#anz23mthings Thing 15 Adobe ID

OK, Anne, let's cut to the chase.  This Thing 15 Adobe ID stalled you in the midst of #anz23mthings two years ago.  Just get over it!

The point of this Thing is to explore possibilities for libraries using Adobe ID. I have an Adobe ID and it needs to be used for borrowing ebooks from my public library over Overdrive.  The Adobe process for signing up and for lost passwords is fairly cumbersome is my memory and potentially a matter of difficulty for some library users who may have limited computer literacy but want to read ebooks. So when introducing users to ebooks either face to face or on the website it would useful to have a clear guide and trouble-shooting, as well as having staff who are able to assist.

I essentially use Adobe for this as well as reading PDFs.  I create PDFs of documents directly from Word.  And I often read PDFs through my Dropbox app on my phone or iPad. One glitch I have noticed there is that occasionally filled in documents that I can read quite clearly on my desktop will come out blank when I am reading them through my Dropbox app.  I am not clear why this is so as I haven't explored which ones it happens to.  These are not documents I have created and happens in documents for a committee I am on.  I know it happens to other members as well.

I was interested to see the large suite of "desktop apps" that are available for subscription to the Adobe Creative Cloud and can imagine that, if library subscriptions are possible, these tools would indeed be useful to a wide range of students involved in design or web development, though people seriously involved would no doubt need their own subscriptions.  I noticed Photoshop is included and it is certainly a suite of tools we used in my former POW for editing local history photos during digitization. Personally, I don't currently feel the need for this as I have a number of other photo editing tools (free and paid for versions) on my iPhone and iPad.

It was good to explore what was included in the Cloud, but I don't have the need for any of the apps at present.  I note that they are called "Desktop Apps" so I am not sure what implications that has for using them on the go.

Reflecting on #anz23mthings #blog12daysxmas Day 12

So on this Day 12 of #blog12daysxmas for 2015/2016, I want to spend some time reflecting on my inability to complete #anz23mthings and reflect on reasons why this might have happened.  I started the project on May 12 2013, did the first four things, wilted a bit, and then started up again during the 2013/2014 #blog12daysxmas when I completed things 5 to 14. Then I stalled completely.

In my wrapup for that, I vowed and declared that I was on a roll, more than halfway through, and was determined to finish anz23mthings that month. So what are the reasons for such a chequered history in doing this excellent program? I think that there are two key factors and some contributing ones.

Firstly, I had done the 23 things and continued with 23.1.  This was life-changing for me and I commenced a life filled with fascination for possibilities.  This only increased once I started using mobile devices more. The end result is that for some of the Things I found that I was reading about things I had been using for years, on desktop and mobile, and often when they were startups or in beta. I had tried and discarded many more Things. In the 14 Things that I completed there were certainly new apps and slants on things that I learnt about - some were great and others disappointing, but there were a lot where I used the tools regularly. This did mean that for me the course was largely reflective rather than explorative and exciting.  I like reflection but I also like exploration and excitement and maybe it turned out that there was not the right balance for me.


Secondly, seven months or so before I started the course I had retired. The anz23things is, of course, framed in the context of libraries. Today I reviewed the 18 posts I completed and could see that from my very first post on Thing 1 Twitter (My Twitter Dilemma) this difficulty of trying to reframe my usage of the various Things (including ones like Twitter and Facebook) that I had used since 2007/8 was evident. I had used all these Things in the context of my professional life and I couldn't work out how they were going to fit with my retirement occupations. How could they work with local history, with travel, with breast cancer advocacy, with language learning, with cooking? This thread emerges throughout the posts.

And the subsidiary reasons? I blamed #blogjune for my first fallout.  But I don't really know why I didn't just get on with it for my #blogjune posts.  Anyway I didn't.  And then I headed off to the US for another trip in the second half of 2013. As I said above, I started off again in December 2013/January 2014. Then in 2014 travel intervened again with trips to Greece/Wales/France/England in the first half of the year and to the US and Canada in the second half of the year.  And then it was out of sight, out of mind, and, of course, the Greek factor started to take effect. In fact, already in the Things that I completed you can see evidence of the Greek factor starting to intrude. I had started 23mthings just after my return from Greece after my first trip back after retirement.

 

So, will I ever complete the other nine Things?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  I reviewed them this evening. Again, most of them are things I have used for ages and either still use or no longer find need for in my current circumstances and interests. Maybe I should just power through them and document what happens. Afterall, I found it very interesting to read about my dilemmas in relation to the first 14.

I think, however, for me the really interesting thing is my reflections on what life there is for 23 Things or 23mthings outside of the library professional environment - for me. To explore that further is something that fascinates me.  But maybe I need to finish the project to get on top of that?

 

Not a good year for blogging either #blog12daysxmas Day 11

Oh dear! I haven't read my Goodreads targets and really my blogging wasn't up to much either.  However, the good news is that as I actually didn't set any 2015 targets for blogging it cannot be deemed a failure. But how does it compare to the last few years?

The last time I reviewed my blogging was in 2013. In 2013 I successfully completed #blog12daysxmas in January 2013, both for myself and for the Collingwood Historical Society.  In June, I embarked less than satisfactorily in #blogjune for both myself and for the Collingwood Historical Society. That meant I was committing to doing 60 blogposts in June.  I must have been mad!  I have blogged about my madness here. In the end I managed to do 30 blogposts for the Collingwood Historical Society and 22 for myself.  So all up it wasn't too bad.

I maintain to a greater or lesser degree three blogs for myself and one for the Collingwood Historical Society.  The number of posts I did for each in 2013 are as follows:

Collingwood Historical Society 51 posts

Hecuba's Story 40 posts

Hecuba Reads 1 post

The Librarian and the Kitchen 4 posts

For 2014, I set myself the following targets:

Collingwood Historical Society 52 posts

Hecuba's Story 12 posts

Hecuba Reads 4 posts

The Librarian and the Kitchen 12 posts

And in 2014, what I actually achieved was as follows: 

Collingwood Historical Society 16 posts

Hecuba's Story 6 posts

Hecuba Reads 4 posts

The Librarian and the Kitchen 12 posts

So in 2014, I actually achieved my blogging aims for Hecuba Reads and The Librarian and the Kitchen. I can be thankful for small mercies. The Collingwood Historical Society and Hecuba's Story rather fell off. There were a couple of reasons for this. And yes, I'll blame the Greek again.  In 2014 for the first time since it started, I didn't do #blogjune because I was overseas at the end of my Greek course trip.  The previous year, posts from this had featured in both blogs. A further reason for Hecuba's Story was that I stopped doing #anz23mthings when I got to number 14 and stalled on Thing15, although I had planned on completing it in 2014. But I will reflect upon that on another occasion.

As has previously been noted, I didn't set myself any blogging targets for 2015.  But what did I actually complete?

Collingwood Historical Society 4 posts

Hecuba's Story 1 posts

Hecuba Reads 8 posts

The Librarian and the Kitchen 12 posts

So again, Hecuba Reads and The Librarian and the kitchen were tracking along as they had been. Hecuba's Story just fell off completely, as did the Collingwood Historical Society. And there are different explanations for both. With both again #blogjune didn't feature as I was off doing Greek again.

As for the Collingwood Historical Society, there were two key issues. Changes to the blog plugin to our website along with issues with Flickr no longer allowing posts to Blogger made what and how we were blogging previously very difficult and required cumbersome work arounds. Eventually we embarked on a project to change the platform for the website and in December 2015 launched the new site on a Wordpress platform. We are still playing with the blog format but hopefully in 2016 the blog will be more active.

For Hecuba's Story, I have to wonder if my lack of interest in blogging about technology relates to my lack of interest in libraries?  I am certainly still interested in technology.  Some would say I am obsessed with it.  However, I haven't felt like blogging about it. But maybe it mirrors my reduced interest in Twitter. Who knows? All I can say is that I still blog quite regularly about cooking and more sporadically about reading.

So for 2016,  I am purposely not going to set myself blogging targets.  I am just going to see what, if anything happens. The following illustration may just symbolize what I heart.