Thing #23-- The End?

Wow...its been a while since we started this course! Time flies when you're busy and having fun. And I must say, that this has been a really cool work experience for me.

My favorite discovery along the way, hands down, has been del.icio.us. It is the coolest thing ever. I know I was a bookmarking nay-sayer, but this thing has been so helpful to me. I like how simple it is to use, and I have discovered so many cool sites I never knew of just by browsing through this site on my free time. Totally cool!

My second favorite discovery from The 23 Things program was LibraryThing. I LOVE it! I find it to be much more in-depth than Shelfari (which I had been using for about a year). I have been using the LibraryThing site to discover new manga.

By reading the reviews from various people, I have been able to make suggestions to our school librarian about things that might be high school appropriate. I have also been reading various reviews for myself...it's a great place to discuss books and learn new ones you may want to read!

I think this program has proven to me that I can still find the time to try some new things and dedicate myself to something besides just work. I have been working two jobs for four years now, and I always tell myself or say to others that I just don't have the time to do extra things...and I found that I DO have some time to do extra projects.

Maybe for me this class was about proving to myself that I could, some day soon, go back to school part time and get that MLS I keep promising myself. Maybe I can make the time for that!

Del.icio.us proved to me not to always jump to conclusions too soon. I tend to be very opinionated and I make up my mind quickly about things. I learned that even though I originally thought a social bookmarking site was pointless, that it really isn't once you start trying it out on a daily basis. I have found it to be relaxing, informative, and fun!

I think I can use this experience and apply it to my work every day with the kids at South High and with my patrons and co-workers at Willa Cather. I can take with me the idea that I am not too busy to learn new things, and that I need to be more open-minded when it comes to different things. Oh, and I know for sure this taught me to utilize my patience!

I think the program is great the way it is. The only thing I would do differently is give staff more time to work on this AT work. But I know with staffing being as it is, that that was not possible this time around. I think if staff had time off the desk to work on this, there would have been even more staff involvement and completions ( Even more so than all those folks who did do the program, and that was a lot!).

I think it has been fun to see what my co-workers came up with for each assignment. It's good to do something out of the "ordinary" library work and see fellow employees do something fun or different for them!

I have enjoyed using Blogger and learning about other tools such as Flickr and del.icio.us along the way. I think it's good for library staff to learn and try new things and be trained to be up-to-date on the latest ways to find information. It's the only way we can be of most use to our patrons in the long run. This has been an excellent learning experience and I would do it again!

Thing #22-- Media and Book Downloads

I really think it is cool to have books available online, though I cannot personally see myself using this feature that much.

I like reading short stories on my PC, but I have a hard time reading a long time and looking at the screen. I love the feel of an actual book, and I find it easier to have a book with me rather than having to sit down to the computer to read.

That said, I still think that this is an excellent option for patrons...anything to get them reading...and if they want to read the books on their PC or download them to their iPod or Kindle, I think that's awesome!

Accessing Overdrive was easy. I had never tried it before, but I found the proccess to be quite self-explanitory. I practiced by downloading a Spiderwick book. I think it would be really easy to explain to a patron how to use it. Maybe the library could hold short forums or classes explaining this service to customers and reminding them what they can do with it.

Again, I think this is an excellent service for our patrons, as long as e-books don't take over on a whole, lol. Just like some of our patrons like to listen to audiobooks, I think this service gives them just one more option, which is great.

Offering movies is also good, as long as we don't try to compete with the rental companies. I think many of our patrons use our library to search for DVDs and CDs, and if we don't provide movies in the same way that many rental places do, we are losing customers and doing them a disservice.

Thing #21-- Podcasts

Podcasts are new to me. I have never really used one before. I used Podcastalley.com and found the CNN podcast and listened to some of that (it was about the elections today). I then posted that RSS feed to my Bloglines account.

I think podcasts come in handy if you missed something important on radio or television, or if you are somewhere without a television but you have a computer. I also believe you can also put them on your iPod or MP3 player, which I have not tried yet.

I looked up library podcasts on PodcastDirectory.com and saw that lots of libraries have podcasts of book reviews for their YA and adult book sections.

I think this is a great way of utilizing this tool. People could tune into a podcast about different genres of books that might interest them, and see how others reviewed them. The library could use podcasts to also tell patrons of programming or broadcast a storytime, even.

I think it would be cool to have a podcast of big library events like Mayhem in the Midlands. The library could podcast short segments of interviews with authors or Q&A sessions from the event.

Thing #20...YouTube

YouTube is something that I have used off and on for 3 or 4 years now. I don't usually watch a lot of full television programs on it, but like music videos and stuff are handy to watch on YouTube.

I've always liked YouTube because it's pretty simple to use and it's really easy to find one kind of video that you like, and once you've watched that one, you can choose from the list of other suggested videos on the right and see more like it. I have always liked that feature.

The video I chose to view for this assignment was a video that one of our library co-workers made! It's really cute and very well done:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZZ4S8IlxuE

Jeff Pospisil and his wife Erinn, made this video using their son Asa's toys! They made it using iVideo I think. I was really impressed with the video and he says that in less than 5 days it's had over 400 hits.

I think being able to comment on videos can be both good and bad. The good side, which I think could be utilized by libraries, is being able to rate things and comment on things and other patrons could see what people think of an item.

The down side to that is non-constructive criticism, as well as just outright rudeness and flaming between parties. The library would have to have someone monitor comments or have some sort of tools installed to control that sort of thing.

I like that you can click on the stars and give the videos a star rating, which I think we could do with library books. This kind of rating would cut back on rude commenting, and just give users a simple rating for an item.

Ghosthunters Live: A Guilty Pleasure For the Whole Family

It's all Gavin's fault. I blame him. And now Devin and I always have to tune into Ghosthunters. Yeah, sometimes it's a bit cheesey, but there have a been some episodes where really weird stuff happens, so it's definately worth a watch. Especially when they DON'T find anything...and then they explain what the "ghosts" might be. I think this shows that they aren't always out for the ratings and for the shock factor and that's what makes this show fun to watch and not a total joke.

ETA: Wow this sure was a let-down this year! Supposedly last year's program was really interesting, but watching some of it this year on Halloween night, I didn't see anything interesting at all. If anything, the most entertainment we all got from this program was laughing at how bad the Sci-Fi channel's live team was at transmitting the show.

Thing 19 Web 2.0 Awards

According to the Web 2.0 Awards site, del.icio.us was voted the #1 bookmarking site. I can totally understand why.

It was hands down my favorite bookmarking resource that we used during our lessons. I have been using it almost every day now, especially for down times when I am simply bored and want to find something interesting to look at online.

It has been an excellent source for new sites, and I have found it to be equally excellent for being able to go back to something I found that was interesting from any computer I'm using. I love how easy it is (just click on a bookmark and hit "save") to use, and I enjoy being able to share my sites with others as well.

The design is simple (which I like when reading through things) and I really like that.

I would like to try out the #2 pick, StumbleUpon because I have heard friends talking about it. I have not had time to use it as of yet. I believe you have to install it on your computer, and I am not sure I want to do that at this time. But that concept, that you can have sites recommended to you based on sites that you already visit is intriguing to me. I don't like the idea that all of your moves are (probably, I am guessing) being monitored or taken down (by The Man, lol), but I use Lastfm which works in a simular way, only except for music, and I actually like that. I try not to think about who might be monitoring my useage, lol.

So yeah, the bookmarking site del.icio.us is pretty darn useful, easy to use, and the best thing I have gotten out of this class. I was not turned on to social bookmarking completely, but this site is definately worth a look, if anything, so that you can add your favorites and take them anywhere you use the computer.

Thing18 Library 2.0 assignment

Here I am trying out Zoho Writer for the Library 2.0 class. Seems pretty simple so far...I like that it is set up like most word proccessors. I think it is really convenient to have this available online, because I find that a lot of the times different versions of Microsoft Word won't be compatible with one another. That used to get me into trouble sometimes in college. I would do homework at the public library or at home and try to bring it up to print at school only to discover that the version at UNO was different. With this program, you could bring your homework etc. up anywhere and it would always stay the same. I think this is an excellent tool in that way. The only problem is if the internet is not available in a location or if it is down you may not be able to access your information as readily.