9.23 SUMMARY OF THOUGHTS

This project has been extremely useful for me. At first I thought I would know many of the 23 things and I did know a few, but my knowledge has been expanded much more than I expected. Just the other day I was doing a reference interview and one of the sites I discovered during this activity was perfect for what the patron was looking for. I think the most helpful thing was discovering that there are many ways to find information on the web other than through search engines such as Google and Ask. I think it would be beneficial for this project to have a supplement every 6 months. We learned about many cool things, but there are still many, many things yet to be created and we need to keep on top of them. I would like to see libraries implement this knowledge by encouraging librarians to think about ways to use these tools in public libraries. Thank you for the opportunity to participate!

9.22 OVERDRIVE LIBRARY

I found some very uesful features and some not so helpful ones after exploring Overdrive. Overdrive offers audio books, videos, and ebooks. It is exciting to be able to pick a title while sitting at your computer and download it at once. Also, the audio books can be sampled which is very useful in deciding if you want to borrow it.

On the other hand, there is a waiting list for materials in Overdrive. It would be much more beneficial to be able to access the files immediately. Additionally, I'm not sure how often the ebooks would be used. Not many people want to sit at their computer screen and read long books. Short stories and reference books would be a good choice for ebooks. It is possible to burn the files to CD, but they can't be trasferred to an iPod which is a listening device that many people use. There are some flaws to Overdrive, but overall, I think as it progresses it will become a much used resource.

9.21 SEARCH TOOLS FOR PODCASTS

I searched a few of these sites for personal interests such as yoga and knitting. I found that podcasts are a very specific format that can't be used logically for everything. It has to be something you want to listen to as opposed to viewing or reading. It also has to be something that is in a series, somthing that you would want to listen to week to week. For example, I might not want to listen to how to do a certain kntting stitch, but rather learn how by watching a video. Also, I might just want one-time information on knitting, not a series. I did find a library-related blog called Open Stacks and added it to my Bloglines.

8.20 YOUTUBE

I did a search on YouTube for teen library programs and came up with a variety of results ranging from news clips on local library programs, videos of the programs themselves, and promotion of upcoming programs. This is one way to share programs with other libraries around the country and the world. It is one thing to read a blog or a magazine article about a program, but it is something entirely different to watch a video of the program. For example, I watched a video about a flipbooks program (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQET3uxtdqM). The teens created their own flipbooks and then displayed them for the camera. So, the actual products that were created and all of the ideas were shared in a way they couldn't be by a text description.

8.19 WEB 2.0 AWARDS LIST

LULU - Another awesome site! More and more books are being self-published. This really opens up doors for people who otherwise wouldn't be able to share their talents. It's interesting to think about whether we are becoming a society that's more homogeneous or more diverse. I think Lulu really proves the long tail effect. More people are able to buy less popular items in today's world. We don't all have to buy the same things because they are easier to produce and market.

I looked through the winner list and found that I knew a lot of the #1 sites. So, I'm not that out of the loop. This is also a good place to find useful websites to go to when doing a reference interview. I plan to become familiar with the other sites that I don't know about already.

8.18 ONLINE PRODUCTIVITY TOOLS

Wow! Very neat. I played around with Google Docs and I can really see this coming in handy. Recently, I switched to Google for my email and I have been writing a lot of documents in my e-mail and it will auto-save to my drafts and I can come back to them. This is pretty much the same concept as Google Docs, but the format can be saved differently in Google Docs (.ppt, .doc, .html) and it can be published as a web page immediately. Being able to publish to a web page without having access to a server or using a blog, wiki, or other such place is really cool.

There are so many times when people come into the library and loose or aren't able to find their data. A lot of times I try to remind people to e-mail their documents to themselves. Using Google Docs eliminates a few steps and allows people to access these documents from anywhere without having to carry around a disk or flash drive.

7.17 LEARNING 2.0 SANDBOX WIKI

Although I have used wikis before, it took me a few minutes to figure out how to link my page. This is a good place for people to be able to test out the technologies without committing to a particular site or feeling that the entry has to be serious. However, being a typical librarian, the hodgepoge of information makes me a bit uncomfortable ;)