YouTube: Week 9 / Thing 20

I explored YouTube for a while. A system could create all kinds of valuable videos for a library website such as, a video on how to use a database or the catalog, a video on directions to a branch, a storytime video, video samples on performers coming to the library, etc.

This is a hilarious "dominos" video that I found after watching the "library dominos" video.

Webbie Awards: Week 8 / Thing 19

I decided to study Yahoo! Answers (http://answers.yahoo.com/) to see if it could be a resource for library customers. It won a first place Webbie 2.0 Awards for Questions/Advice. Basically Y!A is a site where one can post his or her questions on any topic and people from around the world offer their answers/suggestions. Y!A has about 25 categories--from arts to food to history to politics to pets to business to travel.

It seems very useful. I selected a topic I've been researching and one post led me to a very relevant/helpful website. But I would only casually suggest a customer use this site--if they has time to surf the site and/or wait for answers.

When I have time, I definitely was to explore all the first place winners of the Webbie Awards.

Online Apps: Week 8 / Thing 18

I signed up for two of these online office suites--ThinkFree and Zoho. The signup process for each was very simple--but one does need an email address. Zoho has many great programs for free that I would use regularly--word, spreadsheets, planner, and show. It seems a little easier to use than ThinkFree. But I would definitely need publisher--which is only in ThinkFree.

This is an article I found that compared them. It says ThinkFree is the best one.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9007884&pageNumber=1

This kind of Web 2.0 technology is so exciting. This is something students and other library customers could definitely use. Many never have disks, but want to save their documents created in the library. And many people have email attachments but they don't open. If people got in the habit of using these programs, that may not happen as much.

But for really important documents, I would still suggest people make backup copies on a disk drive. Since I'm going to start using these programs myself, I don't have to go out and buy a USB port right away now.

I also found this presentation of funny animals at Zoho Show. It is great! Hit Play under the picture and change the Slide Delay to about 3 seconds. Enjoy!
http://show.zoho.com/public/sridhar/Funny-Animals.ppt?view=3

Fun in the Sandbox: Week 7 / Thing 17

It took me a couple of days to figure how to post my "contributions" below to MD Libraries Sandbox. Use Edit (duh!). Then I thought (ah!) that's the power of this type of program--everyone who signs up has equal weight in adding or deleting to the site.

This could be problematic--I heard on the news today that big companies like the voting machine maker Debold have edited out bad news on themselves at wikipedia.com. But I wouldn't think wikis would be used for anything proprietarial or of national security.

This is the link to my Favorites page:
http://marylandlibrariessandbox.pbwiki.com/Favorite+Magazines

This is the link to my blog allnewtechie at the Sandbox, under PG County's section:

http://marylandlibrariessandbox.pbwiki.com/Favorite+Blogs

Wikis: Week 7 / Thing 16

I have been using wikipedia.com for several years for information on pop culture items, etc. I explored several of the wiki tutorials and found out a lot of information about their setup that I didn't know. One site had a great suggestion to connect people who are on a waiting list for a popular book so that they can talk to each about that title.

I also explored the BookLovers Wiki of the Princeton Public Library. I like how it's just a simple website with brief reviews of all kinds of books. Customers send in their thoughts and give books the number of stars the book deserves. I also like how the site has pictures of the books' covers and a link to the library's catalog to see if a copy is on the shelf. We have something similar at PGCMLS' catalog website but it is links to book reviews from publishing magazines. It might be good to add a customer review feature to our website.

Library 2.0: Week 6 / Thing 15

The YouTube video "The Machine is Us/ing Us" was awesome! I must watch it again with the sound up.

After reading the "Away from Icebergs" essay, I found a lot of good nuggets to chew on and digest. I do think some parts of a "just-in-case" print collection are unnecessary and it would be good to learn how to steer customers better to our online collections.

After reading the Wikipedia article, this Library 2.0 concept seems to focus on technology/computers, but at least 40 percent of what public librarians work with and of what customers want are books. Plus don't these Library 2.0 proponents think customers care about interacting with people face-to-face? (I don't think most people, especially women, do most of their socializing online; but boys--maybe so.) And what about reading in this Library 2.0 equation? Where's that in their new-fangled ideas?

Tagging: Week 6 / Thing 14

In my brief exploration of Technorati, it seems to be a website of techie blogs. I browsed a long time to find any interesting blogs in the Top Favorites--alth0ugh I did explore The Unofficial Apple Weblog. This blog had so much information one could spend days exploring it. I like how the Top Favorites page has so many features like a snapshot of the webblog, its URL, recent posts, and of course all that blog's relevant tags.

Regarding the Learning 2.0 search, I definitely had to put the phrase in quotes to find related blogs/posts. There were 187 blogs--it seems like people had just give their blogs that phrase name. There were 25, 489 posts about Learning 2.0.

I found a great blog dictionary under Support/Site Guide.