Final Reflection

Overall, the 23 Things NB was a positive experience. I learnt a few things and had fun with other stuff I already knew.

I think my favourite thing was actually the very first one, when we had to create our blog. I always wanted to do a blog, and this sort of forced me to make one. I'm still not sure whether I want to keep it up or not. Maybe when I have more time. I do love the idea and the concept though. I love to write and I always try to keep a diary but that hasn't been working really well lately. Maybe someday I'll have enough time or patience to maintain a blog!

The most useful thing for me was to learn about the copyright images and videos. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't the most fun, but I did learn something. I'm always having trouble citing images, and understanding what I can use or not when doing stuff for the library, so this cleared things up a bit for me.

I wasn't really surprised to discover anything. I knew most of the websites already and was quite familiar with a lot of them. Actually, I was pleasantly surprised that one of our things wasn't Facebook. I absolutely hate Facebook, it is the root of all evil, and I would not have made myself one, at least not with a real email address. I know how to use it and that's it.

I will use some of he tasks that we learnt in the 23 things in my work and personal life, but probably not anything new. I was already using Twitter and Pinterest before the 23 things and will continue to use them. I don't think I will use Scoop.it or Stumble Upon, it's just too may different websites. And for the blog, well like I said I'd like too, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. For work, I will continue to post teen reads on the Twitter I created (if I can remember to do so). I will also keep an eye out for copyright images.

I'm glad we did the 23 things NB. I really had fun completing it, and helping other at work complete it. The only thing I really learnt about myself... ish... I kinda already know, is that I'm sort of OCD or a control freak. I don't want to have all of these accounts and then not use them. I guess it's no big deal, and I'll have to let it go. Or I'll have to use everything!

Overall it was a great experience and a great training. I'm glad I had the opportunity to take part in it! :)

Stumble Upon

THE LAST THING OF THE 23 THINGS!! :) wooooh.

This week, or should I say last week since I'm so very late, we had to make an account for Stumple Upon. When I first heard about it from others I was thinking "what's that, I've never heard of that!" But when I actually got onto the website to register, I remembered one of my friends showing me this website. It's actually pretty cool. You chose topics which interest you and you click on "stumble" and it brings you to different websites depending on what you like! I didn't explore it too much, just played around with books a little bit, but I'm curious to know if there's an app. I don't think it will replace Pinterest for me, but I still found it interesting.

And this is what I decided to share on Twitter: Bookshelf Porn !! :) This is really awesome, check out the amazing bookshelves.

I'm not really "with the words" tonight! haha, it's been a long week (ever though we're just Wednesday) and I'm tired. That's all I have to say about Stumble Upon!

Teen Space @ the Moncton Public Library

For class, I had to do a tour of the teen space at a library. I chose do use my library, in Moncton, in order to do the tour and evaluation. If any of you are interested, here's the link to the video. I had to do it with my phone, so the dimensions are a little weird, but I hope you like it.

Also, I just wanted to tell everyone that we have a REALLY beautiful library here. I'm doing my MLIS online so it's with people from all over the world, but mostly from the states. I have seen the videos of other students in the class and most of their libraries are nothing compared to ours. I was actually surprised; we're in a small town in a small province and they are from California and whatnot! But I am very lucky to be working at such a beautiful library :)!

Enjoy the video:

BiblioNB App

I think it's awesome that the New-Brunswick Public Library system has an app. I love apps, especially for things like this. For example, I use the mobile banking apps all the time, both for Scotiabank and National Bank. It's so easy to just click on an app and make a transfer of funds or just see your balance. It's equally wonderful that you can just log onto your library account and renew books or order a book from other libraries.

Along with the OverDrive app, this week we had to look at the BiblioNB app. The first task was to browse the new releases. I actually wasn't too sure about this. I was able to browse the recently reviewed books that were on the first page of the app, and the Globe and Mail bestseller list, but I did not see any new releases. Then, we had to log onto our accounts, which was very easy! Would you look at that, I have a late fee. Shame! Finally, we had to scan an ISBN number. I think this is a very cool thing. I have heard of librarians from other libraries using the app when shopping for books in order to know whether they already had that book in their library or not. It's so fast, just scan the ISBN and that's it!

It's a great idea to have an app for libraries. I hadn't really had the chance to explore it before, but looks to me like it's very user friendly :).

OverDrive - New-Brunswick Public Libraries App

This week... or should I say last week's assignment for the NB23 was to look into library apps that were available for our phones and tablet. I know quite a bit about apps and phones, so it wasn't very hard for me. I'd like to start and say that I have an iPhone, and an iPad... and a Mac! So all my apps come from Apple. Oh and I definitely recommend Apple. In my opinion it is far better than everything else that's out there... but you know, that's just me!

So I downloaded OverDrive on my phone a while ago. Let me tell you a little bit about myself here and how weird I am when it comes to books. First of all, like I probably mentioned before, I buy all my books. I have worked in a library since I was 16 years old, but I purchase all of my books. I don't really understand why, and it would save me a lot of money to just borrow them from the library, but nope, I have to buy them. On top of that, I only read real books. Don't get me started about an eBooks. That's not how books were meant to be read! This meme I found online tells it all!

 

 

But a while ago I did download Overdrive anyway. See every time a Twilight movie would come out, I would have the urge to read the books again (I read the first one 6 times and the other ones 4 times... don't judge me! ... well ok you can!). I have all of the books at home, but since I had already read them I decided to try something different. So I bought them on the iTunes bookstore. I actually enjoyed-ish the experience. I could read either on my iPad or on my iPhone, and it was really convenient. If I wanted to read at night, I didn't need a book light, I could read in the car at night, I could read while waiting in line at a store... it was fabulous! Then I decided to read the whole Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead again (which is an amazing series just fyi). Those I didn't want to purchase again on the iTunes stores so I thought OVERDRIVE. I downloaded the app and followed the simple instructions and was able to download the first book the the Vampire Academy series and read it on my iPad and on my iPhone. I chose to keep it for 3 weeks (since you can chose 7, 14 or 21 days) since I was reading more than one book at once, and had just enough time. To delete it was also easy. If any of you are familiar with deleting stuff on iPads or iPhones, you just slide and click on delete! And you know what... IT WAS FREE. I do have to follow my two rules though:

 

- The first time I read a book it has to be a paper copy

- I won't borrow an eBook from the library unless I have a paper copy at home.

 

I know, I'm a freak! I don't care :)



Perfect Ruin

Perfect Ruin by Lauren DeStefano
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It took me a while to get into this book, but it actually gets really good. I read it a while ago so I'm going to try and write a good review here, but I don't guarantee anything!

So I chose to read this book because I absolutely looooved the Chemical garden trilogy by Lauren DeStefano and wanted something similar. When I picked up this book, it was nothing like it. BUT, this is a good thing. Lauren DeStefano really proves that she can write different things here.

So this story is about this girl, Morgan, who lives on Internment. Internment is like a suspended city above the clouds. At least that's how I understood it. The earth is too polluted for people to live there, so they built this sort of city where people live. Their mates for life are also chosen at birth and you cannot just decide to have children. You have to wait on a long list to be able to get pregnant.

There is also an edge to Internment where, if you look, you can see down a little bit. Some people have jumped off before and ended up wounded pretty bad, because they wanted to escape from Internment and see what was on earth. Morgan's brother was one of those people, and in consequence, ended up blind.

Now all of this is pretty cool. I love the dystopian world that DeStefano created once again, but it took me longer to love the characters and the story line. It starts off with a girl being killed and for the first half of the book, they are looking for a killer. I felt like a little girl again reading those novels trying to figure out who the killer was. However, it was deeper than that. Once you figured out the reason why the girl was killed, it all made a lot more sense!

I really can't wait to see what happens next now. The more I read, the more I liked the characters. Lauren DeStefano is a really awesome writer and I can't wait to read her next books. I wasn't sure this was going to be worth it, but after finishing it, it so was!


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The Way We Fall by Megan Crewe

The Way We Fall by Megan Crewe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was very close to 5 stars! I might eventually change it...

This book was really good! A lot better than I expected. To be honest, if I knew the book was taking place in the Maritimes, I wouldn't have bought it. Now before you go ahead and judge me, I can explain. I live in New-Brunswick, Canada. It's a boring town. I know what it's like here because I live here. When I read, I want to escape, and get away from life. If I read about New-Brunswick, that's not gonna happen. I would rather read about a story that takes place in New York or London or Australia! But anyway, I didn't know before starting to read where the setting of the book was, and I am very grateful for that because I would have missed an amazing book.

So the book takes place on a small island in Nova Scotia where the main character, Kaelyn, goes to school. She's a little different than everyone else because she has darker skin. Her dad is white, but her mom isn't. Her best friend, or ex-best friend, Leo, is Asian and is also different. They have been friends since they were little, but not too long ago, Leo moved to New York to go to dance school. Before he moves away, he and Kaelyn have a big fight (which we don't know too much about). The book begins with Kaelyn writing to Leo in her diary. She knows that he will probably never read it, but she's practicing on what to say when she sees him again. That's when the whole epidemic starts and she continues to write because she wants someone to know what happened on the island.

When the epidemic actually starts, it gets really interesting and the story flows fast. When people gets sick, it starts with an itch, and then they cough and sneeze, they lose their social inhibitions and want to be with everyone, hallucinate, and then die. The virus is very contagious and is transmitted very easily. Precautions needed to be taken in order for Kaelyn and her friends and family not to get sick. Furthermore, there's not only the virus to worry about. When everything starts getting really bad, there are people that only want to survive, no matter what it takes.

In a way, it sort of reminds me of walking dead. I know this isn't zombies or anything like that, but it shows you how people react when it's the end of the world. I absolutely loved this book. Oh and I literally read the last page and turned it thinking there was another chapter! Then I was really mad because the two other books hadn't come in the mail yet! I read reviews where people were upset there was no end to this book. I was a little scared as to what they meant, but they were wrong. There's other books in the series dude, don't freak because it ends on a cliff hanger!


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