Week 9 Thing 23

I MADE IT!! I'm so excited to say that I finished this. It was a great educational experience and I'm glad BCPL made this opportunity available to us. Whether we want to admit it or not, change is RAPIDLY coming to us. Technology is the wave of the future and if we expect to meet the needs of our customers we're going to have be techno savy. The teens and twenty-somethings are already so knowledgeable in this area it's scary. We've got to at least understand the terminolgy they use when talking to us. My own kids (all 20-something) are so impressed that I have my own blog and can actually carry on a conversation about YouTube, flickr, etc.

After taking part in these exercises I can honestly say that I'm still not proficient in the use of many of these tools--but I'm a whole lot more knowledgeable than I was 9 weeks ago. I look forward to making more use of ZohoWriter, GoogleDocs and my bloglines. I intend to go back and work more on the LibraryThing and to become more familiar with sites on the Web2 awards list. I had fun creating an Avatar and playing with FDToys. Probably some of my best feelings for this program are those generated from interacting with the NO staff as we all worked on the 23 Things. We shared laughter, frustration, support and knowledge; it was a great bonding experience. Many, many thanks to Donna H. as she helped us all navigate the "Things"--I couldn't have done it so successfully without her.

I would take part in another discovery program in a minute. It was an excellent learning experience--I just wouldn't go in believing that it only takes 1/2 hour per week to participate!! Thank you for making this possible.

Week 9 Thing 22

Last year I spent a significant amount of time working with downloadable audiobooks because of my assignments for LATI. I understand the value of this offering and have recommended it to customers--especially ones who spend a large part of their day in the car and say they have listened to a large part of BCPL's collection in their particular areas of interest. My problem with downloadables is that they can't be downloaded on the PCs at work--and I have dial-up at home. Do you know how many HOURS it takes to download on dial-up??! In addition, I couldn't/wouldn't SIT near a computer to listen to a book and I don't (YET) own an MP3. I can't borrow my son's iPod because it's not compatible. I DO believe in the usefulness of this offering--I just think it needs to be more customer friendly. (Or I need to re-evaluate my priorities and spend more money on technologic gadgetry!)

Week 9 Thing 21

I've spent a lot of time looking over the tools for loading podcast sites. I've done lots and lots of listening and watching and have mixed opinions on the usefulness of podcasts. Some were interesting, some educational, some entertaining (Dan (ESPN)Patrick's struggle with the ladder gave me a chuckle because it left me thinking "those who can't--Talk??!) and some "this person needs to get a life because this is useless/boring"! The Merlin site did have some interesting library podcasts. After viewing Denver PL's Stories for Kids I can possibly see BCPL adapting their telephone Storyline to a podcast offering, too. I liked the Kankakee PL's Booktalk podcast. I can also see the possiblity down the road of using podcasts for staff training and tutorials.
I didn't find any podcast that I really wanted to focus on, so I subscribed to the NPR podcast on my Bloglines just to go through the process. I must admit that it was really easy to do.

week 9 thing 20

Here's a video reminding people that doggie rescue organizations are a great way to get a pet!!

week 8 thing 19

After studying the Web 2.0 Awards List, I felt like I was on the gameshow "The Price Is Right" playing the game called "That's TOO Much". There was just tooooo much information to explore. I decided to settle on YELP--a blog that describes itself as "the easy way to find, review and talk about what's great--and not so great--in your area". It's a very well organized site for cities all across the US. Its coverage includes categories that range from Restaurants, Night Life, Health and Medical, and Education to Financial Services, Arts and Entertainment and Religious Organizations. I found the site informative and easy to navigate. I also liked that it includes a map and a mileage indicator from the center of Baltimore. Another interesting aspect is that in the Education section it lists other schools (preschool through college) that are in close proximity to whatever school you're researching. Besides its value to me personally, I could see myself recommending this site to library customers.

As a side note, I'll just make a few comments on Craigslist. My son that lives on his own in NYC and a friend's daughter that lives on her own in D.C. (both in their 20's) swear by its classifieds. They (and many of their friends) rely on it for everything from apartments to furniture to flat screen TV's. They speak highly of the reliability and quality of the information found there. This is good news for us anal parents that are too far away from our "big city" dwellers to give our VALUED input!!

week 8 thing 18

What a great idea!! I loved working with this "thing". The ability to create documents and have access to them from anywhere is amazing. Since we're familiar with other word processing applications the crossover is relatively easy. I LOVED Zoho's emotions button. It'll enable me to NOT have to capitalize and/or use ???? or !!!!! to express myself when I write certain things. I can see the value of the spreadsheets etc. when wanting to do some work at home that I can now only do at the library because I forgot to transfer the information to a floppy or a flashdrive.

My challenge at the moment is trying to get a Zoho document to publish to my blog. We've been trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong but have yet to be successful. I'll come back to this later and get it right!!

week 7 thing 17

My first experience with Sandbox is that I was locked out because someone else was editing the site! Guess this is where patience comes into play. Once I got on, it was easy to play around and make any changes I wanted to various sites. I was nice and made negligible changes--so most people wouldn't know I was even there!!

Week 7 Thing 16

I've only been aware of wikis for a little over a year and found my biggest exposure to them to be through Wikipedia. In my Google searches, I find Wikipedia coming up more and more often and make sure I explain to customers to use the information found there as more or less a jumping off point for more research because of the ability of that information to be altered so freely. I do find it helpful in providing some level of information on the newest "hot topics".



As a librarian I can also see some great possiblities of using a wiki for readers' advisory. I loved the idea of the "Book Lover's Wiki"--a site like that could promote a lot of customer interaction in a branch. There are a lot of people out there who can't fit a regular book club into their schedules, but would really like to share/express their feelings and/or insights about what they've read.

I think the use of a wiki taylored to an individual library's specific information or to it's calendar of events has potential. BUT, being a bit of a control freak I do worry about "just anybody" being able to make changes. I think I understand the "limited wiki"--but is that an oxymoron?? Or does that make it a blog?? See...a little information can be dangerous!!!