#7 Communication Tools

1) Email - Each year I help fewer and fewer customers sign up for their first email account. It wont be long and doing so will be a rare experience. I personally find email a fantastic method of storing and organizing agreements between departments. And the time saved in retrieval of emails on a given topic is amazing. There is no way that the old method of keeping letters in folders in file drawers was as efficient. The only loss I can see is the archival of communications. The old rule was that there was always a copy of any letter kept in various file drawers. We've drifted away from this and as an organization this information is not gathered into one location. If the director ever needed all the emails sent to someone, many individuals emails will need to searched.

I wonder if email writing is taught in English class now, just as letter writing was when I was young?

2abc) IMing - I prefer using IM when getting technical assistance with my personal laptop, instead of talking to a technician over the phone. I can save the communication and keep record of it better this way. I've not helped customers use this, but do see a number of younger people doing so. I'm sure our reference staff will be using IM before the end of 5 years from now. It will be interesting to see what state wide initiative takes place. I've heard that MINITEX working on this. It all seems like a no brainer to me.

3abc) I'm definitely not currently part of the Text Messaging group. I plan on not getting a cell phone until they take land lines away or the cost becomes more enticing. And besides, I'm just not a telephone talker or heavy email user. Personal preferences aside, the need to communicate information to customers in any preferred method is vital to our survival.

4ab) I've attended a number of Web Junction webinars, and have found more and more companies encouraging customers to attend their webinars in order to get a better understanding of their products. Centurion Technologies constantly encourages us to learn about their software products in this manner. OPAL was straight forward and easy. I listened to one of the archives about Pod Casting in Libraries, and it took almost no effort on my part to begin listening. I expect their live programs to be just as simple. We still need to evaluate the accuracy of information, and I have found the need to point out a couple times to patrons that information in this format should be viewed with the same critical eyes as any other format of information.

#6 Online Image Generators

ToonDoo would be a great tool to use for a cartoon competition. We normally have a Teen Poetry Competition, and I think that the cartoon generator

I had a lot of fun putting names on boats. We actually keep a list of names on our frig. If we find a name that works for the 4 B's then it goes on another list. The 4 B's are: Boat, Bar, Book, Beer. If you find a name that works well for all 4, you have a hit.

I look forward to seeing how our youth librarians utilize some of these tools to get more teens interested in Library programs.

I bet we could create trading cards as one of the prizes to win during the summer reading program. Kids could collect all 10 cards and then the secret message would be revealed to them!

Or, as they read each book in a series, they get a trading card for that book in the series. A select group of series could be promoted in this manner.

#5 More Fun With Flickr

I thought about difficult puzzles and remembered that I had a perfect picture that would make for a very difficult puzzle, a picture of chip board!


The sudoko mashup also looked like a lot of fun. And very educational on top of that.

I wonder what it would be like to read a kids book or a graphic novel if it was posted on Flickr, page by page. If copyright issues could be worked around, it might be a great way to get more of the reluctant readers to read.

I bet that a room full of librarians could come up with 100 ideas in less than an hour about using Flickr as a life enrichment tool, as an extension of their services out side the walls of the library.

I've seen more amazing photos on Flickr than anywhere else, it's a collection that grows and changes every moment. The amount of creativity is astounding. If a customer wants more ideas about stained glass patterns, I'll show them what others have done and posted on Flickr. I know one customer who was looking for picture of bears for a book he was writing, he needed the photos to be free, I showed him Flickr and he was estatic! He understood that not all the photos were free, but the vast majority of them are. Now that's meeting customers needs.

#4 Flickr

• How might you use Flickr in your library? Our Public Information staff have begun to load pictures but they have not opened them up yet to the public. I expect that the Flickr photos will tie various events and announcements from our Web Site to the photos.
  
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• Do you use another photo hosting service? Which one? How does it compare to Flickr? I have been using Picassa to store my photos online but loading the photos is not easy. Flickr was simple ! I'm going to switch.
  
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• How do you feel about having your photos public (note that you can mark your Flickr photos private, too)--any concerns? I did not want my photos to be viewed by others and took the time to protect them. My personal goal is to use Flickr as a repository for my photos. I can see why I see so many of our customers/patrons checking out pictures on sites like Flickr. It's addicting and very easy to spend hours looking at photos.
  

#3 RSS Feeds

• What do you like about RSS and newsreaders? They have made this easier to set up than in the beginning. I found Google Reader very intuitive and didn't have one question during the setup.
  
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• How do you think you might be able to use this technology in your school or personal life? That's just it, I've been reading RSS feeds for a year and wasn't enjoying it at all. I kept my reading to work related topics and found it a chore. This time I set up some that were related to personal topics and I can't wait to finish this blog so I can go back to them and keep reading. Now I see why so many of our customers/patrons spend hours at the library computers, they are not doing more than gaming and checking out social network sites, they are also checking up on their blogs. I can not relate a bit more to our customers/patrons.
  
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• How can public libraries use RSS or take advantage of this new technology? It's obvious, to push to interested customers information about new materials and programs. If we were to set up an archive of storytime pod casts, I can see RSS being used by customers/patrons as a means to learn when new ones are available.
  

#2 What is Library 2.0

• Where will I find the time to participate in the 23 Things and keep doing so from here on? Stephen Abrams made a good point, if we can set aside time to exercise every day, we can do the same to learn. If I take a little bit further I think I can successfully set up a routine each day where I spend 30 min. learning about Web2.0 and follow that up with 30 min. on my treadmill. This will definitely give me something interesting to think about while I walk.
  
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• Why I'm participating in 23 Things On a Stick? It appears to be designed to help guide me through the process of learning about basic Web2.0 trends, which is what I need to start with.
  
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• What I hope to learn? I know that I'll learn to automatically think in an Web2.0 manner. And this should be a requirement for all future Library workers.
  
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• How has the Internet affected my use of time at home? I use the Internet as a source for entertainment and education. When I want to try a new recipe, I look it up on the internet. When I plan on purchasing a new appliance, I research it first on the internet. When I want to know more about a new movie, I look it up. I find myself being more and more curious as the years go buy, and I attribute this to the availability of the Internet.
  
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• Where am I in my knowledge and use of Web 2.0 tools? I have a basic understanding but because I'm not a very social person, I don't find the social network sites related to Web2.0 very useful. How about my work place? Work is a very different story. I'm expected to put my personal anti-social tendencies aside and help customers/patrons with all of their social networking questions. Because of this my knowledge of Web 2.0 tools exist, even thought I don't personally use most of them.
  
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• What am I looking forward to in 23 Things On a Stick program? I love to learn and ask questions, this program will be fun because of this. I'm curious to read my beginning thoughts after I've complete the 23 Things, I expect that my way of thinking about Web2.0 will change drastically. About a year ago I was getting very tired of Web2.0 this and that. I thought that it was a term that would die out quickly and that it was only a fad phrase. I understand this much better now and see that we are in the beginning of a change in service and Web2.0/L2 is our future.
  

Choosing an Avatar

I had no clue this morning that by the end of the day I would be dabling into the Avatar world.

The Yahoo Avatar site was intuitive and entertaining. I can see how easy it would be to spend days just choosing a character, let alone the environment, and such for it.


I didn't have a Yahoo account and had to set that up first. Doing this reminds me about the latest string of customer questions about not being able to open files in their Yahoo email accounts. The customers I've helped have been frustrated by my instructions that they close out of Yahoo, close their Browser, and start all over. We have only seen this problem with Yahoo email. Maybe my lack of experience with Yahoo didn't help matters any?

That's why I'm doing this, to gain experience in web tools that I wouldn't attempt on my own.

So, creating an Avatar was fun, and I'm glad I did it.