Thing #23: Summary

Yey! Thing number 23! I'm almost sad to be done! But I'm really excited to get an MP3 player! I have learned a lot and will probably use most of the things I used in my own personal life as well as in the library. I look forward to teaching library patrons how to use some of the things I learned here.

My favories: flickr, pandora, de.licio.us, LibraryThing, image generators (which I have been sending all over the place) and facebook.

I would absolutely do something like this again! I was fun, and it was so nice to be able to go at my own pace!

Thing #22: Podcasts

I browsed the podcast directories, but didn't find them very useful. It would have been nice to see some reviews of the podcasts, or at least better summaries. I did subscribe to the This American Life podcast. I am looking forward to getting an MP3 player so that I will be able to listen to podcasts at home.

Thing #21: Online Video

This is one of my favorite YouTube videos. It's pretty long, but it is amazing! YouTube is fun, but can be so addicting. My two year old looooves to watch movies on YouTube, but you really have to watch her because it is very easy to click on videos that are not exactly appropriate for children.

I think it would be great to add videos to library sites. They could be used to sharing how the library was in the media, or for showing movies that teens had made, or maybe even used for a teen contest.

The comments on YouTube can be pretty obnoxious, but so can a lot of the videos, I suppose.

Thing #20: Special Treat!

I really enjoyed the video! I think it would have been more helpful to watch it more toward the beginning of the 23 things, but I still thought it was interesting. I think it was probably intended for a generally tech-saavy audience.

Thing #19: Digital Music

I have done a little bit of playing around with Pandora and really enjoyed it! There were a few times when I wanted to hear a song again, or hear a particular song, but I know that's not really how it works. :) I can see using this site all the time -- once I get a computer! I really liked how smoothly it worked, and unlike regular radio, you could see what it was you were listening to and even songs that you had heard. I just wish that they had a Pandora for children, too.

Thing #18: Social Networking

I looked at MySpace and Facebook. I didn't like MySpace very much because the pages are so intense and hard to look at. I just started looking at facebook and have been having a blast looking for old friends that I haven't talked to in many years.

I think social networking sites would be great for advertising and marketing to teens. Since many teens use these sites on a regular basis anyway, they would be more likely to see what's happening at the library while they're checking up on their friend, then to check the libary's calendar or website.

Thing #17: Wikis

I loved looked at the different library wikis, and I can definately see how they can be useful in the context of a library, as other libraries have demonstrated. I am still amazed that wikipedia isn't completely destroyed by vandals, but I see now that every version of the entry is saved so that it can be easily restored. I liked the look of some wiki farms better than others -- I think wetpaint has the nicest layout, but that may be because I am used to looking at it. Peanut Butter, which claims to be the biggest, had maybe the simplest layout, but I think that made it difficult to navigate.

Thing #16: Technorati

Oh goodness. I am blown away by how many blogs there are out there. I know that I am probably in the minority here, but I just really can't get into reading other peoples' blogs. A few are interesting -- a literary blog or a political blog here or there, but wow, for the most part I just find them, well, boring.

Technorati, though, was interesting. I am very fond of "tagging" and really like organizing this way. I didn't find the search function to be that great, but it was fun to browse through the blogs that came up.

Thing #15: Tagging

I really love the idea of tagging. I think it will really change how libraries operate and how people search for and access information. There is so much more emphasis now on making information searchable than on the actual organization of information. I with there had been a class on this sort of organization in library school.

Thing #14: Best of Web 2.0

I played around with FuzzMail. I don't really see any useful application for it, but it was fun! It seems like for every really useful Web2.0 application, there is another that is totally useless and just for fun. I liked it though! :)

Thing #13: Online Productivity

I explored the word processing function of ZohoWriter and played around with importing and exporting (as well as saving) documents. I will definately be using this program in the future. It looks like it would have made long-distance grad school group projects so much easier. I loved the shared documents feature as well as the chat option.

Thing #12: Customized Search Engines

It took me a little while to figure out how this works, but after playing around with it a while, I think it can be very useful. I like how you can limit the search to only sites that you know and trust and so weed out sites that are not useful or relavent. Here is a link to my rollyo.

Thing #11: LibraryThing

I think LibraryThing will be a very useful tool -- for keeping track of what books I've read and also what books I would like to read. I can also see using LibraryThing as a reader's advisory aid. I think it will be helpful in finding books to recommend, especially if I can't remember the title or the author -- something that happens far too frequently.

Thing #10: Web2.0 and Libraries

I read the first three articles: "Away from Icebergs," "Into a New World of Librarianship," and "To More Powerful Ways to Cooperate."

I am excited to be a part of such a rapidly changing environment. I think, thought, that the need for education is very great. I am probaby a somewhat better than average computer user, and setting up and using RSS feeds was a challange for me. The average patron who comes into our library has trouble attaching a document to an email. Or even setting up an email account. A key component, it seems, for Library 2.0 is education, and also the simlification of technology.

I found it refreshing to that in Michael Stephan's article that he believes that librarian 2.0 "controls technolust" and so doesn't spend money on technology that either isn't needed or is too complicated to take advantage of.

Thing #9: Library Blogs

I added a few more feeds to my bloglines account. After doing a few of them, it is much easier. It will take some time to get used to reading the feeds, but I think I will like it. I am also excited to try out PodCasts once I have an MP3 Player.

Thing #8: RSS Feeds

I think this is going to be a very useful tool, but wow it took a long time to figure out. I had some problems with Bloglines, but I think I figured it out.

Thing #7: Image Generators

This was so much fun and so hilarious. Here are a couple that I liked (from www.dumpr.net and www.letterjames.com):

Thing #6: MashUps-

Wow, this is so fun! Now if I could just figure out how to change the size so if all fits on one line. . .

Thing #5: Flickr

I found flickr fun and very easy to use. It was so easy to get sucked into looking at everyone's pictures! Here's a picture of my two kids, Anneke (almost 3 years) and Jonah (almost 3 months.)

Thing #3: Life-Long Learners

The hardest habit of life-long learners for me is number 4: Having confidence in yourself as a competent, effective learner. The easiest habits are number 1: Begin with the end in mind, and number 3: View problems as challenges.