Week 10, Thing #24 The End

Well, the journey is over and I have officially finished 25 things. I've learned a lot about different tools that I would not have taken the time to learn about if not for this course. A few of the tools I will use for my job, such as Delicious, YouTube, Flickr, and Netlibrary. I found the over all experience to be a positive one. I am still not crazy about blogging but at least I know how to use it and can do so if I have to. For me blogging is writing down personal thoughts and that is something I have never been comfortable doing.

One suggestion for the next session is to make the "thing" links open up in another window so you can still see what you need to complete for the "thing" and be able to view the websites listed on that page as well.

I would participate in another discovery exercise in the future even if I had to blog about it.

Week 10, Thing #23 Netlibrary

I think Netlibrary is a great resource. I don't have an MP3 player to download on to but if I did I would use it all the time. It would be so much easier then lugging my CD player around for the talking books. I recommend Netlibrary all the time to patrons but have never seen a demo on how to download them. I found the one in 25 things very informative. I always thought the loan period for audio books was one week but now I know that it is the same as a regular book and you can also renew the item.

This is definitely a resource that would be beneficial to our patrons as well as staff members.

Week 10, Thing #22

For this thing I had to take a look at Podcasts. I understand what podcasts are and how to use them but I did not find any using odeo.com that I wanted to subscribe too. CBC radio has a few that I chose but nothing that really grabbed my attention. I think I will need to spend a lot more time going through the sites to find some that would interest me.

Week 10, Thing #21

I love looking at You Tube there are so many fun and interesting videos to watch. One that I looked at was an ad to support the New York Public Library Support of New York Public Library. They used many well known faces to gain support for the library.

You Tube is useful to libraries because you can find many online tutorials to look at such as learning how to use social networking sites or RSS feeds, etc. I have used a lot of them creating a Web 2.0 computer program for patrons.

Week 9, #20 PBwiki

Well, I really enjoyed looking at the PBWiki this week. I found a post by a co-worker of a You Tube video to be hilarious. If I need a laugh I go and look at the video, Evolution of Dance. I also enjoyed reading about favourite vacations spots. It's always nice to get a few ideas of where to go with the family.

Week 9: Thing #19 Wikis

I found wikis to be a great place where everyone can contribute and see all the information that others have contributed. I would use wikis as a place to share titles for patrons to read, etc. A good example of this is our WPL Reference Department wiki. If a patron is interested in reading about microhistories and doesn't know where to start I could look at our wiki and suggest a few titles to read.

A couple of problems with a wiki is (1) sometimes the information is old and out of date because it is not updated regularly (depending on what the wiki is about) and (2) remembering that there is a wiki to use for recommendations, etc.

Overall, wikis are great resources and are very beneficial to the library community.

Week 7: Thing 17 Library 2.0

I have been hearing about Library 2.0 for a long time now. The idea of library users being able to be active participants in the library through our website and catalogue is a great idea. Through an interactive website, library users could write book reviews, tag books, and provide book recommendations that other library users could see. A library user may discover a new author he/she has never thought to read all because of a review that another library user has written.