Disco Tech Activity 6: One Click Digital

Blog about your challenges with OneClickDigital. What would you change about OneClickDigital? What did you like? Would you use it-why or why not?

Hi. I do like One Click Digital overall and I think it meets a demand for e-audio books which is great. I have downloaded the app to our Family Ipad and since our Ipad is currently in Russia along with my husband and son I downloaded the Media Manager to my home computer so that I could listen to an e-book while putting away clothes (because if I turn on the tv I will never get anything done, sad, but very, very true).

I haven't tried a bookmark or the timer yet so I will have to try that.

Things that have been frustrating..I recall that at one point I had trouble finding where to go to make my downloaded book play on my ipad once I opened the app. I will have to test this again once the family and Ipad are back. It is easier on my home computer because I just open the media manager.

I was just looking at the oneclick digital site on the work computer and I think the advanced search is interesting. It's nice you can search by narrator. I found a list of books reach by Barbara Rosenblatt who is one of the narrators who I would listen to read the phone book because I really like her voice and the different voices she can do. But if I wanted to search by genre I think that is a spottier search because one the books seem to be assigned genres strangely. I did a search on juvenile nonfiction and it came across a title about ancient Roman history and I think the genre listed is fiction and mystery and there is another book "A Case of Exploding Mangoes" where the genre is listed as Computers/General...hmmm..read the description..don't think that this is what the book is Really about...

 

But I have had fun listening to books both on the Ipad and home computer. My son and I found a Russian language learning book that we listened to for a while.

 

 

And I just finished listening to a Joanna Fluke mystery and it was interesting because there are recipes at the end and I realized that the narrator was going to read all the recipes as part of the e audio book and I guess that is as it should be since you should get the experience of the whole book, but I can't say I've listened to a recipe before.

 

 

 I saw a kids book where it talked about it having the appeal of the Origami Yoda books because of the diary entries and quirky doodles or something of that nature and I am curious to try this book at some point, because how do you express quirky doodles in an audio format..I just don't know.

 

Two things: One is that when you look at the books you check out it says that if you want to renew, just click the renew button next to the title and I think that must be an option we don't allow in SPPL, right? 'Cause I don't see the option to renew.

 

The other thing is that the Advanced Search as odd as it might be at times shows me that there are many more titles than is apparent from just looking at the featured titles. Also if you go in the list of checked out books there is a tab for recommend a title where you can recommend a e audio book you think the library should have so that's cool. 

 

Disco Tech Activity 5: Freegal

Freegal is another one that I created an account for back when we first got it. I haven't used it a ton, although I do have a few songs that I've downloaded. It didn't seem too hard to create an account, what I find frustrating/interesting about Freegal is that when I search for things for example: Frozen (soundtrack) I don't find it. It seems hit or miss what is/isn't on Freegal. I wish I were more into top music, maybe then I would find what I was looking for...I feel like I find more on Spotify.  However, that being said, there are some interesting things on Freegal. Under genres there is an Educational category and there are albums of voice lessons, speeches, albums in French, learning state capitols. Under spoken word you can find abridged Ernest Hemingway stories in Spanish. There is an album of oldest recorded voices that has two tracks on it one of Andrew Carnegie and one of Thomas Edison. I will have to try videos..I haven't had too much interest in doing that, but I will have to give it a try. I haven't had people ask me for help with Freegal, although I do recall mentioning it to someone who was looking for a place to download free music.

Something else, at least when I am searching from the library computer, will have to try on Ipad at home, but I think I experienced something similar, is that I can't seem to enter anything in the search button at the top. So I click search and of course it doesn't find anything because I didn't enter a search term, but it does bring up another search bubble to refine my search and usually I can type a term/terms in this bubble.

DiscoTech Activity 4: Zinnio

Way back when we first got Zinnio I did set up the accounts..I seem to hazily recall some confusion between switching from the library page to the Zinnio page and back, but may this was in an earlier iteration or it only happens initially. I tried checking out some magazines today and it seemed like a fairly smooth process. We don't seem to get a ton of calls regarding Zinnio so I don't know if this means not a lot of people are using it or people are using it and finding it easy to use. We do get calls about e-books and One Click Digital and this is usually people who have something that is confusing them.

In any case, back to Zinnio. I wish they could come up with a way to not have 2 accounts. I get that there is the library page for limiting the choice to what the library subscribes to and the Zinnio page allows one to read, but it seems like there should be a way to do this without two accounts. Although once I have this set up, I don't really notice the two accounts thing, but it does seem better not to frustrate users in early stages (or at any point in the process.)

Zinnio does load magazines quickly and they are easy to move about with the viewer. I am confused about the search feature as I couldn't get it to "find" anything. In the National Geographic Travel magazine it couldn't find the word "geographic" nor other words in titles of articles. I searched other magazines for words that were in titles or clearly mentioned in the articles or captions, and nothing, nothing, nothing..so what does "search" do?

It is very nice to have access to a number of magazines, esp ones that are pricey like the Economist. I wish there were more children's magazines and I thought I had seen a short story mystery magazine-Ellery Queen, but maybe I was looking at the overall Zinnio site and not our library Zinnio site, still there is a pretty good and seemingly growing selection.

If you don't have access to a computer/phone/reader, than this isn't much of a help, but for people who do have access to technology it is a nice resource.

Disco Tech-Activity 3: 3M Cloud

Okay. I think it is easier to download 3M Cloud books, because you find a title and basically you click on it and it downloads. With Overdrive you have to select the format (now of course if you are a Kindle reader user than this is the one you are going to use since you can't use 3M Cloud so in that case it's okay that there is a choice of formats.). You also have to go from the library's webpage with the e-book catalog back to 3M Overdrive to download the books fully. I did discover from doing all of this that there is a way to avoid some of the frustration (minor though it may be ) I've had with Overdrive and getting settings to come up..I'd try tapping at the top or bottom of the page in the book and most of the time I'd ended up paging forwards or backwards and what I really wanted to do was be able to go to settings so, most of the time, I could get out of the book I was reading to return it (this seems easier in 3MCloud). This time I went to the help section of Overdrive in the app and I discovered that if I tap and hold down on the image of the book cover it does bring up 3 small icons with options like delete, return, and share..which is great!

I think it is nice to have both platforms because, although there is some overlap, you do end up with more selection. I think in some ways I like 3M better because it seems like often there are more books not checked out and it seems somewhat easier to use.

I wish our library catalog looked as appealing as the 3M Cloud Library kiosk that we have at Central and Arlington and Hayden Heights...but that's a side matter...

Activity 2:Overdrive

I looked at Overdrive in my browser which is something I haven't really done before.

I chose the book "Engaged to Murder" and found it used the word "library" 13 times. I had trouble with highlighting until I re-read the directions and saw that is says "click" and "hold down" to highlight. Once I tried holding down instead of just clicking..it worked much better.

1. Write about your experience with e-books. Are you an absolute beginner? Do you encounter customers confused by the various formats? Do you have any e-book success stories?

I am not an absolute beginner. I do have apps on our family ipad and I have had success downloading/reading books and mostly I can help people. Sometimes it is tricky to figure out why something isn't working for them, especially when talking over the phone and/or because customers don't always supply you with all the info that is needed, mostly because they don't remember and/or all the details don't seem important.

2. Follow the steps above to either check out a book and open using OverDrive Read or to download an e-book to a mobile device (if you don’t have your own, each library should have an iPad, a Kindle, and a Nook that you can borrow and/or work on with co-workers). Write about the process — what was easy? What was difficult?
I guess the higlighting part for me was tricky until I re-read the instructions. Sometimes one of the readers..I think maybe it is Overdrive, is hard to get the book to close and get back to the beginning..at least this is hard on the Ipad..but other than that I haven't had too many problems. Sometimes it is tricky to diagnose the problems that other are having and as I said, especially over the phone and especially if they aren't so tech savy too...but I am trying to keep learning.

Activity 1: DiscoTech 2.0:

What am I looking forward to: I think it would be to expand my knowledge and to feel and be competent and helpful when working with customers, staff, etc.

Thing 23 (finally)-

Go back to your thoughts/ideas about mobile devices and apps. Has anything changed as a result of this experience?

Hmmm...well, we don't do a whole lot with mobile devices in the library other than help people with downloading books or their wi-fi connection, but I think it is good that I got to try this because we may use mobile devices more and there are a number of tools I can use for presentations,etc..

What were your favorite Things and discoveries?

I definitely liked the Dragon Naturally Speaking-that I am using at home. I have a presentation for a program and I'm going to see if I can use HaikuDeck or Lensoo or Educreations and I think Magistro or Social Cam may be good for clips of kids participating in activities.

How did you connect with others doing the 23 Mobile Things?

I didn't connect with others, other than I did tell some people about some of the apps like VidRhythm and Dragon Naturally Speaking. I guess I did talk with some co-workers a bit. Didn't connect with anyone through their blog..was I supposed to do this..?

Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?

I am pleased with myself that I finished this one! I started the very first one and did a few postings, which you can see on this blog, and then I told myself I had too much to do and I didn't pursue it..you really have to just keep getting it done. I never even tried the 2nd one..I then went back and thought I'd finish the original and 2nd when this 3rd one started and also our library system had a mini learning exercise called Discotechque where you could try different social media and other online doodads..so I have finished the 3rd and the inhouse one and I am feeling somewhat acomplished, enlightened, and that my horizons have expanded...

What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or content?

Hmm..tricky..sometimes it felt like there were too many things to try and/or not enough time...that is even though you only had to comment on one thing when there were several types to try it felt like I should try several and that got tricky with time. Also sometimes, at least when I do it, I don't master something the first time..I've tried some apps that I think are good, but I'm not getting the results I want and I'm not sure if it's the app, or that I just need to play around with it more...so will have to go back and explore as I can.

If we offered a another 23 Things program like this in the future would you participate?

I think so.

How would you describe your learning experience in one word or in one sentence, so we could use your words to promote 23 Things learning activities to others?

Is it to cliche to say that it "expands your horizons and opens your mind to new possibilities. It inspires you to think of new and different ways to approach your work and life."