Kind of Disappointed about my Project

After putting my project together onto the website and getting the pictures just right so everyone could see the different pieces of history in the town, I realized that the "loop trail" I wanted to put in just won't go. This really has me down because I was really excited about having this trail leading from the interstate to all these sites so not one would be missed. I do not feel like I failed but I have this idea perfect in my head of what I wanted the project to look like. The website still looks great and is really easy to use with printable maps and different buttons to push. I am a perfectionist when it come to my school work and with this not being perfect in my eyes it a let down. Yes, I think it will still help the community in one way or another. I am going to send the link to the tourism director today so she can take a look at it. Hopefully, she will still want to link it to their website, if not I will understand since the final product didn't exactly happen. I did find out one piece of information about Valdese that really is kind of sad and I am going to see if I can help fix. That is, all the information about the original town and Waldensians is held in the Morganton Public Library basically untouched. Why would a town 15 miles away have all of the records and not have most in Valdese? This is the question I am going to ask. No wonder our young people in town have no clue about its history.

Online Discussion about Wither the Post Modern Library

I want to start off by saying it was really nice to meet online for class to do this discussion. I know it was only because the building was closed for Veteran's Day but it was important to show the new program students how it works to have class in the zone. Many of the other classes in the program require online classes and this was a great introduction. Now I have to say i am more of a Wisner on the subject of technology in the library. That is not to say I think all technology should be avoided in the library but at least limited as much as possible. Courtney talks about how to revolutionize the library almost to the point it could not be called a library anymore but more less just a computer lab with few books. We may have reached a milestone where government officials my need to look into public computer labs that are separate from the public library. Now that I work in a library I see the traffic jam of people trying to use computers in our small building. Many times we have so many waiting they take up the table space for patrons actually using the library to study or read. Another aspect of the traffic jam is we librarians are spending way to much time helping computer users that have little experience with the technology. I do not mind helping people at all with this but on the other hand I cannot focus on many of the tasks at hand. Especially, the patrons looking for books or re shelving items. With that said, I know technology is the future but should we just let printed items go the way of the dodo? My answer is NO. I agree with Wisner when he said, "We have to stand for the book." Technology comes and goes quickly in today's society. Libraries have neither the funds nor the resources to keep up with the latest rage. We need to get back to the basics and provide people the service we always have; books and information patrons need. It would be a huge loss of culture and dignity for a community to take books away from the public and replace them with computers. Will I be a captain or a hitchhiker on the road to the future? I will be a captain for the use of books and the limiting of technology in the library. Personally, I will stay up on the latest trends to make sure I will always be able to provide the best service to the public. I will stay a champion for books, reading, and the arts because I could not imagine a world where books were second class citizens in a library. The other day I had a girl ask me why I was studying for my masters to be a professional librarian. I said, "the more you read the smarter you get, the smarter you get the better decisions you make, the better decisions you make the more you give to society, and the more you give to society the more you help the world. I do not know why I said that but it sounded good. The girl smiled at me and handed me her two books, I looked down and saw they were both study guides to the GRE.

Hitting the wall on my project

I have been trying to get my photostory up and loaded to communitywalk.com but have hit a huge snag. I am having a lot of trouble getting the path maker feature of the website to actually use roads instead of just making a arbitrary line between two points. The point of this project was to create a printable map that had the different sites on it where people could use it to get around town. It still looks really good with the different sites labeled and what there is to see and do there. I am just a little disappointed with the outcome. Plus, after working in a library for about a month now, I have seen a hundred other projects that would have been fantastic to do. Hopefully I can get this site working but I am going to use this knowledge I gained from this project to start a couple programs in my library. Many people have no clue how to apply for jobs via the Internet. I want to create a program to help people create a usable resume and how to link it to online job applications. To us this is as simple as pie to them it is trying to speak Greek.

Continuing on the Action Project

This past weekend I went to Valdese again to visit with the tourism director and laid out the ground work for what I would be doing next. We decided on the sites to include on the community walk and what to say about each. After that I went to the different historic sites around town and took as many photographs as possible to include on the website. It was a lot of fun to go and see all of the sites again. It has been many years since I had visited a few of them and it reminded why I was doing this project. I read an article the other day in the Morganton News Herald about how the population of Burke County has dropped nearly 1% just in the last 9 months due to people moving away to find work elsewhere. Barbara (the tourism director) is quite worried that many of these people were from Valdese in particularly because of this she is on the front lines trying to get alcohol voted in this election. This would be a great way for the growth of business opportunity in town. We both agree that with this project hopefully it will open the eyes of new visitors, people looking to move to town, or the greatest scenario would be a business. Maybe they will see how historically quaint the town is and decide this is the place to set up shop, I know it's a long shot.

Continuing on my project

Yesterday I officially started work on my project. I have created the map and registered Valdese, NC onto communitywalk.com. Now it is time to get information and pictures of all the different sites in Valdese and get them loaded to the website. I am really excited because just playing around with it yesterday I had a lot of fun. I have added a couple of sites that I already new a great deal about and it looks really good. It seems it is going to work out to be a great tool to help Valdese tourism. I am going to use the make a trail feature to create a loop that will take you through the town and all the way around the backside so no location is missed. The loop will end back where it began so the visitors will have no problem finding there way around.

Project is a go!

Went the other day to speak with the tourism board of Valdese and they were really excited about my project. Actually they were so impressed with my plan of creating a loop trail through the community they told me that they would link it up on the tourism website and their facebook page. I am really surprised how interested everyone was in the project! I makes me feel good that I am helping out my hometown. Now the pressure is on to create a good community walk and make it as professional as possible.

Exploring for My Tech Project

I think I have finally decided on working with the Valdese Public Library and the Valdese Tourism Department in doing a Community Walk. With this project I hope to attain an easier way for potential visitors to Valdese to plan a full day trip to the small town. There are plenty of sites to see in town but with my experience at the winery I noticed that many patrons had no clue about the other places available to visit. This project will also help me carry on my attempt in helping preserve a little of the Waldensian culture my family has tried to do for so long. I have contacted the tourism board already and they were excited to hear from me again and that I am working on another project for Valdese. This project will consist of me creating a "community walk" on communitywalk.com. I will take pictures and create descriptions of different sites around Valdese and pinpointing them on the website map. Thus, creating a path that one can follow through the town using and accurate easy to follow map. It can be confusing trying to navigate a town you have never visited before. Hopefully the town will place a link on their website or the tourism board website where visitor can click and see the path they can take to see everything. I have pretty much decided on a loop trail through town that will be easy to follow from Interstate 40 throughout the town and then back to 40 without a hitch. I am still working out the kinks but I really think this will be a way to connect technology, the library, and tourism to help bring in outside visitors to a small somewhat struggling community.