More Thing 40

From http://www.flickr.com/photos/spixworth/, 1903 photo found on Life In Grayscale


Another Flickr mashup I enjoy is Life In Grayscale. It searches old photos in Flickr, based on the years that interest you. You can browse pictures on a sliding timeline from 1900-1970. This is heaven for a history loving browser such as me. Once you find a picture that you like, you can save it under your Flickr favorites. A couple of things keep it from being perfect, however. Many of the photos that come up aren't really in any way connected to that particular year. Luckily, you can flag those pictures to be reassigned. More frustrating, though, is that once you enlarge a photo to view it, there seems to be no way to close only that window. When you close it, you close everything, and you have to entirely reenter the site. Still, it's interesting enough that I'll have lots of viewing hours ahead of me.


The Flilliustrator illustrates stories that you create. I collaborated with Carol Has Her Nose in a Book on this one and our "story" is "the gorgeous librarian fell in love with an ass." We like the results, which won't post here. It went The (photo = attractive green fly), gorgeous (dramatically lit arched train station), librarian (woman with her head on a stack of books), fell (mountain & lake scene), in (guy sticking his head out of a subway car), love (black & white street scene, kissing), with (bearded soldier with white cat), an (striped green caterpillar), ass (this one caused problems, but we clicked through a donkey with a couple kissing in the background). It had a save option and it may have worked, but the directions were very vague.

Thing 40: Mashup the Web

The first Flickr Mashup toy that I played with was depictr which is "A toy that analyses song lyrics and poetry to create a mosaic of appropriate photos." I plugged in some lines from "The Lady of Shalot" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson:

There she weaves by night and day A magic web with colours gay. She has heard a whisper say, A curse is on her if she stay To look down to Camelot. She knows not what the curse may be, And so she weaveth steadily, And little other care hath she, The Lady of Shalott.

"The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes:

The wind was a torrent of darkness upon the gusty trees, The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas, The road was a ribbon of moonlight looping the purple moor, And the highwayman came riding-- Riding--riding-- The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn door.

and

Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard, He tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred, He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there But the landlord's black-eyed daughter-- Bess, the landlord's daughter-- Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

and okay, even some lyrics from Duran Duran's "The Chauffer":

And the sun drips down bedding heavy behind
The front of your dress - all shadowy lined
And the droning engine throbs in time
With your beating heart
Way down the lane away, living for another day
The aphids swarm up in the drifting haze
Swim seagull in the sky towards that hollow western isle
My envied lady holds you fast in her gaze

The results were mixed. It was fun to see what would up, but they were pretty much a far cry from the moods of the words. The only one I liked was for "The Highwayman", the second verse I tried, but again, I couldn't figure out how to post it here. Still, it was useful to get you thinking about how you would illustrate the verses. It would be a good creative exercise for teens.

Similarly, Flickrscape allows you to enter a favorite word and then gives you a slide show to go with it. I had good results with "chandelier", "buttercup" and "toadstool", but less so with "acquiesce." If I could figure out how to post the show to this blog, I would really like it.

Flickr's Dog Friendly Hotels was a bust. It took me to a hotel search that had nothing to do with dogs. :(
More to come!

Thing 39: Digital Storytelling--My Garden Choices

Photo credits and/or places to purchase:

Sarah Bernhart Peony from http://www.touchofnature.com/
Peaches n' Dreams Hollyhock from http://www.bluestoneperennials.com/

Silverado Iris from http://www.whiteflowerfarm.com/index.html

Lady's Mantle from https://www.anniesannuals.com/

Heavenly Blue Morning Glories from http://www.parkseed.com/

Sweet Dreams Catmint from http://www.naturehills.com/

Indian Springs Hollyhock from http://www.swallowtailgardenseeds.com/

Spring Beauty Cottage Pinks from http://www.burpee.com/

Biedermeier Mix Columbines from http://www.perennialfavoritesnursery.com/

Angel Tiger Violas from http://www.parkseed.com/

Bowle's Black Pansies from http://www.seedman.com/

Breakers Iris from http://www.vanbloem.com/

Stairway to Heaven Iris from http://www.whiteflowerfarm.com/

Ultima Baron Mahogany Pansies from http://floriculture.osu.edu/
I created the above scrapbook using Scrapblog. It was very easy to do and there are many fonts, backgrounds and other fancy stuff to choose from. Some of it costs money, but for my simple job, I did it all for free and I'm happy with the results.
I can definitely see using digital scrap booking with the library teens, or at least on the library web page, if the county allowed it.

Thing 38: Screencasting

I put this thing off because I was completely intimidated by it. When I was reading about screencasting, I somehow couldn't get my mind around it. Then, I made a silly little screencast on Screencast-O-Matic . I attempted to show how to add books that you want to read to your Visual Bookshelf on Facebook and mark them as read when you're through. Here is the link:

http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/watch/cQ1Voje9n

It was much easier to actually do than read about. Some things that I will remember and try to improve for next time:

1. I chose not to do audio because I hate the sound of my voice, but I think that it would be much easier to follow with a narrative.
2. The waiting time between clicking and opening a new page took a long time. Next time, I will pause while the page loads.
3. Probably a little outline of my intended steps prepared ahead of time would make my clicking less awkward.

In fact, I think I'll do another screencast later this week with the above changes.
I think that screencasting will be super helpful to libraries in doing tutorials on catalog searching, databases, library web pages on Facebook or Flickr, etc.
Update 6/3: I made a new screencast, to try and do a better job. Here it is at http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/watch/cQ1el8eRH
It is to find themed books for storytime on NoveList. I tried and failed to use the microphone. I even checked my computer setting as instructed, and all seemed well, but it failed to record. So, we have no sound. This time around though, I added pop-up notes to make things clearer. I wrote down my steps ahead of time, so I hope the mousing is less jerky. I think with practice you could make pretty nice tutorials.

Love, Ruby Lavender

Years ago, I heard that this was a special book. When we recently received the audio book, narrated by Judith Ivey, I thought that it was time to give it my attention and I loved it! Ruby is a funny, plucky, imperfect nine year old with a loving and supportive grandma, a newly "liberated" small flock of hens, and a curly-haired, tappity-shoed enemy, Melba Jane. When Miss Eula (her grandma) decides to leave their town of Halleluia, Mississippi and take an open-ended vacation to Hawaii, Ruby thinks that her summer will be miserably boring. But, that is before she meets Dove, an aspiring anthropologist, prepares for new arrivals in the Pink Palace greenhouse, squares off with Melba and reports it all in her frequent letters to Miss Eula. I loved the memorable characters, the gently-handled theme of forgiveness and Ms. Ivey's amusing delivery of Ruby and company.

Thing 37: Photo Tales

I finally started working on this Thing on 6/10/09. Check out the posts!

Thing 36: Comic Relief

From http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/graphics/READ_Mini_Posters.cfm

http://www.toondoo.com/cartoon/165456

From http://www.imagegenerator.net/browse/bad_comment/date/1462/ Pink is my favorite color.

From http://www.addletters.com/disneyland-sign-generator.htm



Me, courtesy of http://obamiconme.pastemagazine.com/




Fairy Name Generator



Your fairy is called Oak Rainbowglitter

She is a fortune bringer.

She lives in forests of oak and lime trees.

She is only seen in the light of a shooting star.

She decorates herself with leaves and berries. She has multicoloured wings like a butterfly.

Get your free fairy name here!

My Hobbit name: Iris Boggy-Hillocks, from http://www.chriswetherell.com/hobbit/

My Elvish name: Alateriel Amandil, from http://www.chriswetherell.com/elf/



Comic Strip Generators


My two favorite were:Make Beliefs Comix and Historic Tale Construction Kit . I made scenes (comic and tale) on both, but for the life of me, I can't figure out how to display them here, and crashed my computer trying. In Make Beliefs, I did a book blurb for Sharon Lovejoy's Sunflower Houses: Gardening Discoveries for Children of All Ages. I got to use animal characters such as a dapper alligator (crocodile?), a rat, a kitty girl and a cute little bee woman with gardening tools. I also learned that I'm no cartoonist. I really liked Historic Tales probably because it was more like doing a book illustration than a cartoon. The scene has a textile appearance and your text looks embroidered on. Even though there is only one female character, and a lot of the pictures are war related, a managed to make a little scene that pleased me. I titled it "Helping the Princess," and said princess is speaking to a small lion who is offering to help her with an impossible task, in fairy tale fashion.

Shelf Check aside, I didn't like most of the cartoons I saw on Toon Doo. They seemed pretty lowbrow and frequently scatological. I also didn't like the art options. The only cute thing was the searching ferret. Therefore, I won't be setting up an account there for this Thing.

See my other (brief) thoughts on generators Here .