the library

the library
Originally uploaded by antonious (www.anthonyaphoto.com)

A place I could spend hours in.....

#20 Askaway

Had an initial hiccup trying to connect to Askaway. I assumed I was doing something wrong.....again, however, turned out there was a problem with my internet settings. Systems came to my rescue (thanks Lisa!) and in no time at all I was chatting with Sherry on Askaway about driving routes down the Oregon Coast. The information came fast and furious and I had websites about Oregon popping up all over my screen. Not that I should be surprised, but Sherry the Librarian was very friendly, found interesting and relevant sites for me to scan through, and made Askaway such a positive experience that I will be back to use it again!

DDDDDD Databases - #19

Had lots of fun learning about NVDPL's databases. As a user, I've only accessed the Research section of the website a couple of times and that was to go into EbscoHost (side note, I found this database quite difficult to navigate and produce the results I was looking for but that might have been due to poor search techniques!). This time, I gravitated to the children's and teen related databases and found both Novelist K-8 and Worldbook Advanced both informative and easy to use. I really liked the Recommended Reads section in Novelist which had broad categories like Fantasy, that were broken down further to witches, mermaids, wizards etc. I will definitely use this database at home when my kids are restless for new reading material. Worldbook Advanced was another winner and great for school projects. I found the site easy to search and found some interesting articles on global warming and the affect on oceans which one of my daughters is keen to learn more about.
When I have more time, I will definitely go back and take another more thorough look through those databases, especially Library to Go E-Audio. I need to know how to download e-books when I eventually finish in the Playground.

Exploring Office 2007 - #17 & #18

I whipped through the Shared Calendars section because it's an area I'm pretty familiar with since I do the bookings for the Board Room. Moving on to Office 2007, I could go on all day about the initial problems I had navigating through Word and Excel when I first started using those new programs at home. It took me days to figure out how to print documents! I thought I would move through #18 pretty quickly, however, I ended up spending more time exploring the exercises for Word 2007. I hadn't realized some of the extra features that Word 2007 offers, especially some of the enhancements like picture borders, shading, word art and adding colour to tables. Now I feel that I can add some oomph and sparkle to what has probably been very visually-boring documents!
I've been using Office 2007 at home for sometime now and use the calendar extensively to co-ordinate family activities which are then synced onto my IPAQ which goes everywhere with me. I am not as confident with Excel and do need to spend some time improving my skills with that program.

#16 Email Etiquette

I read the article on email etiquette and found most of the information pretty straightforward, although I did make a mental note that I need to be more concise in my emails (have a tendency to ramble, hence title of blog!). I found the article on phishing the most informative. I thought I was pretty savvy spotting email scams and I do delete any email with an attachment that I don't recognize. However, I didn't score particularly well on the phishing test - 6/10 so I'll have to look over the notes one more time, just to be safe. I think the best tip was to pay close attention to the URL address in the bottom left corner of the screen since it's not something I always look at.

#15 NVDPL Sandbox Wiki

I had a quick play in the sandbox this morning! Lots of fun. It did feel a little strange editing lists on a site but then there's always a first time for everything......and I'm still looking forward to setting up my own wiki.