More than 400 library people from all over the state have registered blogs with Round 2 of 23 Things On a Stick! Some are finishing up from Round 1, but there are many new participants.

It's fun to click around to the various blogs and see what others have to say about the Things and their experience. People are funny, clever, thoughtful, and serious. Take some time to check out your fellow 23ers blogs--it's worth it.

Get On the Stick

Pace yourself as you do the 23 Things. Many people in Round 1 raced to the finish and didn't get the benefits of time and thought when trying all the Things. Try to do one or two a week (aiming for that September 15 finish date) so you don't get caught short of time. Plus, it is fun to have the time to really play with the Things.

Remember to label each post about a completed Thing with the Thing number and title.

By now we hope you have discovered Bloglines or Google Reader. These tools compile information from the blogs or Web sites you choose and then deliver the information to you. They can be great productivity enhancers. You can easily keep up with your favorite sites. No aimless clicking, hoping for updates or new info. What more could an information junkie ask for?

How about an even easier way to add the feeds to your reader? One click subscription buttons make it super easy to add a feed to your reader.

To add the Google Reader Subscribe button to your toolbar, go here and follow the simple instructions. Once the Subscribe button is installed, you just need to click it to add a blog or other site to your Google Reader

Bloglines lets you drag a button to your toolbar to subscribe. On this page, look in the left pane for Get Easy Subscribe Bookmarklet. Click on that link and then follow the instructions for installation in your preferred browser.

Google Reader also has keyboard shortcuts to make reading, tagging, and starring items faster and easier. Go to this article to learn more. 

A final hint-delete the feeds of the blogs that no longer interest you, that you don't read, or that have stopped updating. Reducing the clutter in your feed is another productivity enhancer.     

Posted by Ann WS

IMO, just about everything! The ability to easily upload your photos to Flickr, tag them for ease of finding, then share them with family, friends, or the world, plus ability to easily interface with some great Web 2.0 tools makes Flickr a favorite. Plus it is easy to post your photos to Blogger, MySpace, Facebook, and other sites, often with just a click or two.

So, what hints do I have?

• Friendly URLs: I didn't do this for either my personal account or for the 23 Things On a Stick accounts because I just learned this. (Read the directions!) If you haven't set up a Flickr account, go here to learn about creating easy to remember URLs.
  

• Privacy: You can make all or some of your photos private.

•  Use tags: Tags make it easy to find your photos as well as others that people have tagged with the same words. There are no rules-use whatever words that seem useful/make sense to you. Separate tags with a space (so a tag library reading program is actually three tags). To join words use double quotes- "library things" -or create a new term with no spaces-23thingsonastick. If you have "librarian" tendencies, you can create a controlled vocabulary (in a separate document) and refer to that list as you tag.
  

• Resize your photos before you upload them. Flickr limits the amount of bandwidth you are allowed for uploading images, so if you upload images straight from your camera you are severely limiting the number of photos you can upload each month.

• Once you get into Flickr for yourself or your library, consider an upgrade to Flickr pro.  A few of the  features are unlimited  storage and uploading and permanent archiving.
  

• Flickr Uploadr (Linux, Windows & Mac) is a downloadable tool that makes it quick and easy to add photos to your Flickr account. Drag photos to upload window, batch tag if you want, and click upload. More uploading tools can be found here. 
  

• Public photos can be fair game for others to use (just as you may have in your blog post about Thing 4.). You can choose how people can use your photos. Read the license options with Creative Commons on Flickr and make a decision about how you want to allow use of your photos.
  

• Read the Flickr Blog to keep up
  

One of my favorite sites, Lifehacker, has this Flickr Advanced Users Guide. Some good information there.

Don't forget to look at the pictures tagged with 23thingsonastick in Flickr. The link is in the sidebar.

Posted by Ann WS