Thing #12: Wikis

I'm not sure if I'm a fan of wikis personally but can see why people like them. I think it would be neat to have one for central employee information, like staff policy and procedures, that way it is available to everyone and staff members wouldn't have to locate the policy book; they could look right online. Also, trainings staff and public, you could have the information and handouts available after the training....no one get any wise ideas and vote me to be the creator of one...lol

Thing #11: Social Media

I looked at the different social media sites and I prefer Digg. It's very user friendly and nicely put together. Everything on it is easy to find the layout is nice and flows easy.

With all that for library use I'm not sure how this would benefit us, I might could use it for information for my public access classes, not really sure what else though right now...although I haven't had breakfast so my brain is running a little slow right now. I think its just a nice site to go to for news and information. If anyone has any suggestions let me know.

Thing #10: Tagging

Well I just got through tagging all my posts so hopefully they will be easy to find. I created my delicious account now so I'm adding things to it. I like the handy button that is on my Firefox browser, makes it a lot easier to add stuff. I think this would be great for our library system to use to share with the other staff members. Everyone could have the capability to add to it and see what other staff members have added. This would be good for children's sites for the youth services to share between them, easier than emailing favorite sites or calling. Circulation could use them for most visited sites and for e-gov things.

Thing #9: Challenge

I'm following a fellow co-worker and have added a list of my favorite books using 22 books. Very simple, had trouble finding a good spot for it, let me know you can think of a better place.

Thing #9: Sharing

I created this slideshow from PictureTrail. The pictures are of our director getting the resolution signed by our county commissioners to make February The Big Read month, The Big Read kickoff and other Big Read events going on around our county. For the entire month of February our library is participating in The Big Read by having book dicussions and movies and other events across Suwannee County. You can click here to check out the full schedule (just a small plug for the program). Anyway I will be adding more pictures of The Big Read to the slideshow as I get them this month.

I liked PictureTrail, it reminds me of Myspace with all the glitter and glam you can add to each thing you create. I didn't create one but I liked the site slideshare, this will be great for me to share presentations with the people I teach in my computer classes, I can post them to that and then after they take my class if they want they can view the presentation again for a refresher. This will also work for people who don't have PowerPoint, to make it where they can see presentations or for how-to tutorials to add to webpages.

Thing #8: Communication-Web 2.0 Style

Well, our email is set that each library member has one and also one for each branch library that is on our individual web page that is used for reference questions (that one I don't know how they have it set up i.e. folders, etc.). I know that we are supposed to check our emails at least twice a day if we have time than more. Mine email though, is setup with folders, each for specific topics that I get emails about all the time. I looked to see if mine has filters but I didn't see any, I use Microsoft Outlook 2003.

I setup yahoo messenger...not sure if I will use it though, I don't really have a use for it that I know of (I work in technical services) and I don't use it for personal things either. I think that it will be good for reference questions I know our branches would probably either have to hire a full or part time reference librarian or set aside time for someone to do that, like advertise on our website that during a certain time from like 3-5 pm you can instant message a real librarian for help) or something like that. Then the rest of the time when people instant message it will be like email, the messages will set there until you read them and respond. It would be neat to do a different way of communicating for sure.

I tried to text message to my email and it didn't work, I'm sure there is some sort of setting because it said that it thought it was spam, I think once you got it to work probably it would be okay, it goes hand in hand with instant messanging and email, still you would have to have someone set aside time to check the messages. All the more ways to bring the library into the 21st century. I usually use it for personal things, like texting my husband. Other than that I never used it for reference questions before...and I'm sure my branch manager will love this...I've never used Ask-A-Librarian either...don't flog me!

Web conferencing is great! I love web conferencing, especially when you can't make it to a location for a workshop or if you're trying to cut down on expenses. I've been in web conferences through NEFLIN and actually went through the training on how to use it. It was great. To me I don't really have to have the face to face aspect of workshops, I work well with just listening, plus you still get to see what people are asking and what the presentation is about, minus looking at the people and if you have the mic capability you still get to hear peoples questions. Still I like it. We are actually looking at using OPAL to host staff meetings and possibly staff workshops in the future. Which would cut down on travel costs and also our branches are so far from each other, the farther est being about 45 minutes away one way, this would help us come together without having to leave our buildings.

I haven't watched a webinar yet, but I will blog about it when I do.