Final Post

I gave myself a pat on the back:) It has been quite a journey. It was good to review things I had forgotten as well as learn new things. As with anything we do, there are pros and cons. I certainly enjoyed creating my blog, but I'm not sure how often I would personally be able to use such a tool or have the time to spend on it. I guess I still prefer to interact with others "face to face." At the same, I do see the use of Blogs as a great tool to effectively communicate with a certain portion of our community if we were able to have one at APL.

Delicious, LibraryThing, and Bloglines are certainly ones that I will continue to use as tools to improve my productivity at work and to keep up to date with what is going on in our profession.

I did have fun doing the exercises, but it was hard to get to at times. This made it somewhat less enjoyable because I didn't feel that I could spend more time exploring some of the tools (in depth) without compromising something else.

I'm glad I had the opportunity to do this. It has certainly been beneficial in that it has forced me to keep up to date with what is happening in our profession and the world today.

Thanks for putting this together and making it possible for us to do!

Podcast

I like the idea of having a way to look up podcasts by subject. I found Podcast.net easy to use, but that may be just me. I wanted to find a library related RSS and liked the SirsiDynix Institute one, so I added it to my list to my Blogline account. I found this one that was of interest because Jenny Levine posted it and she was one of the presenters for a lecture I attended at TLA. Here is the URL link: Gaming in the Library

NetLibrary

Well, I've finally created my account and surfed a bit to see what NetLibrary offered in the way of eAudiobooks. I looked for uncommon titles both fiction and non-fiction, but didn't have much luck. I did find a few when I searched by author. I was a bit disappointed because I couldn't find the newer books by the author, Mary Higgins-Clark, but was able to find three of her older published works on eAudiobooks. I've had similar complaints by patrons. Hopefully, this will change in time. I'm sure it is a matter of licensing, etc. Looking forward to downloading a few on my MP3 player, yes I caved in and bought one:)

Youtube

It was fun viewing the video clips. I also searched for video clips on libraries and found some good ones. One was from the OCLC Symposium. I think it was 2005. The site itself wasn't bad and as with MySpace, it is another tool libraries can use to reach out to more patrons in their community. I've added a videoclip on dogs. Mine have done a few strange things before and this video clip reminded me of them. It's funny. Enjoy.



Found on Youtube 4-30-07 posted as Funny Dogs by RedCola22

Creating a MySpace account

Well, I've created my account on MySpace. I went through the steps on creating an anonymous account. I decided not to add anyone to "MySpace" until I had more time to explore, but something interesting or at least for me happened. I received an e-mail from a friend, but who could that be when I did not invite anyone yet to "MySpace." I was a bit alarmed at first in receiving an e-mail and a photo from "Tom," but then I decided to be brave and look at his message. Tom was offering to help me with setting up MySpace. I had to laugh at myself because it was probably an e-mail generated by MySpace itself.

My reactions were probably due to the fact that I was thinking as a parent. Now to disconnect from that part of me...in looking at it from a different role, I do believe that this has potential for use in libraries as another means of connecting with patrons.

Libraries and My Space

It is understandable that there is concern over children under 18 using My Space and the potential of predators and identify thieves taking advantage of information that can be viewed publicly, but just as the article from WireSaftey says, parents need to be aware of what their children are doing and get involved. MySpace and social networking online isn't going to go away.

Libraries can use social networking tools such as MySpace to target patrons that use them. It would be a good way of connecting with teens...the library users of the future. Libraries could also use MySpace for adults as well by promoting resources that patrons may not be aware of such as our online databases.

Learning 2.0 Sandbox

Playful wikis sort of remind me of online discussion forums or the online SLIS classes where you read the posts from other students in your classes and added your own comments, but without all the seriousness. The benefits of using such tools would be to see what others with the similar interests have to say as well as comment on your own postings.