Summary of 23 things

23 Things was a very successful program, both for me personally and for our library system. Personally, running through the 23 things enabled me to really spend some guilt-free time learning about things like avatars, tagging, social bookmarking, etc. Otherwise, I may have learned and used these things eventually, but they would have been given a much lower priority in terms of workload and been put on the back burner a lot.

Benefits to our staff and patrons? Now when patrons come to the desk wanting help with Flickr, Technorati, Zoho, or Del.icio.us, we will have been exposed to each of them and will have some means to continue the conversation and make a connection with our patrons. I hope that those innovators among us will take these lessons learned and apply them to what we do here at the library now and examine the potential for these tools in providing additional services.

Downloadable books

I just can't seem to get into the ebooks so far. It is one thing to get the downloadable audio books, but for those ebooks that you read on a little itty bitty screen--well, I just prefer the feel of the print.

The convenience of the ebooks I think comes in the portability. If you are taking an airplane flight, for instance, and don't want to lug a book in your carryon, you can load an ebook on your portable device, like a pocket pc. I actually downloaded some books that were only available in ebook format, but found reading them awkward and not as enjoyable and turning the page. I even tried some of the free ones from Gutenberg and universities, but alas, no appeal to me.

I'm all for technology and am receptive to many innovations, but the ebooks haven't progressed to the point where I feel like they are going to take over from print. I have every confidence that one day, someone will tinker with them and develop a format that will be more successful.

Podcasts

I usually subscribe to podcasts through Itunes, but I also have a couple of them set up in Bloglines. A couple of my favorites are NASCAR related. MRN, the Motorsports Radio Network, recaps what happens each weekend at the racetrack, and the Dale Earnhardt Jr. team's radio transmissions are also podcasted each week. I download the broadcasts and load them on my Ipod to listen to--and am entertained and informed about all of the news in the racing world.

Chad Vader -- YouTube at it's most entertaining

Chad Vader, Day Shift Manager

Netvibes

The Web 2.0 award winner I chose to explore is Netvibes. Netvibes lets users create a customized start page that includes everything from blogs and wikis, RSS feeds, to news and weather and more. I imagine the goal behind this is to save time by pulling all of these things into one contained area, but I am afraid that I may never emerge from the start page. There is so much stuff to view!

ZOHO

Back in January, Jennifer H. and I took a look at Zoho.com when we had our first annual Wiki Day (yeah, I know--we're unique). Anyway, Zoho seems to have a lot to offer to people--much of it for free. I also like their quote on their page:

A customer is the most important visitor on our premises.

He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him.

He is not an interruption in our work - he is the purpose of it.

We are not doing him a favour by serving him. He is doing us a favour by giving us the opportunity to serve him.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Sandbox 2.0 experience

I enjoyed viewing some of the entries in the Sandbox and getting my feet a little sandy too. PBwiki seems to be one of the easier wiki sites to use, and adding the link to my blog and a link to a favorite movie was not so hard. It was great to see all of our Allegany County folks listed in the blogs area!

Wikis in the library

Wikis seem to be making their way to more usefulness in libraries. They were useful all along--we've just started figuring out ways to use 'em. In my experience, wikis have been used this year for managing a project and organizing a statewide workshop. I like the collaboration aspect to them, although it seems like there have been 1 or 2 main contributors and the rest are spectators. I would imagine as our confidence grows, so will participation.

The Machine and Web 2.0

After watching the Machine video, it strikes me that the web is becoming more user friendly and that a lot of the structural restrictions are breaking down. It used to be that organizations depended on the one or two people who knew HTML or could crack the code of the computer language to accomplish work. Now, anyone can create and collaborate without having to hold a 800 page manual in front of them.

The web and information as a result seem like they going to skyrocket in volume, with the users and collaborators dictating what gets put out there. What role will librarians play in all of this? Will we be willing to take on new roles, ones that have less control? The revolution of Web 2.0 may not give us a choice, as the world will steamroll right over us if we do not jump on board and become leaders in the new age of technology, rather than reacting to trends that are already happening.

Technorati

I just happened to access the Technorati website today, on their 3 year anniversary. Evidently, it was a good thing to be a couple of weeks behind on my 23 things, since they are debuting a new look and features to Technorati. The video was very informative and it makes me want to use the site to organize and search my blogging.

Technorati is great from a beginning blogger's perspective (like myself) because it lets users browse subjects of blogs to get started. Very user friendly as all of these Web 2.0 tools seem to be, Technorati is no exception. Tagging and adding to favorites couldn't be easier.

Del.icio.us

Del.icio.us is a tool that I think I may need to take more advantage of. Although it is great to be able to access bookmarks from anywhere I am, I like the idea of using it for projects. For instance, since Del.icio.us can be a place to hold links to informational websites, as well as supplies that might be needed, I can see this as a virtual file of all the things I might need to keep organized.

Searchroll on Rollyo

Creating a searchroll on Rollyo. The idea of being able to create a customized search engine that returns results for the web sites I decide on! The best part about this web 2.0 stuff is that you don't have to be a technological genius to take advantage of them. Hey, if it's good enough for Diane Von Furstenburg, it's got to be good enough for me, right?

The New Meez: Leeza Meeza

It was cool to explore around creating an avatar on Meez. In a way, it reminded me of playing dress up dolls as a child. You get to choose what the avatar wears--I can't believe people are paying money to do that!

Library Thing is easy to use and very cool

LibraryThing is such a neat site for readers and libraries. Giving each person the ability to add 200 books for free is very generous. I think this goes to show that the public has certain needs that maybe our catalog records don't currently provide. Tagging the books with terms that they would use to find them vs. MARC records with the structured subject terminology will be an interesting thing to monitor in the future. LibraryThing for libraries will probably be the answer to that tug-of-war: merging the two together--MARC and tagging in our PACs.

RSS feeds for libraries

Librarians' Internet Index: New This Week
New and newly-discovered Web sites for librarians and everyone else, updated every Thursday morning. See more resources on our site, http://lii.org/.

Library Grants http://librarygrants.blogspot.com
For librarians interested in grant opportunities!

The Shifted Librarian
Shifting Libraries at the speed of byte!

Resource Shelf

and..of course Allegany County Library System RSS in the PAC!!!

RSS and Bloglinest

About a year or so ago, the library PAC had a feature added to it that allowed people to create an RSS feed for particular searches. So, when the next Eoin Colfer or Janet Evanovich book comes out, patrons can get an alert in their Bloglines.

It is a neat exercise to set up Bloglines and then subscribe to different feeds. Takes all the work out of seeking out stories about hobbies and interests by bringing those things in to me.

I have set up lots of subscriptions to RSS feeds in the PAC, but also enjoy feeds about movies, knitting, gadgets, and NASCAR.

IPhone

This week's technology story has to be the release of the new Apple IPhone! People lining up on the streets, sleeping in chairs on the streets of New York in front of the stores? Sigh! Everybody likes to be first.

It truly is pretty cool looking. I've seen some demos on tv this week of the features. Here's the official web site, if y'all would like to learn more.

http://www.apple.com/iphone/

Flikr maps

http://www.flickrmap.com/

Visit TRIPPERMAPS to see photos of people around the world. I may never make it to Greece, but I can click on pictures to visit there virtually!

Star Wars Celebration IV

For the 30th anniversary of Star Wars, I traveled with my family to Los Angeles for Star Wars Celebration IV. I found this photo on Flickr of Darth Vader outside the L.A. Convention Center.

The Library Weekly

Breaking new ground! I had this idea to create a place where patrons can visit to find out about our new stuff, but also to post the great new multimedia that we are producing. The children's librarians have all been recorded doing online storytime, so my next step is to get those videos posted on this blog. Week 2 of 23 things has prodded me to get things going by creating a blog where all of these ideas and creations can live.

But, I still need to keep working to get a handle on the layout! So far, I'm having fun playing with the features and getting to know blogging.