Week 9, Thing 20 - YouTube

This is one of my favorite YouTube videos ever! I love Weird Al and this video is one of his most recent songs! I love the part with Donny Osmond dancing it up.

YouTube has been a favorite site for me for a long time. I am able to catch the highlights of all of my favorite shows, not to mention hilarious clips, music videos, and all kinds of other things. This is a great way to share videos too. My brother and sister-in-law live pretty far away, so I'm not going to get to see my nephew grow up as much as I would like, but YouTube will help me enjoy some of those moments of his life.

A friend of mine loves to create videos that he posts on YouTube and one of my favorites is the one that follows. Each year my husband and I spend New Year's Day with some friends. The day consists of eating a big dinner of pork & sour krout, followed by a huge Trivial Pursuit guys vs. girls game. Up until this year, the score was tied - the girls had won 3 games and the guys had won 3 games. Sadly, the men prevailed, but this is the video that was created to commemorate the time leading up to this year's game. Enjoy!

Week 8, Thing 19 Web 2.0 Awards

I took a look at LinkedIn, which won 1st place in the Professional Networking Category. I love the fact that there is a way to network with former classmates and coworkers, along with the added feature of meeting new people. I joined the site and instantly found "10 People who I should connect with." When I got my confirmation email, I learned that there are over 12 million people registered on the site! It was easy to register - name, job, school attended - and then you can connect with other people that have similar information. What a great way to re-connect and to network! This was a really cool find and I'm excited to continue using it!

Week 8, Thing 18 - Online Productivity Tools

Well, I spent a bit of time playing with Google Docs and while I found it to be easy to use, I must say that I prefer Word or Excel. I created a document for one of my storytimes, which was helpful. I like the idea of having 1 stop shopping (everything that you can possibly need is in 1 spot) and I really like the fact that you can access the information from anything with an Internet connection (it sure beats carring around a thumb drive!), but I think that I would prefer to continue using microsoft products like Word and Excel. Perhaps it is because I am used to using them and am comfortable with using them that I prefer to stick with them. Usually I am up to learning about new technologies and I am generally willing to continue using them. This one, though, is a dud for me. Sad to say, but true!

Week 7, Thing 17- Sandbox Wiki

Well, that was easy enough. This sandbox is the kind I like - lots of play time, lots of sharing of "toys" (ideas), and no sand in unwanted places! I created an account, added my blog to the favorites page and posted an entry under the favorite books page. Of course, because this Thing called for some "play" time, I made the most of it and spent some time investigating the books that other folks suggested. There weren't too many things listed under the cool websites section, but I'll check back toward the end of this project and see if anything new has been added. I'm trying to work ahead because I'll be away for 2 weeks and will have limited computer access. So, maybe some folks haven't gotten that far yet. In any case, this is another "Thing" that I can mark off of my checklist!

Week 7, Thing 16 - Wikis and more...

As a CCPL staff member, I'm familiar with wikis. We use them for the various teams that we have and there have been lots of opportunities to make use of them to communicate and share ideas with a large group of people. I am very excited to start using the wiki that is being created for idea sharing (among other things) for story time presenters. So often ideas are reinvented, simply because someone at one branch tried something and then someone at another branch thought that something similar would be a good idea. Because they weren't in the same story time at the same time, efforts are doubled and time may very well be wasted. But I digress...

For this Thing, I took a look at several of the wikis suggested. I really like the Book Lovers Wiki over at Princeton Public Library. What a great way to share personal reviews with other folks that like to read the same kinds of books. I like how they have the reviews divided by genre, so that folks can get some book ideas from the mystery section, for example. It looks as though the wiki needs to be updated. They still have information about last year's summer reading program. That, I supposed, is one downfall to wikis. If they are not maintained and used on a regular basis, they become "old news" pretty fast. The good news is that they can be updated fairly quickly, simply by adding a new post that says "we're back on track and moving forward" (or something like that!).

I also took a look at the ALA 2006 New Orleans wiki, which is organized and very easy to use. I like how they have various links to conversation strings for lots of different things: the conference itself, where to stay, the city, dining, and all kinds of things that would be useful to someone attending the conference. I'm sure they create one each year, which is a really great way to communicate with the many people that attend ALA each year.

Week 6, Thing 15 - Web 2.0, Library 2.0 and the Future

You know, for me, library school was a few short years ago. And I can remember the lengthy discussions on the future of the librarian. With the innovation of the Internet and the new technologies that were being invented left and right, would there really be a need for a librarian? All of the information that a person could possibly need is available in some form, electronically, digitally, or whatever. You can get whatever information your desire - and you don't have to talk to one single person on the way to getting that information. The discussions went round and round, some of the most heated having to do with technolgy and the "older" generation and their fear of it. The balance, I am certain to say, has shifted. There are significantly less people who are fearful of technology. My own mother finally learned how to use the voice mail on her phone (her home phone that is - let's not get too crazy and assume that she has a cell phone!).

The one argument that sticks with me is that most of us library students stood firmly by the fact that humans desire human contact and even though they could get anything they wanted without speaking with another human, they simply wouldn't do it all the time. No, the job of the librarian would be secure - our role may shift a bit, but we'll always be around. What I did not see was that the role of the library was going to change. The library itself has become a hub for technology; and as a result, we will still be in business. As humans, there are two things that we can get from the library: the almighty computer (and the technologies that come with it) and human contact. We like to be in contact with others and the library is a great place to do that. I will admit that I did not see the future and see things like Facebook and myspace, which would bridge the gap between technology and that desire for human contact. Social networking sites are great - they combine these two human needs and the library is a great place to access them.

Now, stepping outside of my librarian self, I will admit that I am not a fan of Facebook or myspace. I believe that the idea of both of these social networking sites is a great idea. However, I think that these sites can get folks in a whole lot of trouble. The newly crowned Miss New Jersey is apparently being blackmailed over some photos that were on her Facebook site from years ago. As an Education professor, my husband has the thankless task of checking various social networking sites for the students that he is teaching. If his students are going to become teachers some day, it is absolutely vital that they are not putting various images of themselves online for their students to see. He had a student recently who was student teaching and his students found his Facebook profile, including pictures of him playing Beer Pong - not ideal for someone teaching middle or high school students.

I know that I've gone off course a bit. I have some very strong feelings about these sites and about the future of libraries. I know that we will always be around because there will always be a desire for information, technology, and human contact. What better place to get all three than at your library?

Week 6, Thing 14 - Technorati & Tags

One of the most astounding facts that has come out of this "Thing" is that there are over 50 million blogs and that the total will double in another 5 or 6 months! I will say that since it has been so easy to create one, I am not surprised that there are a lot, but 50 million!?! That is shocking! I know lots of people that have their own blogs and now that there are so many of us from CCPL creating blogs, it is great to have a way to search for my favorites. I have heard of Technorati, but I wasn't really sure how it worked. It seems to be fairly straightforward. I created an account and even put a link onto my blog that says "Add to Technorati Favorites" so that others can add my blog to their favorites. I like the fact that you can add your own tags when you add something to your favorites. This way, you can decide why that particular blog is important to you. I may think that something is useful for "learning 2.0" and someone else may find the same blog useful for something totally different, which is why it is great that you can customize your tags to fit whatever is important to you!

Week 6, Thing 13 - Tagging & Del.icio.us

I can certainly see the advantages of del.icio.us! I can't tell you how many times I have been at home doing work and I have clicked on Favorites, only to discover that the item that I thought I had bookmarked on my home computer was not bookmarked at all! It will be great to have one place to put all of those bookmarks and to be able to access them know matter what computer I am using! I watched the podcast and got very excited to start experimenting with it, but I believe my work computer is experiencing some technical difficulties right now because I am having a tough time getting into del.icio.us to create an account for myself. But I will come back to it and do it later!

Update: Okay, I think that we were just experiencing some bandwidth troubles (first thing in the morning, you know - everyone needs to check their myspace!). So, I created an account and I think I LOVE this tool. It is going to be fantastic for keeping track of the things that I can't keep track of! Click here to see my account, which will certainly keep increasing over time!

Week 5, Thing 12 - Roll your Own Search Tool

Well, I must say that it has been too long since I've posted anything. But, since we are caught up to where I got ahead, it is time to get working again! I'm going on vacation in 2 weeks and I want to be as close to done with my 23 things as I can be! So, here we are with Rollyo. I will say that I was skeptical about this one at first. But, as always, technology wins out and I can see how very useful something like this will be. I created My Rollyo Account and made 3 Search Rolls so far - 1 for news, 1 for entertainment, and 1 for NY Sports (I'm a Yankees fan and while I'm not that interested in the other sports teams in my search roll, I can see that someone else may be - someone who is probably from NY, that is!). Google is the ultimate search engine, but it is pretty cool to know that I can custom make my own, using only the sites that I approve. A parent could really make use of this with sites that are appropriate for homework - they could have a search roll for each subject. This is certainly something to pass on to our customers!