipeline

2008-03-20T14:11:00.002-07:00

Podcasts are fun to listen to. Some I was able to listen to, some I was not, due to the fact that they were blocked by the City network. I ultimately landed on the npr podcast page, and I selected NPR's most emailed stories. NPR is great to begin with, and listening to their most popular stories is such a wonderful opportunity.

Library Spot

2008-03-19T14:26:00.003-07:00

YouTube. LOVE it, love it. Can't get enough. I checked out Yahoo Video as well (which I had no idea even existed), and it had far fewer posts.

And hands-down, this is THE best tv spot that takes place in a library (not that I know of many).

AloHA to Real Travel

2008-03-19T14:02:00.009-07:00

Being one who loves to travel, I selected a travel tool from the Web 2.0 awards list. It's name: Real Travel. Unfortunately, it was a big disappointment.

Last year, my daughter travelled to Puebla, Mexico through a college exchange program. She absolutely loved it. Puebla is a vibrant, colorful city deep in the heart of Mexico. Accordingly, I selected Puebla as my fictitious destination to research on the Real Travel site.

Real Travel managed to provide me with a long list of hotels (advertisers, no doubt), but no restaurants and no activities. Give me a break. I know for a fact that there are both. But what I found most odd is the fact that both Forbes and Business Week voted this site to be essential to travel planning. Hello. What's up with that? I've had much better luck with budgettravel.about.com and tripadvisor.com.

So I say Alo-HA to Real Travel. (Just remember, aloha can also mean "goodbye").

Somewhere in the pacific...

2008-03-18T14:41:00.003-07:00

Loved Google Docs. Loved it. And I suppose I agree with the thought that these freely-available, no need to install software on your computer, apps will be the wave of the future. They may, in fact, be the ultimate downfall of Microsoft's software arm. But they (Microsoft) are quite resilient, and they'll no doubt find another buoy to attach themselves to in the techno ocean.

Packing a lunch... PB Wiki and Jelly

2008-03-18T13:57:00.004-07:00

Good ol' PB and J. Always a favorite of mine. Right up there next to mana pua or lomi lomi salmon. And I kinda like PB Wiki as well. Not much to say about it. Fun posting on those already-created blog pages... and easy. That's always ono (good). Aloha.

Aloha! Wiki Wiki

2008-03-06T16:20:00.008-07:00

Ah, eventually all things come back to their Hawaiian roots. Before there were online wikis, before there was Wikipedia, there was the Wiki Wiki Shuttle! Honolulu's airport shuttle. Heck, it's fun riding the thing if only for the opportunity to say I'm going to ride the Wiki Wiki Bus!!

In fact, there's even a Wikipedia entry about said shuttle. Pretty neat.

Getting down to the business at hand, it was interesting searching the various wiki examples given in the Learning 2.0 lesson. I could not view a couple of them due to blockage by City internet filters. But I believe that I received a fairly good education on wikis from what I did read. It was interesting to note that the Bull Run Public Library wiki is actually maintained by one library user. It's not a library product at all!

I could see that libraries could find many interesting ways to utilize wikis... a book lover wiki in which individuals could post comments on various favorite books, a today in the library informative newsletter wiki, and so on. The former could provide open posting, and the latter could be edited by library staff only.

Watch Out for the Icebergs!

2008-03-06T11:51:00.002-07:00

My favorite section of the OCLC newsletter was that of Rick Anderson:

The three icebergs that he mentioned: the just in case collection, reliance on user education, and the come to us model of librarianship--really set me thinking. I have heard much about the just in case collection and the come to us models, but the notion that we should not rely on the necessity of users to be educated in order to use our tools was novel in my mind. Having come from the world of community college librarianship, teaching customers to use library tools is what we do.

But it is essential for today's hurry up lifestyle that we create online tools (and in-library tools, for that matter) that are intuitive and easy to use. Yeah, we want to be loved and feel needed by our customers, but we're doing them a disservice to not allow our children to empower themselves with our great tools.

Tag. You're It! [aka You Put the Lime in the Coconut and Drink It All Up]

2008-03-05T16:46:00.010-07:00

Technorati... The stairway to my 15 minutes o' fame in the blogosphere. I tagged a few of my posts and checked them out on Technorati. In my Technorati search, it was necessary to change the search limitation so that any and all blogs would be searched. It worked! Neat! Technorati definitely provides a service not available with such tools as Google.

While exploring Technorati, I discovered a link to the most popular blog in the world: Boing Boing!
http://www.boingboing.net/
"Boing Boing is a weblog of cultural curiosities and interesting technologies. It's the most popular blog in the world, as ranked by Technorati.com, and won the Lifetime Achievement and Best Group Blog awards at the 2006 Bloggies ceremony."

Boing Boing features so many interesting posts, not the least of which is one that takes us back to the islands, yet again. It's about a gentleman pursuing the idea of using coconuts as containers for his electronics projects!!

Del.icio.us and Nutr.itio.us

2008-03-05T16:12:00.005-07:00

Before we get into the meat of this discussion, let's talk about what's really delicious. That's right, Shave Ice from Matsumoto's on the North Shore.
http://www.matsumotoshaveice.com/

Or how about some kalbi from Ono Hawaiian BBQ right here in Scottsdale.
http://www.onohawaiianbbq.com/menu.html

I'm getting hungry!! Okay, so back to the subject at hand. I agree with what was said on the 8+ minute del.icio.us tutorial. This is a fantastic tool for performing research. And the rss feed feature is great... it enables you to easily locate new and wonderful sources of information from the links of individuals who are respected in the industry (library or otherwise). The ability to create unique tags that mean something to you is a great outside-the-box feature as well.

Facebook 'em, Danno, Murder One

2008-03-05T14:32:00.006-07:00

Tattoos... How Touching!

2008-02-28T16:37:00.007-07:00

From Stephen's Lighthouse... Tattoo Touch Screens

"Imagine! A touchscreen on your arm as a subcutaneous digital display powered by your own blood. It could be a video phone, a calculator, or more.

Just think - spam, phishing, and begging phone calls delivered directly to your body. Here's one idea I hope never comes to fruition. (Of course the technology that drives this could have excellent medical uses that do make a difference.) I don't even want to speculate about what the upgrade path looks like. Imagine aging gracefully but having the tattoo equivalent of a rotary dial phone permanently inked on your arm."

I'm with him. This is one scary, albeit obsessive, invention.

At the RSS Luau

2008-02-28T11:57:00.008-07:00

Feed me!! Surfing along for RSS news feeds, my first stop was the Bloglines search tool. A bit of stumbling was involved, as the beginning of my search somehow yielded only feeds already existing on my own blog. Once I determined how to go about searching RSS feeds on the entire Internet, I was off and running!

After posting a couple of feeds from Hawaiian newspapers (go figure!), I took a walk along the beach to the next cabana: Topix.net. There I did a search for the word "retro", and lo and behold, one of my hits was that of yet another Hawaiian newspaper, the Star Bulletin. I loaded them into the old list of feeds. On Topix, I found that I was able to search phrases in quotes, as may be true of all other rss feed search tools. But with the hits I received from Topix, on some I never could locate the actual link to a feed on the site. And quite by accident, the Topix site automatically provided me with a feed just sitting there on the page for Scottsdale News. I gobbled that one up.

I liked searching Bloglines and Topix for rss feeds, but Syndic8 was a whole other story. Not a fan. Aesthetically unpleasant, not a big performer with results. Yucky in general. And finally, Technorati, yet another search tool for these links. Useful, easy to use. On that site I indulged myself and searched, located and posted a link to the blog of an American Idol fan. Go Daniel Archuleta!

Feeding at the information trough

2008-02-14T16:03:00.003-07:00

RSS feeds. Hmm. What can I say? I agree with the statement on the Learning 2.0 site that this is the most difficult of all of the sections. While working with my new Bloglines account, I was somehow under the mistaken impression that I'd be able to store all of my RSS feeds on my blog, thus having easy access to those feeds. But NO-O-O. Storing them on Bloglines is a bit more of a pain, since I can't see myself opening that on a regular basis. Oh, well.

It sounds pretty fun, though, the way that people have RSS feeds streaming right into their cell phones. Very cool.

If you're interested, here's a link to my bloglines account:

http://www.bloglines.com/public/USERNAME

A Different Sort of Surfboard... made of paper

2008-02-13T15:19:00.002-07:00

Ladies and Gentlemen, it's time for a brief commercial interruption. Heck, we've gotta pay the rent!

My Little Grass Shack Library in Kealakekua, Hawaii

2008-02-13T14:45:00.007-07:00

Yes, I'll bet you didn't even realize it... I have a little library down on the beach. I've got lots of great books, all pertaining to activities in Paradise. There's Hawaii by Michener, Body Surfing by Anita Shreve, How to Play the Hawaiian Ukulele, Hidden Hawaii, and so many more!

How did I catalog my library's collection? It was a snap with Library Thing. Here's a link to my little bookstore...

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/kfiske

Enjoy! Remember, in the Hawaiian (and japanese) tradition, please remove shoes upon entering the store. Mahalo for shopping with us.

Hang loose!!

Off to Paradise. AloHA!

2008-02-13T13:37:00.010-07:00

Okay, Sherlock (my kitty)... we're off to the big breakers at Makaha!!!

Well, considering my kitty's forlorn plea in that last post, I thought I ought to get movin' on purchasing a ticket to the land of sunshine and waves... Honolulu International Airport!

I utilized the Airline Ticket Generator image generator site to accomplish this. And heck, this plane ticket to Paradise didn't cost me a cent!!

Catnap's over. Wake up, Daddy!!! It's time to "shoot the curl" at North Shore, Oahu!!

2008-02-13T13:24:00.009-07:00

This little animation will be most understood by those of us whose lives are ruled by our kitties. :-) I originally spotted this on the blog of my friend, Stream of Consciousness.

A Whole Lotta Shushing Goin' On - Right Here in River City

2008-02-06T21:08:00.001-07:00

Ah, Marion and Harold Hill. What is there left to say about one of the best musical films of all time?

Vacationing on the shores of YouTube was such fun. And what a powerful search engine! Some of my favorite search terms were gumby [over 1500 hits], before they were famous [yielding some interesting surprises] and educational film [featuring some of those great old classroom films to which we all paid such close attention].

Which Way to the Beach?

2008-02-06T15:03:00.001-07:00

For all you cats out there who might not have a GPS, here's the latest low tech offering. Who said technology has to be tiny and easy to use? This kitty knows that's not always the case. She lives with one of your coworkers at this great address in the blogosphere: http://upstream-streamoconsciousness.blogspot.com/

Maui Meow-ee

2008-02-06T10:34:00.001-07:00

Alo-o-o-o-ha!!! Shall we check out (get it?) another one of our friends from work? Here's Sera de la Sera reading Michener's Hawaii.

It's so nice to relax on the beach with a good blog. And if you have no beach, no waves, and no cool breeze, do what she does... Light a "tropical breeze" scented candle, turn on your "crashing waves" ambient noise cd, and pull up a great blog. http://www.seradelasera.blogspot.com/

Troubled In Paradise

2008-02-04T15:04:00.001-07:00

Nancy insisted that I create a trading card for her. And far be it from me to say no to Queen Librarian. So here she is!

I, of course, created this using the Flickr mashup Librarian Trading Card Maker. Fun! I tried out a couple of the other Flickr mashups, but they were finicky and not all of them ran properly. Here's a page with links to several of them http://www.webmonkey.com/06/08/index4a.html

Leilani and Uke

2008-02-01T10:16:00.001-07:00

Leilani and Uke
Originally uploaded by thebarefootlibrarian

Here's my good friend Leilani doing what she loves best, playing "I'm going back to my little grass shack in Kealakekua Hawaii" on her uke... at Waikiki!

I'm Walkin' on Sunshine, Whoa-oh, and It Makes Me Feel Good!

2008-02-01T10:09:00.001-07:00

In order to post these photos (of a few of my friends in Hawaii!), I read one of the tutorials, but then I hunted around flickr (and on Blogger) to figure out things a bit more myself. Doing things by trial and error sometimes helps me to better understand concepts, and it helps plant the steps into my brain. I didn't find the whole thing to be particularly intuitive, though. The procedure seemed unlike that of other applications that I'm used to. But now I'm glad I learned how to do this! And tags now make sense!!

Leo on Kauai

2008-02-01T10:03:00.001-07:00

Leo on Kauai
Originally uploaded by thebarefootlibrarian

Here's Leo, feeling inspired at the beach. Mona's taking a break... she's out there surfing (but Leo's worried and keeping an eye on her!)

Big Surfing Through Flickr

2008-01-31T14:21:00.000-07:00

Ah, the 60's and 70's in Phoenix. It was a very different time then. And browsing through flickr.com, looking for images of the good old days, really took me back!

My family lived near the edge of what was once the edge of town... the corner of 44th Street and Camelback Road. My friends and I hung out in the desert on the N/W corner of that intersection. There were several acres of vacant land. Very fun. Quail, bunnies, creosote, cacti, and mesquite. The most notable landmark on the opposite corner was a branch of the Valley National Bank. It had very unusual architecture, a sort of historic landmark. And as far as I know, it's still there. http://www.flickr.com/photos/bostworld/562624485/

But there wasn't much to be had on the Flickr site for other places as they once were... Legend City (the greatest amusement park ever, located in Tempe), Big Surf (back when there was sand on the "beach" and people actually surfed there!!!), the old Central Avenue in Phoenix, Terminal One at Sky Harbor (now demolished), and the list goes on. Not accepting defeat, I looked in Google Images and found a terrific site containing all of the above! http://www.leifswanson.com/history/1970.htm. [pay particular attention to the Big Surf image toward the bottom of the page].

Ah, memory lane. It's a fun place to stroll.

Jumping From Rock to Rock, or the 7.5 habits of highly effective jumpers

2008-01-30T15:43:00.000-07:00

The Verde River.

What does this have to do with the 7 1/2 habits of highly effective learners? Bear with me for a second.

Have you ever played in a stream or a river? Especially one with really cold water running along? Often in the beginning, you might be playing alongside the river... making little boats, eating a picnic lunch, taking photos of each other. Trying very hard to stay dry. I used to do that as a kid... we'd pile into the station wagon and drive to the Verde River for the day.

Then, something on the other side catches your eye, and you feel an urge to get over there. So you find some large, flat rocks lined up across the water, perhaps spaced wide apart, but you figure you can jump from one to the other to get across. You make it most of the way across, but that last rock, it's pretty far from the one your standing on. You make a giant leap!!! but oh, you end up on your rear in the water, soaked up to your chest.

You're all wet, but that's okay. And you figure that since you're wet anyway, you'll find another method to get to that desired destination. You simply walk across, learning in a very simple manner that there's more than one way to get across that puppy!

How does all of this tie into the 7 1/2 habits of highly effective learners? To take those habits out of direct context, I love to learn. I love to take chances. I fall on my rear once in awhile (I'm especially good at that one!), but I get back up and keep plodding away!!!

Walking barefoot on gravel

2008-01-30T15:31:00.000-07:00

Walking barefoot on the hot gravel. That's what I used to do as a kid, growing up in Phoenix--out in the desert.

It was hot. And rough. My friends and I would run around on the hot gravel while playing outside. Even in the middle of the summer! Denise, Katie, Michael, Holly and I would play outside in 115 degree heat. Heck, we didn't care. Those feet got toughened up. Often we'd step on stickers and pointy rocks, but no, we didn't care. That was to be expected.

I look on that experience as being analgous to challenges that I've taken on as an adult. Challenges are pretty fun to tackle. They can be scary (those stickers in the ground) and difficult (sizzling ground), but taking on enough challenges can toughen one up (the feet, remember?) to become able to take on the next one. And that can be so empowering. Such a rewarding experience.