Country Bumpkin

Why Country Bumpkin?

2012-01-20T09:41:00.006-06:00

For those of you that have found my blog through my WSU introduction, I should probably explain the name and url. Why Country Bumpkin?

Well, for starters, I do live in the sticks. 9 acres complete with 3 horses, 12 rabbits, 14 chickens, 2 dogs, 3 cats, 4 quail, 2 guppies and a cockatiel (yes, you were supposed to sing that to the tune of 12 Days of Christmas). Also at one time, goats, which explains my profile picture – but they were evil creatures that busted all the rabbits loose. I now credit them with an obnoxiously lazy family of “free-range domestic” rabbits that make themselves at home all over my yard.

Well, in my little country ideal, I was unable to get a high speed connection to the internet at my house until last year. Yes, that’s right folks – the year 2011! And it took some doing! Most conversations with service providers ran something like this –

Me: Hi I’m interested in the bundled plan you offer for hi-speed internet.

Rep: Ok, great let’s get started, can I have your address and zip code?

Me: Yes, it’s . . . .

Rep: [Pause] ummm, hmmm let me see . . . ma’am, I apologize it looks like we don’t offer digital TV in your area. Would you still like to continue?

Me: Yes, that’s fine, can we still bundle phone and hi-speed?

Rep: Definitely, let’s see what that rate will be [Pause] well, oh my, yes, hmmm, my system seems to be saying you are outside our reach for hi-speed internet. It’s also telling me, what? We can’t even provide you voicemail service for your telephone line? Where the heck do you live ma’am? You are 35,000 feet outside our service area!

People look at me with concern when I tell them that I have to drive 2 miles down the road and stand in my neighbor’s barn in order to get a good cell phone connection. Although I did discover last summer that by standing on top of the fencepost at the end of my driveway, I was able to get a decent connection as well. How might you ask did I discover this?

Well, one spring morning I looked out my window and discovered that, lo and behold, there was a cable access box immediately across the street from my home! I had no idea when it had been placed there, it being hidden from view by 3ft tall grass or snow the majority of the year. Knowing I was going to start back to school and needing the hi-speed connection for online courses, I did the only reasonable thing – I called Charter and asked for their service!

Someday, just for fun I’d like to get a transcript of all my conversations with Charter from May through August of last year. We could make it into a movie. Perhaps Adrian Brody could play one of the soulfully sad installation techs that repeatedly wandered around my yard, saying “Ma,am, I apologize . . . you see, there is no cable on this side of the street.” And I would clutch my chest in horror, crying “I know, I’ve only told your company that for 3 months!”

We could complete it with a song and dance number to the Pointer Sister‘s “I’m So Excited” when the county brush hog chews up a ¼ mile of my cable and small woodland creatures prance through the fields throwing the confetti-ed pieces into the air. Of course, this scene would fade away to me standing on my fence post screaming obscenities into my crackling cell phone at the supervisor of installation services. (Remember, that bundled package = I have no phones when the cable is in 3,482 pieces in the roadside ditch).

Needless to say, somehow there was a happy ending, as I am indeed participating in my first online course. But the adventure continues . . .

I have either just done something incredibly brave, or really, really stupid. I have asked a question! And the answer was, Yes.

I submitted my scores and was granted permission to skip the Intro Tech class. Now, I find myself in a panic that I will be unable to fulfill the expectations in a higher level tech course. I’m a quick learner and can generally figure things out relatively easily on my own, but I have volunteered to teach myself CSS and learn to design a web page with no formal instruction. I love design, that shouldn’t be the problem – it’s all that jumble of code behind the scenes that frightens me! Wish me luck (good advice is also welcome).

Wow! It's been a while . . .

2012-01-10T17:35:00.002-06:00

This blog was started on my journey to all things tech-savvy years ago, and since the quest has still not ended, I believe I'll start posting my thoughts as I wade through the scary world of graduate school. At the time, I was fresh to the library profession and have to prove my tech competency with a wonderful little program called "23 Things"(see more here - http://kdl.wetpaint.com/ ). When I first started my job, I didn't realize that I would have to handle many of the technical aspects of library land. Honestly, I thought I was simply becoming a "story lady". I really did not think they would make me learn about B&T ordering carts, Millenium Acquisitions, generating weed lists, etc, etc - I mean, come on, I was in charge of picture books and glitter! I did not need to know how to override the public PC interface when a patron became locked out of their computer. I had a hard-enough time when the Tonka truck game in the children's area froze up!

Well, the truth is I did learn, and learned some more, and I'm still learning with every question a patron asks. Experience is a wonderful teacher, and I am so grateful to have already had the chance to work in the field I now know is my true calling. And what an amazing field it is! Libraries are changing drastically. The effort to keep up with the ever-changing technology of today's society has us scrambling constantly to offer new services, new compatibility.

Over the years I have often been conflicted about calling myself the "children's librarian." Technically, I am a youth paraprofessional. Now that's a mouthful at any age, but when your average patron age is somewhere around the 4-6yr old phase, you tend to let it slide when everyone refers to you as a librarian. Soon you start referring to yourself as a librarian, and eventually, your brain says "Why not? Why not go back to school? Are you really going to leave me here in Elmo's World forever?" I realized that no matter how much I love my job right now, maybe someday I'll want to move on to bigger things, a new position in the library, full-time employment!. And just maybe, to get there, I'll need proof that I actually know what I'm talking about. So here goes, I'm on the road to becoming a real librarian.

Thing 23 - the end of it all!

2008-01-30T20:14:00.000-06:00

Hmmm - I loved Youtube, Librarything is wonderful, and the RSS feeds are great since I used up every last available memory cell in creating all the account names and passwords that these exercises demanded. I will continue to be a lifelong learner, and pursue a greater understanding of new technologies and how we can use them in today's libraries.
Surprises? Only that I struggled with some exercises I thought would be a cinch and flew through others that had me worried. I did learn I'm not nearly as good at following directions as I should be by now. That surprised me because it truly was not out of laziness, but out of being so distracted by everything else in life, I tend to try and jump right to the final step. I will do better! The 2nd greatest obstacle I have right now in my quest as a learner is my refusal to pay $70/month for high-speed internet. That would be the only change I'd make before embarking on this kind of project again.

Thing 22 Podcasts

2008-01-28T14:33:00.000-06:00

Lots of interesting stuff out there. I added a link to the SIRLS U of Arizona Podcast page that deals with a lot of the techno questions we've been discussing in 23 things. I'll have to make more of an effort to explore all the info that's out there.

Thing 21 Online Video

2008-01-28T14:04:00.000-06:00

Nothing screams Country Bumpkin like "Cletus Take The Reel" by Tim Hawkins, so that is my featured film for this blog. Youtube is great, makes me wish I could afford broadband at home. Of course that would just lead to a serious online addiction. I could browse through these films for hours.
It would be fun to post our teen theater to Youtube this summer, or video some of our SRC programs with links on the KDL webpage.

Thing 20 Special Treat

2008-01-04T13:18:00.000-06:00

The machine is us! Wow, I loved this clip, an amazing commentary on everything we've been talking about, on all the Things we're currently exploring. I'm not sure if this clip is intended for general audiences, but can you imagine if this were played on the TV? What kind of reactions and blogs it would inspire! I hope that more people are rethinking all the traditional norms, all the way things are changing, or are going to have to change if trends continue, or should I say as trends continue to link us all more thoroughly and immediately.
What have we gotten our selves into?

Thing 19 Digital Music

2008-01-04T13:05:00.000-06:00

Yes, I've tried listening to an on-line radio station, but . . . ahh-hemm, Dial-Up! Need I say more? And yes, I've considered down-loading music from an on-line store, but again, see above.
However, I have tried a few file-sharing sites, mostly for kid songs. One in particular was Macjams.com, tailored specifically to Mac users (I wonder if I'm looked down upon for being a PC geek). But I did find some very fun songs, and intend to use such sites as needed to find silly, free songs to incorporate into story time activities.

Thing 18 Social Networking

2008-01-04T12:49:00.000-06:00

I could talk about this topic for a long time, but I guess I'll limit it to the obvious. Social networking has so many benefits - find others just like you, find out anything in an instant, find new friends/confidantes/business contacts/sources of revenue. It's so great, who thinks about the bad things, right? The fact that millions of teens will trust, fully rely on, and follow the advice of virtual (no-pun intended) unknowns. People go online and become whoever they wish they were, or whoever they think you want them to be. There's something to be said for living in a fantasy world for a little while each day, but many people don't have a clue about reality, they can't cope with not being the image they have created online, and therefore cannot function in the face of demands, such as a boss, a job, face-to-face confrontation. I have a MySpace account, but it is private, used only for sharing pictures and ideas with close friends. I don't feel the need to live there, and I really worry about the upcoming generations who know nothing but online relationships. People need the skills of both the older generation's face-to-face mentality, as well as the ability to navigate the web and new technologies.
On top of that, there is the worry of authenticity. A teacher recently brought her class to the library, so that I could stress the importance of verifying sources when researching. These kids will believe anything that anyone takes the time to type up. If it's on the world wide web, it must be true, right? And if 2 million other teens believe it as well, and read about it in all their friends blogs, it must be better to follow their lead than believe anything, say, a parent, doctor, lawyer, police officer, or other authority figure might tell them. Just call me Negative Nancy!

Thing 17 Wikis

2008-01-04T12:40:00.000-06:00

Wikis are an interesting source of info. I like the resources available for recommending books found at http://www.libsuccess.org/index.php?title=Recommending_books. Those types of wikis are handy, more updated than my own mind and have input from many different people, which make them all the more likely to help me do my job better. I also like the fact that library wikis give the patrons a chance to perform their own readers advisories and share their reactions to recent reads.

Thing 16 Technorati

2008-01-04T12:24:00.000-06:00

A sad thought - today I realized that at the ripe old age of 32 I am a geezer. I explored Technorati, I did a search for "Learning 2.0" and my biggest thought was "So what?" I just don't get it! What is the purpose of this site? I went to their Top 100 Blogs and clicked on the most popular site Boing Boing. Now with a name like that, you'd think that the tag "boing" would have a million things connected to it - the results were a big fat 0.
I searched for the word "toddler" thinking I might find something fun to incorporate into my story times, not a thing came up that I found useful.
Sorry to be negative, but this stuff is just not relevant to my daily existence. I liked the "Learning 2.0 discussion" found at http://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2007/08/interview-about-learning-20.html and maybe his explanation of the different neural wiring provides an answer to my discontent with this glorious piece of technology - apparently I'm just wired wrong!

Thing 15 Del.icio.us

2008-01-04T12:03:00.000-06:00

Hmmm, I'm sure it has it's purposes, but I don't see my self doing this. I was impressed by the tutorial on YouTube, and the idea of del.icio.us, but the actual experience was kind of blaaahh! I mean letting people do your research for you is a really good thing, but if I have so many points of reference that I need this site to remember them for me, then I am suffering from information overload and don't really need to know anyway. Maybe I'm just no good at coming up with topics to search, but the results of my del.icio.us searches were pretty run of the mill and not at all worth tagging.

Thing14 Web 2.0 Awards

2008-01-04T11:27:00.000-06:00

Well, once again going to go with the book thing (they are a particular favorite of mine). I had already tried Librarything and found it very useful. So I thought why not check out the 1st place winner, LuLu. But that seems to focus more on the publishing and structure of the books, not a lot of recommendations or useful features for doing my job (however, someday I will finish that novel, self publish with LuLu and become an underground sensation). So I choose Biblio as my new favorite Web 2.0 Thing! Like Librarything, it has a user friendly, easy to follow format. I also like the categories - now when I have some hormone-crazed teen girl dying to have something new from the Vampire romance genre, I might actually be able to communicate with them (they all seem rather disgusted that I know nothing about those books!).

Thing 13 Zoho Writer sample

2007-11-14T09:18:00.001-06:00

Ok, I am creating a document at Zoho Writer.

I am going to try to post this to my blog. Who knows if it will work! So far, Zoho is a pretty typical WP program. Simple, straight-forward document creation. Nothing too confusing about that. I like that I can access it from home or work or anywhere I else I may find myself in need of a recently created document.

However, this is me waiting for each function on Zoho!

Once again, the lament of the dial-up subscriber. Until modern technology is affordable in my neck of the woods, I will be stuck W---A---I---T---N---G for each and every little thing.

So yes, it has it's value - just don't know how useful it will be to me anytime in the near future, seeing as I can't even get AT&T voicemail where I live. Apparently I am 35,000 ft outside their service area. And we thought we had conquered every frontier!

Thing 12 Rollyo

2007-11-14T08:26:00.000-06:00

My Search Roll from Rollyo. Hopefully this time it posts. It's finally showing up, but I keep getting html code errors every time I try to post. After a few fits and starts - namely that Rollyo doesn't force you to log in/create userID before you begin creating your personal searchrolls, so I had to go back and start over. It said my 1st roll was created by user321321321 and wouldn't let me go back and personalize anything. I really think the site should require you to register before allowing you to do anything. After that, I did find the site useful. I created a roll that will help familiarize me with teen topics in the library, book reviews, recommendations, what's next, etc. Now all I have to do is pull up my blog and type something into this toolbar and "voila" my search is over - right?

(well, whadyaknow, it actually worked exactly the way it was supposed to!)

Thing11 - LibraryThing

2007-10-24T10:51:00.000-06:00

I actually joined LibraryThing right after hearing Angela Semifero's presentation and have found it very useful. For example, I have used it to try to find books when patrons know the idea of the story, but not the author or title, by using the tag search. I also used it just the other night when a student had misplaced his book for a school book report. He'd read the book but couldn't remember some of the details. I pulled up the title and some reviews to help him complete his assignment. I also love the idea of My Library! I have read so many wonderful books that I often don't remember those I want to recommend. I was glad to sit down and add them to my collection (http://www.librarything.com/catalog/SMAGNUSON). Now I just need a little more free time to try to find all my favorites to add to my collection, plus make a list of those I definitely need to get to. Absolutely love this Thing!

Thing10 - Library 2.0

2007-10-24T10:20:00.000-06:00

Well I have read 3 perspectives: Away from Icebergs, Into a new world of librarianship and To more powerful ways to cooperate. They are all very interesting to read. The Ways to Cooperate article was a little too "techie" for my poor brain but I definitely agree with the ideas that are presented. I am new to the library and have grown up with the WWW link to everything and found it very difficult to be responsible for ordering J NF titles. My first thought when faced with all the choices was "why would we pay for this collection when we can find all that info, plus some, on-line, in seconds?" Of course, I understand the need for info on demand and the need for print sources on hand, and I hope the Web never fully replaces books in the search for info. But we definitely need to balance our collections and our future budgeting with the Web in mind. Rick Anderson's article says all that needs to be said about Library 2.0 - place the info in the user's preferred environment, which like it or not, is now the on-line world. More training, more user-friendly links, and maintaining updated technological resources is of the utmost importance now.

Thing9 - Library blog

2007-09-30T20:14:00.000-06:00

I've signed up for a few book review feeds that seem interesting. I'll continue searching for feeds that deal mainly with children's lit to aid in my job as youth parapro, but found the reviews very interesting for the adult selections too.
Of course the Bloglines search tool was easiest for me, but I did like Syndic8 for it's format. I found it more useful than Topix and more user friendly. Feedster was interesting and I tried to create a widget, but apparently was not successful. Maybe I will try to host it here at Blogger instead of my Bloglines.

Thing8 - RSS feeds

2007-09-24T08:08:00.000-06:00

Hey, well, that wasn't so bad. After reading some of the comments, I thought this might be pretty difficult, but I kind of liked this exercise. I actually find RSS much more useful to know about than image generators. I definitely like the idea of using the feeds to keep track of all the things I'd like to know about. As you may have noticed, my time and frustration level are very limited. I think the feeds will help me keep up with things I should know, but don't always remember to check up on. The uses at the Library are unlimited - books to recommend, news updates, just basic all around help in being the "know-it-all's" our patrons expect us to be!
Here's the link to my feeds - http://www.bloglines.com/blog/CountyBumpkin2007
I sure hope I've done all that was expected. Seeing as I found it easy, I get the feeling maybe I didn't do it right after all . . .

Thing7 - image generators

2007-09-24T05:55:00.000-06:00

Gee, image generators are interesting. My husband often uses a certain phrase to describe new employees who at first looked like promising additions to the crew, but prove to be anything but. He calls them "Toab's" - as in "as useful as Tits on a Boar." And I'm sorry if it reflects a bad attitude on my part, but as my image might suggest, the majority of generators I "attempted" to use have proven to be "Toabs." Not all of us are lucky enough to have access to broadband, or anything close to it. And seeing as I barely have time to read my e-mail at work I do most of my 23 things at home - on my pathetically slow, out of date computer. So most of my experience with image generators has consisted of watching a small bar sssslllloooowwwwllly advance across an empty box - only to stall halfway through, or appear "Done, with errors on page."

This morning I attempted to make a virtual person; after answering a series of totally asinine questions, I played 4 games of Solitaire, 3 games of Minesweeper (expert level!), drank 2 cups of coffee, gave my dog a bath 'cuz he's rolled in something very dead, and finally came back and cancelled out of my quest because the little bar was stalled out halfway through the box.

Therefore, the result of my image experiments (from http://www.imagechef.com/) has a slightly negative tone.

Wonderful to know there are so many advanced methods of wasting time though! (Funny - I just used to read books when I wanted to do that before . . .)

Thing6 - Mashups

2007-09-10T08:47:00.001-06:00

Librarian Trading Card
Originally uploaded by Country Bumpkin2007

Lots of fun things at FD's Flickr Toys. I loved the poster ideas from Motivatr and Movie Postrs. Lots of fun things to do for those creative souls with lots of time on their hands. Can't wait till I have free time . . . only 13 more years till all my kids leave the house :)

Thing5 - Flickr

2007-09-10T06:48:00.001-06:00

The Library Dragon
Originally uploaded by Country Bumpkin2007
Ok, phweeewwww, I made it . . . finally. Altogether, this little post right here took 5 days and 3 computers worth of effort. My home computer is slower than slow and took forever to try to set up my Flickr account. So I signed up and created my account at my folks house. Unfortunately, I then had no pictures of the library to post for the assignment. KP has no digital camera, so I brought my own and snapped a few shots early Saturday morning as we prepared for the book/plant sale. Then I thought I would download them real quick using a public PC and my memory card. Not gonna happen! KDL computers won't read my camera's memory card for some reason, and it's too far to drive back to my folks to do it. So after an hour and 15 minutes of slow-going, bogged-down computer time, I have successfully posted my library pictures and blogged. Only 18 MORE THINGS TO GO! At this rate I may not get through every thing till Oct 2008!

Thing4 - Tracking log

2007-08-28T18:35:00.000-06:00

I am now a blogger . . . ooooh! Took me a while to get the whole picture thing down, but I'm discovering that if I actually read all of the directions that are available to me I wouldn't run into so many roadblocks : ) Now on to the rest of the list . . .

Thing3 - Blog/Habit

2007-08-28T11:58:00.000-06:00

Ok, apparently if I've made it this far I've completed thing #3.
As you can see from post 2, play is one of the things that comes easier to me.
Of the other habits, it's hard to choose. Beginning with the end in mind is an easy one for me - if someone gives me the deadline! However, if I am pursuing a goal of my own making, it tends to fall by the wayside when life becomes too much to handle. So I guess that is one I should work on, taking my own goals more seriously and investing more in my own success and learning adventure.

Thing2 - 71/2 habits

2007-08-28T11:49:00.000-06:00

You will see something new.
Two Things. And I call them Thing one and Thing Two.
These Things will not bite you.
They want to have fun.
Then out of the box
Came Thing Two and Thing One!
(said the Cat in the Hat)

Thing1 - wiki

2007-08-28T11:47:00.001-06:00

This is Thing1 - not sure what else to write.