#23-The beginning

I have enjoyed this experience and am learning alot. I intend to go beyond the 23 things as well as go back and spend time on some of the areas that most challenged me.
Hopefully I can use alot of what I've learned and apply it to my work in the grant center. I have so many ideas and thoughts on applying this to my work. Network days will be coming up very soon and Library 2.0 is going to be covered in a session. Looking forward with confidence to participating in that session.
There have been many exercises that I've really enjoyed and most have been quite challenging. At first, to be honest, I was very nervous, afraid of making a mistake or doing something stupid. Happily, I got over that and looked forward to trying new things. Also, I feel somewhat lacking in that my offerings are not as nice, as imaginative as some others. Everything I've done has been new to me so I have to let that go.
One added plus for me has been that I've acquired a digital camera. My son has a new one with all of the bells and whistles. He left this one at home for me right on the computer desk. It's been sitting here for a good year. I've started to use it. Wouldn't have, had it not been for this experience.
This goes hand in hand with my Flickr experience. I enjoyed the Flickr thing. Caught on to that a little easier than some other exercises.
I think I will really use the RSS feeds. There are several news websites that I like to look at and this is a real time saver.
The wiki thing is something that I really see myself using in my work life. Hopefully cooperating collection supervisors will be able to take advantage of this and share information.
I look forward to participating in any discovery programs the library would sponsor.

#22 E-Books

I established a NetLibrary account and accessed NetLibrary. The OverDrive titles were really interesting. I was especially interested in the Reference collection. It's nice to have another format to offer to patrons. I was also interested to see what I could borrow from YPL. I took a look at the library's Digital Books page. I like the fact that a patron won't have an overdue book. When it's due it is automatically returned for them. No fines, no damage. Of course the collection has alot of room to grow. I used to think I needed to have a book in hand to really enjoy the "reading" experience. Then I discovered books on CD and books on tape. I listen to them in the car. I listen to books on tape while I walk. I have not yet borrowed one of the books in our collection but I do want to try. One of the challenges to using this format is that there is usually someone waiting to use the family computer. I don't normally have a lot of time to be online.

#21 Podcasts, Smodcasts!

I started with the Yahoo: What is a podcast tutorial, looked at podcast.net, podcastalley.com and yahoo podcasts and found authorsontourlive.com. This is a really neat source. It enables you to listen to an author read chapters from their work. A new podcast is added weekly. I added the RSS feed to my Bloglines account for a podcast. Authorsontourlive reminds me of listening to a book on tape or CD read by the author. I will use this to determine if I want to read or listen to the whole book. Great concept.

#20 You too can YouTube

Of course I've heard of YouTube but never had my own account or done anything with it. I had no problem selecting a video. My challenge was understanding how to embed clips into my own site. I chose the psa by George Lopez, promoting public libraries. I think videos such as those on YouTube could be a great tool-could promote author visits or a new branch in the system before it opens.

#19 Discovering Web 2.0 tools

LibraryThing:

This is a really fun "cataloging tool". I haven't done any reviews for my books, which is something that a user can do. I'm using it to keep track of what I've read. A really nice feature is that it "tells me" what others who have made the same selections have also read. It's a great idea!
For the library, it would be a great reader's adviser tool.
This is a free tool. The user need only have a user name and password. No privacy issues involved.
Highly recommended!

#18: Web-based apps

Zoho Writer is fantastic. Again, I am so appreciative for this opportunity to learn. I will really be able to apply this to my life. I used Zoho's "publish" feature to list all of the things that I really like about Zoho. I didn't go into detail about the template feature and why I think it's so great. There are 50 templates for various "life situations". I certainly will point these out to my son...resume, cover letter-all the things that a young man ready to graduate from college and move on to real life will need to know about.

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ZOHO Writer is a wonderful resource:

 

Tool bar buttoms are pretty similar.

 

Template library is fantastic

 

E-mail options are terrific:  word file, pdf document, html.  Very nice.

 

Will be so nice to use for my AFP membership files-won't need to download to disk or have my USB drive.

 

Anyone I wish to have access to my documents will be avail. as a public file-will be able to read as a web page.