Final thoughts

I had a lot of fun with 23 things. I'd like to say it was all fun, but...I only lie when absolutely necessary (your hair does NOT look bad!) My favorites were Library Thing and Flickr, sites I'll definitely visit again. It was interesting to see what customers are doing...though I somehow doubt they are doing a lot of this at the library since my computer wasn't able to do it. Where do I go from here? Well, I think I'll start over. Now I need to figure out this new computer on my desk and I feel like I'm starting from scratch!

I give up

I'm completely and utterly frustrated with all technology this week. Downloading songs is frustrating, downloading books is frustrating, and I just completely give up on ritzpix.com. It has so completely disappointed me that I quit; I'm not trying to get my pictures uploaded from there anymore. Here is a random picture from flickr. Go Terps!

I'm running in overdrive and not getting anywhere

So...I was hoping to have the experience that our customers have by downloading an ebook to my computer or mp3. Unfortunately, our computers at work don't have adobe ebook so I wasn't able to actually view it once I checked it out of Overdrive. It's a shame that we aren't able to use it in the library. I felt let down.

Who are the Pod people?

I played around with podcastalley, yahoo podcasts, and podcast.net. They were okay, but my favorite site by far was NPR's podcast directory. What a great way to listen to the World Cafe that I miss by being at work every day!

Can you digg it?

Looking at the list of award winners for web 2.0 was fun. It was great to see that I use and love some of these already, like google maps, craigslist (though i never use it, i just like to think about using it), youtube, and 43 things (of a different variety than our things.)
One of my favorite new finds from the list was Digg, a social news site that ranks news, videos, and podcasts by popularity of the community of viewers. Here's my favorite find from that site:

I'd rather go to the beach...

...if I'm going to get sandy. The sandbox was okay. I miss talking to real people.

Wikis

Like I said in an earlier post, I have no problem with wikis. I don't encourage others to use them, but I do use them myself. I'm a huuuuuuge talker (really, Julie? you?) and what I love about a wiki is that it's like talking to someone. I can think "what is Helen talking about?" when she tells me stories of the Tour de France and if she's not around I can go to wikipedia and find out. And they talk to me like I am a moron. I love that. And if I were to consider using the information I find on a wiki, I could just verify through Helen (or another valid reference material) that it's correct first.

I played around a little with what some libraries are doing with wikis and found a wiki that links you to library blogs. I loved that! Harford County has some great blogs, including one for book clubs and one for teens. Now I can actually go back to technorati with a favorite blog. Who knew?

Zo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

I tried Zoho and Google docs and I know (I know!) that I am a lover of all things google and so was already prejudiced before I started...but...that being said, I was not a fan of Zoho. If I were doing my resume (why would I be doing that?) or creating viewable documents for the web (why would I be doing that?) it might be a nice way to access it anywhere without a USB, but for just at-my-desk typing of documents, I liked the simplicity of google docs. I tried to import my google document to Zoho and just couldn't figure it out. I ended up saving it as an openoffice document and importing it from there and it seemed like a colossal waste of my time. I'm sure it was user error, but still...I need intuitive stuff.

Web 2.0 etc.

Hooooo boy! First of all, I don't know half of what these people are saying, and, second of all, the parts I do get: zzzzzzzz. But, that being said, I loved this quote from Paul Graham.

"The second big element of Web 2.0 is democracy. We now have several examples to prove that amateurs can surpass professionals, when they have the right kind of system to channel their efforts. Wikipedia may be the most famous. Experts have given Wikipedia middling reviews, but they miss the critical point: it's good enough. And it's free, which means people actually read it. On the web, articles you have to pay for might as well not exist. Even if you were willing to pay to read them yourself, you can't link to them. They're not part of the conversation."

Now, I'm not the world's biggest fan of wikipedia and I don't recommend it for homework assignments, but I will reveal an embarrassing secret. (shhhh...come closer...I use it all the time...if I don't know what the heck somebody's talking about...which happens a lot...this is the best place for me to go so that I don't feel like such an idiot...)

As for Library 2.0, though, I love it! My coworker April was just telling me about a commercial she saw where two guys are talking about how quiet their cars are and one tells the other his is "library quiet." Ha! Much as the library is changing in a physical way, we are evolving in so many other ways. But we have a lot of work to do. These tasks, the 23 things, are a great start.

“Ask yourself if your library is ready for this type of shift [in technology], because, overwhelmingly, the answer is no,” writes Jenny Levine of the Shifted Librarian blog and the American Library Association. “Librarians just aren't thinking like this yet, and we need to change this. It's at the very core of the whole 'Library 2.0' discussion, and this is why it's so critical. If we keep our content locked up on our own web sites and don't get it out there for people to use as they want to use it, then our content will fall by the wayside.”
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6365200.html

Yum, that was delicious!

I loved everything about del.icio.us, except the name. I'm not trying to be picky, it's just that I have this inability to read it and actually think the word delicious. (My obsessive-compulsive side reads it dell-ickyo-us. It's like a Harry Potter spell or something.)
Anyway...this was a great site for me. Since my old computer died, I've been using a laptop where I don't have the authority to save anything--even bookmarks! So this is a lifesaver!

Roll yo ducks

Have you ever needed to search for a specific rubber ducky and found that there were just too many sites to browse? Well, your worries are over! Say, for example, that you were looking for that elusive vampire duck (thanks, Kristy) and just didn't know where to begin. Try my rollyo rubber ducky search engine and you will find just what you need! Will I use rollyo again? Doubtful. I think you limit yourself and set yourself up for missing information. Was it fun? Ummm...kind of.

Technorati

I added three blogs to my favorites in technorati, but to be honest, I had to make them up. I don't actually have any favorite blogs. Except this one, of course, Jaye! If I were a blog junkie (Alan), I would love this!

Merlin and his friends

I don't think I'll use these feeds. I'm sure someone somewhere enjoys library blogs, but...not me. On the positive side, there was a whole lot of work put into Merlin. I also tried a few of the others, like feedster and syndic8, but don't see myself checking those feeds regularly enough to warrant signing up.

Maybe I should take up bowling...

I had a little too much fun using library thing. I need to get a hobby.

It's Wee Mee (and the real me...Bossy Bear!)