Thing 23: School’s Out Forever

Ha! Just kidding.
23 Things on a Stick was, in a word, well-organized.  I’m impressed with the selection of tools and how useful they will be across the many different library-types that are represented in this challenge. I enjoy blogging (have kept a personal blog since Nov 2007) and plan to keep a more-work-related blog [...]

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Thing 22: Staying Current

Playtime is good.
It is important to play with the tools and incorporate them thoughtfully into library services, and it is important to understand how they are changing behavior and expectations. For example, while YouTube is entertaining, it’s also changed the expectation that we see the video instantly. So, make downloadable videos available through [...]

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Thing 21: Social networking with teens

I would love to propose something like Gather or Ning to my Classics Book Club for teens this summer as a way to keep going over the school year. Last year they wanted to meet year round, but with my schedule and other responsibilities, I could not commit to the book club that [...]

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Thing 21: More social networking

Ugh. Ning. It feels less anonymous to me, for some reason. Plus, it looks too busy. So I have always avoided it.  I can appreciate it, but this was the first time in the Web 2.0 explorations that I felt like “oh, maaaan! one more thing I have to log into and [...]

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Thing 20: LinkedIn and MySpace and Facebook, Oh My!

My venture into the Web 2.0 world started with a MySpace account in November of 2006 to prepare for an Internet Safety training I was doing for the local community education. It was really quite fun, but also a bit anxiety-producing when I stumbled across old friends and ex-friends from high school. Should [...]

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Thing 19: Podcasts

I’m an iTunes gal, and have subscribed to a number of podcasts over the years. At my height I listened to about 30 podcasts regularly — I’m now down to 2 (The Word Nerds and Grammar Girl).
I think that podcasting is a great way to involve your patrons or audience and keep them engaged [...]

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Thing 18: YouTube

This medieval help desk video reminds me of the frustration with learning new technologies, but that we can and should embrace them….

I have used YouTube in library programs. Last year we read Project Mulberry by Linda Sue Park for the girls book club and, seeing as though I couldn’t get my hands on any [...]

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Thing 17: Database productivity tools

And the winner, by a landslide, is ProQuest.
This rocks. I mean, this ROCKS! I love Love LOVE that we can create search alerts with databases. Smart SMART move on the companies’ parts, and I think my tech-savvy patrons will be thrilled to learn about this.
But they aren’t there yet..there are some technical [...]

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