Week 9, Thing 23

Well, I was surprised, because I thought I was pretty technologically savvy, but it seems that I have fallen behind the times. I'm glad I did the 23 Things. I especially liked the internet based document tools, and of course, I don't need any more reasons to go to YouTube! I do think lots of these tools have uses for libraries, which I outlined in my posts. I would definitely do a program like this again. Hopefully, I will be able to be entered into the Staff Day drawing even though this is last minute!! I think you guys said that we didn't actually have to turn in our Tracking Logs, which I hope is true, because mine is on my other computer!!
Enter me in Staff Day drawing! Let me win the Wii!
Thanks,
Elizabeth

Week 9, Thing 22

I downloaded The Count of Monte Cristo from Overdrive, which turned out to be a little ambitious. Not only did I not have time to listen to the whole thing, but I had to keep rewinding to catch the meaning of things! However, that's not the tool's fault. I also didn't like that the player wouldn't rewind just a little bit, like a tape, but only skip to chapters, like a CD, but once again, that's not the eBook provider's fault. It did take a long time to download, but I just left my computer on overnight and when I checked it the next morning, it was all done. It didn't take nearly as long to go from the computer to my MP3 player. I think it will be exciting when all cars have MP3 jacks so we could play these eBooks through the car stereo. I've heard that some libraries out there are downloading the eBooks and renting out the MP3 player with the book on it to customers. That's certainly going above and beyond for service!!

Week 9, Thing 21

Well, these podcast sites could be addictive.
I added The Library Channel to my Bloglines account. It looks pretty interesting, and it had several podcasts on topics pertinent to my work. I didn't have a chance to go through all of them, but when I get time, I will. Unfortunately, I feel like podcasts are more entertainment than work related, because I think that sometimes they take a long time to load, and they take longer to listen to than reading the information takes. So, I don't see that much use for them at the desk, but maybe on the website as more of a marketing tool?

Week 9, Thing 20

I actually did this a while ago!! When I was on YouTube one day, I realized that I could add a video to my blog, and I did it then. At the bottom, there is a row of four images, and when you click on one, the YouTube video linked to in that image plays at the top of my blog. I chose that video because I was having a Jamie Kennedy moment, and I think he's pretty funny.
I actually think that library sites could be much more interesting and dynamic if we added videos like this. Instructional videos for how to do things at the library, funny videos explaining changes to customers, LVN ads for their videos, ads for other things we sell, like SRC t-shirts. Unfortunately, the whole bandwidth thing puts a damper on this for now. Hopefully, this will change in the near future, because most other sites have some sort of video-ish intro, at least.

Week 8, Thing 19

First of all, the awards list could be used at the information desk for many things! It would be a great home page or page to link to from FastFacts, since it covers so many things and has such a wide variety of resources in one spot. Excellent!
Anyway, libraries are already using YouTube, and I don't think they will stop. I think this could be a way to make a cheap instructional video, or perhaps LVN could put all their videos on YouTube in some sort of preview mode to encourage people to buy them. I like YouTube for the fact that it provides links to similar videos next to the one you already selected. The only bad thing is that the quality of videos is pretty bad. Hopefully there will be some way to resolve that, although I'm not sure if that's the fault of YouTube or of the user.

Week 8, Thing 18

Wow!! How did I not know about these products? I guess because I have the MS Office suite. But I do kind of love them. All the versatility of Word, none of the hassle!! Wonderful! I found some blank calendars in the Zoho Sheets tool that I am definitely going to use for my future projects! This is great - the whole 23 Things is worth it for this! Of course, can BCPL save money by not buying MS Office and using these tools instead? It may be too early for that yet, but perhaps some day!

Week 7, Thing 17

I added my blog to the list. It was a little different than using FrontPage or something like that to post something to the web. It is pretty easy, but I do like using FrontPage because it allows you to do a little more with it than some other, more limited tools like this one.
However, I do think this is nice and easy for techno newbies.