Thing #23

Ahhhgggg. I just spent 10 minutes writing how pleased I was to have the opportunity to do these exercises and I lost it. So here I go again. I am grateful to administration for encouraging us to take time to learn and play with new technology. I learned a great deal and am very excited to start using more of these great sites. I also believe I am better able to serve my customers with this new knowledge. This has been one of the best things I have done. I love learning new things. I will be encouraging everyone to explore these great applications. Got to run....I'm on the desk.

Thing #22

OK, I always was intimidated by MOLDI. I can't believe how easy it was to download a book. Next I'll try to download to my blackberry. I think it's the name. It just sounds scary.

Thing #21

Podcasts. Oh, if only I had all the time in the world. I love the ease of podcasts; listening to my favorites like selected shorts and storycorp, etc. when I have the time. My Yahoo made it extremely easy to download. I also downloaded Salt Lake Cities Library Podcast, but was disappointed as it hasn't been updated in a long while. I have lots of uses for using podcasts. I just wish I had the time!

Thing #20

I am trying to post a video from YouTube, but so far it isn't working even though I know this is easy as pie. YouTube is a great source for fun and education. The clips we watched for learn and play were found on YouTube and they were great.

Thing #19

CML's Power Tools. I had known this existed, but never had the time to look at it more closely. I like what I saw. Interesting blog. I explored stumbleupon and am interested in going back and exploring boingboing and MAKE. I only wish the link to our power tools was a lot bigger. Hopefully our customers will stumble across it.

Thing #18

Social Networking Sites. Wow. I could spend a long time on these. I looked at Craigs List (something I have heard many people talk about but never look at myself), Pandora's Box (listening to some Nora Jones right now) and a couple other ones. I'm not certain exactly how I could use these applications for work, but I can certainly see how they might make life easier. I will come back to this and explore more when I have some time.

Thing #17

I just got done exploring google docs and it looks like a great tool for collaboration. I only wish I had known about this a month ago when I was writing the RFP and requesting feedback from others. I also liked google calendars. I wonder if we could combine staff schedules on this and use it to come up with a public service schedule.... I look forward to exploring this site in more detail. On to Thing #18.

Thing #16

What a disappointment. I sent in my name to be granted permission, received an email that I had received permission, but every time I tried to edit it said I did not have access. After 30 minutes of frustration I gave up. I'll come back again tomorrow and try again.

Thing #15

I can see great uses for Wikis, especially as we work on projects collaboratively. For example, though not a high priority, we can get our staff acquainted to wikis by having staff sign up for our holiday pot luck. We have a new Main Library Display committee who could use a wiki for organizing display placement, who is responsible for filling, etc. A wiki could be used for anything where we need collaboration. It would be interesting to see how teens might use one in the library...

Thing #14

Web 2.0 is an interesting concept. How can libraries get involved in the social use and networking of the world wide web. I think this has tremendous impact on the Center for Discovery. Collection Development and floating has shown that our collection need not be as big as it once was. Do we still need mainstays and staples? Absolutely. We wouldn't be a good children's library without certain books. But, 2.0 affects our entire idea of our non-fiction collection. We simply do not need to maintain as much as a physical collection. What about training kids on using the library. It is no longer acceptable to show them how to use the dewey decimal system. We need to be instructing them on finding and evaluating websites, on using social networking tools, on finding information on the computers. Perhaps we should take out 1/2 our shelving and replace it with computers and staff who can show children, teens, and their parents how to use/find information from technology. Books are never going to go away...but how we access information is going to change drastically. The Center for Discovery needs to be at the forefront of this movement.

Thing #13

Ok, Del.ici.lous is absolutely delicious! I can hardly wait to show my staff this website and have us start saving our favorites on it. This is like one stop shopping for all the links we need to use. I also love the fact that it can be brought up on any computer. How many times have I remembered a site we put in our favorites, but I'm at a different computer. I'm really excited about the possibilities.

Thing #12

Just signed up for twitter and am following some CML staff. We'll see....frankly I am skeptical about how this can really impact my life.

Thing #11

Library Thing is pretty cool. I'm also interested in looking at Goodreads to see how they are different. I was hoping it would be easy to create a list of titles I haven't read yet, but I wasn't able to figure that out quickly. Definitely a place I'll go to. I really want to explore it. Wouldn't it be cool if we used it in our division to track new books we are reading; potential award winners, etc. I also wonder how this or GoodReads could be used to track Outreach customers books they want to ready. How cool that I could download it to my blog. Great exercise.

Thing #10, again

OK, this is hilarious. I did this on Generator Blog: Yearbook Yourself. Very sfunny!

Thing #10

Finding a golden egg. Finding the golden ticket in a chocolate bar. There is something very magical about gold. I remember when I was in 4th grade my teacher read aloud from this new book: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I have always been on the look out for golden nuggets of one kind or another.

Thing #9

These tools are great to help locate blogs and other sites to add to MyYahoo. Using technoradi and syndic8 I was able to find some posts about children's books and my NCAA Women's Basketball. I tried topix, but didn't like it as much. I also can search MyYahoo and find the same resources. That's the thing I love about MyYahoo. It's all right there at my fingertips...easy to use. Got to get to Thing #10...Time is a wasting.

Thing #8

I didn't have the time to really try to figure out bloglines. It is confusing to me. However, I hava a MyYahoo account and saved several RSS feeds to it, including the ones given in this exercise. I'm please with MyYahoo...so I'm moving on to Thing #9. Time is quickly running out.

Thing 7: Anything Technology

Technology is moving so fast it's hard to stay on top of it. Luckily we have staff experts in the building who I can call upon to help me...thanks SBN techs, Armchair Coach, and Sureiswindy!

Armchair Coach keeps twittering and talking about some cool sites like Library Thing and wikis. So I am motivated to figure out how I can use these so I can keep track of my readings. Also, I think we can do a lot with Library Thing in Outreach for our Homebound and Book By Mail customers that will help with efficiency. Finally, it will be interesting to experiment with wikis and google docs with my staff.

3rd party tools

Very cool idea. I am amazed at how creative people are. After spending an hour or more on this from home, I decided that I've had enough. Maybe someday...

Rainbow Books

Rainbow Books
Originally uploaded by bluemarla

I love this picture, because it reminds me of all those customers who come in trying to find that book they loved as a child: "It's this big and has a red cover..." Lucky for us, with tools like the picture book index and Novelist...we can usually find what they are looking for.

Here I go...

As a sagitarius, I am always interested in learning new things. My problem is finding the time to do it as I want to do everything! I love this idea of taking time to learn new technology on our own. I can't wait to see some of the exciting ideas staff come up with to incorporate 2.0 into our work routine. My attitude is it is never too late to learn new things. So here I go.