Week 9: podcasts, video & Downloadable audio

YouTube: I've been using YouTube for awhile now anyway. My kids adore it and are constantly alerting me to good ones. There's a great one with two British children - "Charlie bit my finger" and another one with two sisters fighting over an order of Chinese dumplings that never fails to make us all laugh (maybe you have to have a sister or more than one daughter to appreciate it though.)

NPR Podcast Directory: this is very cool and I had no idea it existed. I found some poetry, music, etc.

Downloadable audio: I'm not one to "listen" to books normally. Even on a long car trip I'd rather sing along to my Sirius radio. But some things are really meant to be read out loud and Shakespeare I think is one of them...so my entry would be:

Complete Sonnets
by
William Shakespeare
A complete reading of Shakespeare's 154 timeless sonnets, composed between 1593 and 1601

Final Thoughts: This was an interesting exercise all-in-all. I loved the image-generators, some of the wiki applications, learning more about blogs, etc. I wish I had more time to spend "jazzing" up my blog and will probably do that now that I've completed the progress reports by the deadline. I would like to see the library incorporate some of this 2.0 technology into our website. My biggest complaint is that we tend to be a little slow to implement. I would definately take part if we do something like this again.

week 8: Online applications and tools

Zoho Writer: This is a great idea. I wish something like this had existed when I was getting my MLS and doing group projects in my online classes. I have a daughter just about to start her MBA this fall and I will be sure to tell her about this. I particularly like the tags as folders feature and the ability to add comments (although I had a little trouble actually doing this...)

LibraryThing: need I say more? Great for Reader's Advisory. Great for getting ideas of books to read. Great for remembering what you've already read. Wouldn't it be great if we could have our own version of this as part of the website? Readers would love it.

week 7: wikis

I have more optimism about Wikis. I can see how they could be useful in a variety of settings. I liked the RocWiki (about the city of Rochester) and the subject guides at the St. Joseph County Public Library. Also, I think giving patrons the ability to submit annotations to the web catalog would be a really nice feature. (much like Amazon.) Why not?

PBCLS Exploring Web 2.0 wiki: a little confusing at first. I had some trouble knowing where to add my entries. I tried to add a favorite wine but couldn't find a nice picture so I gave up. I did add a favorite restaurant.

week 6: del.icio.us

I was familiar with del.icio.us already. I actually already had an account, which honestly I never use. I like the idea of the tags and I'm not sure I was really using them to their full advantage. Now that I see how this site could really be helpful in organizing the websites I visit daily - maybe I'll start using it more.

Technorati: Now this is somewhat overwhelming and a little disappointing at first glance. I was working with a woman the other day who was interested in finding other woman artists in the Palm Beach Gardens area. I thought maybe Technorati would help me find blogs from women artists in the area. But it didn't work that way. I'll need to spend a lot more time with this!

web 2.0: There were some interesting ideas presented in these discussions. For instance: "But if our services can’t be used without training, then it’s the services that need to be fixed—not our patrons." I wonder if that's even possible when so many of our users have trouble even using the new self-print stations. Will it ever be possible for all this 2.0 technology to be so user-friendly that our patrons won't need assistance? Also this quote, "Librarian 2.0 controls technolust... Technology is put to the test: Does it meet the users need in a new or improved way? Does it create a useful service for putting users together with the information and experience they seek? " I think we need to remember this as well. Technology should serve to make our patrons lives easier - not to frustrate them!

RSS Feeds

I did find this to be a confusing exercise. And while I like the concept of having one spot where I can go to view all these different things, I wonder if I'll really use it. Again, it's good to know about RSS feeds, what they are, how they're used, etc. I think I'll need to keep an open mind on this one. Also, I can see how this concept could be incorporated into a library's website - especially useful for book reviews and other reader advisory type things. When I have more time, I intend to take a look at some library websites out there that are using RSS feeds in an interesting way.

Technology

Our assisgnment for week three is to write something about technology. I don't have much to say on the subject. Sometimes I think we are just frustrating our patrons with all this technology. I was at a reference workshop this morning and one of the things we talked about was e-books. I was amazed at all the full text versions of books that are currently available in our library's databases. Pages and pages of handouts.... I was thinking that if I can't keep up with all this (and I can't)...how on earth are our patrons supposed to find all this stuff? It's mind boggling really. So much of what we do everyday is now technology related.

First Post

There are a lot of reference librarian blogs out there. Here's another one! I'll explain how I chose the name: On Walden Pond. A couple of weeks ago, a patron called on the phone and asked if we had a copy of "On Walden Pond." I said, Do you mean "Walden?" She said, "Yes." I said the book by Henry David Thoreau? She said, "I guess so." We didn't have a copy at our branch and so I offered to have a copy sent from one of the other branches. Then she asked if we had it on CD? And I said no. So we arranged to have a copy of the book sent from one of the other branches in our system. Right before I hung up the phone - I had a thought. And I asked, "Were you looking for the DVD "On Golden Pond" with Henry Fonda? Guess what? She was.