Reflections...

I am really glad that I decided to do this program. I learned about a lot of resources that I didn't know much about. This program also helped me to learn to give things a chance. I think that I am somewhat stubborn about new technology things - but this helped me get over that a little bit. I do believe strongly in web 2.0 points of access for libraries and I would love to do this with my staff. Honestly, though, having to do all 23 things during SRP was a bit much. I think that maybe on a smaller scale and at a different time, this would work really well. I also think that it would work well with an adult or teen group of patrons.

Thank you to everyone who moderated this exercise and made it possible!

23 Things for the Staff

I think that doing a 23 things for the staff at my library would be a wonderful thing. There are so many different ways of communicating with our communities and even if we don't institute all of them, it is helpful to know what's out there so that we are able to make educated choices about which ones we want to use. I also think that the blogs and RSS feeds are especially helpful for professional development. I think that it would be nice to have the whole staff go through this together. It could enable group discussions on some of the topics and this could lead to a greater understanding of these tools in general.

Podcasts

I think that one of the biggest issues with creating podcasts for our library would be staff time. I don't know that we have enough extra time in the week to prepare for and create a podcast. And I honestly don't know whether people would really listen to them, whether it would be worth the effort. If we were going to do podcasts I guess maybe book reviews or storytimes or updates on programs might be things that patrons would be interested in. But I honestly don't feel that at this time we would get many people listening to them and as such I don't feel that it would be worth our staff time. This is not to say, or course, that it isn't wonderful for other libraries. I believe that we should reach out to the public in every way that we can, but, naturally, every library is dealing with different demographics, budgets, staff, etc.

Youtube

I have used youtube a fair amount and have a general idea about what it is. I have also looked at many of the library videos out there. Many of them are quite good and some are pretty funny. I think they are cool and would be fun to make at my library. Although honestly, I don't know how effective they are at reaching out to the public. I doubt that the average person sitting at home watching youtube is going to search for library videos. And even if they do happen to stumble across a library video - is that going to make them rush out to their nearest library? I think that one thing it can do is help to change people's attitudes towards libraries. Especially for the people involved in making them. I think that the making of a youtube video with your teens will do more for the library then someone just happening to catch the video online.

Google Docs

I looked into Google Docs this evening. There are a lot of nice features on it. Our instructions tell us that "The real power of Google Docs comes into play when you share them with other people..." I initially thought that people had to create an account to look at/edit your document - but you can change the settings so that anyone you invite can view your document without an account, which is nice. One advantage that I do see is that not everyone has MS Word (or your particular word processing program) on their computer. With Google docs you wouldn't have to worry about someone else not being able to open your document (or you not being able to open it on another computer). Also, another advantage might be that your document would be saved on Google docs and you wouldn't have to worry about carrying a flash drive with you or a computer malfunction. Hopefully, your document would be safe there. I don't know if I will use Google docs in the future or not - but I can see some advantages to it.

Wikis

I liked this assignment - it was fun to make the wiki pages and really pretty easy. I use wikipedia somewhat regularly. It is a good way to get a general idea about a subject that you know nothing about. Obviously it is not authoritative considering it's public editing, but I think that if you keep that in mind it can be a good resource.

LibWorm

When I first started looking at this - I was kind of thinking that it was just another rss feed link to a list of blogs that I don't have time to read. I'm feeling a little overwhelmed by all the information that is out there. But when I started playing around with it a little bit, I really found the articles and blogs to be very informative. It can be very difficult to wade through all the information that is available on the web and I have definitely felt that to be true when using some of the other 23 things. However, I do think that Libworm really cuts through that and gives you directed information that is very useful. I think that libworm would be a good tool for library news and I think that it is something I would use in the future.