Thing 23

Yeah! It really did seem like a neverending story about midway, but here we are. It's still a bit overwhelming to me in that I had to play catch-up from the beginning and then I had to go and do some more globetrotting. Fortunately, I'm a part-timer so I had some time to really play with this.
The only components that I had any experience with at the beginning was watching YouTube videos, wikis, and attempting to download books from NetLibrary. I didn't even own an mp3 player. Now I'm a log-in carrying member of all this information I didn't even know existed. The Things I see myself using most often will be wikis, Library Thing, Flickr, Del.icio.us, NetLibrary, and YouTube.
As I mentioned in Thing 22, some of the activity directions were still not basic enough for us novices. At one point in my career, I was actually instructing others how to use technology--five years later, I'm a toddler again. Which proves the point that we need this sort of activity at 2-year intervals at least.
I will never have enough time to keep up with all of the RSS feeds I signed up for, so after y'all are finished reviewing this, the unsubscribe button will get a work-out. I will keep a few, don't worry, but not the +10 that I'm getting now. It's like finding 300 e-mails in your account everyday.
That's all for now. Thanks for the opportunity.

Thing 22

I'm writing this as I am listening to a downloaded book from NetLibrary. I'm never really sure how I fumble my way through these tasks, but I get there. Either I'm not reading the directions as carefully as I should, or they're not as idiot-proof as they could be. It's like getting the secret family recipe from that relative that leaves out a key ingredient. The idea behind NetLibrary and the others are great. I'm a bit confused about one thing. If I've "checked out" an eBook, does that mean it's not available to anyone else until my time expires? There were not as many titles available as I would have liked, but some of the series books I've been reading are, so I'm happy. It goes without saying how beneficial this is to our patrons. Our patrons that listen to talking books will find this easier to manage once they get used to it. I know I'll be talking it up.

Thing 21

Well I enjoyed my little trip into podcast land. As well as book reviews, I also found travel sites that narrate walking tours of various sights--Washington, DC, Prague, New York, etc. A good use for the mp3 player. I think the tours would be useful to our patrons as well. I added Nancy Pearl of the Library Action Figure fame to my Blogline--whoa, has it been that long since I read those things?? There is a light at the end of the 23 Things Tunnel when you are on #21. If you are wondering why I suddenly started labeling these entries by just their "thing" number, it is because I found out what URL had to go onto that log.

Thing 20

As you can see, I was able to get a YouTube video into my blog. I'm not exactly sure how and it took much longer than I thought---I gave up and went to bed and there it was the next morning! Just like Christmas. Why would I pick something like this? Well I guess it's just my warped sense of humor. I'll probably find out from our younger staff members that this has a library cult following (if not it should.) Anyway, it just shows that we shouldn't take ourselves too seriously. As far as uses for YouTube in the library, one right off the top of my head would be to film some of our children activities so that the children that are unable to attend could watch it at home. Then there's always fundraising efforts, book discussions, updates are our future remodeling project, a Welcome to the Library-type of presentation, etc. Then there are also the reference material for student projects as the teachers are always asking for a visual in the projects.

1987 - Betty Glover Library Workout Tape Ad

Let's keep those extra pounds from finding us this winter!

Thing 19

Since we had already explored a number of sites on the award list, I tried out the other library sites and of course the travel sites. As always, some were more user-friendly than others. I intend to spend more time, when I able, on this list. I can see that our patrons would have a definite interest in several of the sites I explored.

Usefulness of Zoho

This is a great tool for our patrons that need to use a word processor as we currently have only one patron computer with a word processing program. I can also see the benefits for someone who travels and doesn't wish to lug a laptop along but will have computer access during their travels.