Exploration 9

It has been beneficial to become aware of all this new technology. I realize how much I have yet to learn. I’m the mother of 3 young adults and I have asked them about some of these things (Flickr, Twitter, and Facebook). Some they use, some they stay away from.
I have since used Flickr to post pictures to a community I belong to. I’ve been using Librything for my personal use for a few years. I use Facebook, but mainly to keep track of family pictures.
As far as helping patrons I have found Youtube to be very helpful. “How do I do ….?” can often be demonstrated there and if you are like me you need something visual to watch.
I can also say that this exercise has made me willing to try new things. We had a family emergency last month and I used my phone to take pictures and email them to a family member. This family member posted the pictures on her blog to keep the entire family updated on the situation. In less than an hour our family could check in—amazing. Until this time I had never taken a picture with my cell phone or emailed from my cell phone, and got a real sense of how quickly information can be shared. So, I’m still learning and am still amazed at what I learn.

Exploration 8: Social Websites

I’ve tried going into several of the del.icio.us tags and I seem to just get stuck in the mire or find links that are no longer available. At the same time I see the value of a shared webpage. I think this is different from some of the other things we have looked at through this exercise because of the tags. I’ve used tags for other things on other sites and often find them useful and informative. I've also found tags to be vague or too general. In the end I usually just end up using the search feature of whatever site I'm in. I guess this is another area of technology that I just have to get up to speed.

Exploration 7 Wikis

In the article "Using Wikis to Create Online Communities" I realized that I fall into the category of being "deeply embedded" with the notion of privacy. The general thought of anyone being able to edit information scary. However, I do agree with wikis that are designed for and open only to specific groups. I looked through "The Library Success" and found it interesting but still found myself wondering can I trust these people. At the same time sharing information through a wiki concerning special programming among ourselves would not only save time but perhaps increase creativity. When you see what someone has done you might take it to the next step and post that information. Perhaps in this case familiarity would breed comfort.

Online Office Tools

It's times like this when I become painfully aware of how little I know of what's available out there. There have been a number of times that I would have told a patron about this. Well, the thing is to go forward from here.

LibraryThing

I've had an account with LibraryThing and love it. Personally it allows me to write private notes as well as keep track of a variety of things like genre, date read, do I want to read etc.

I've also set up a group account for a book club I'm in. The purpose is to allow members to comment on books that we've read along with the above mentioned things. Sometimes things come to mind after the discussion is over that you would like to share with others in the group.

I'm a list person and this is an easy way to keep and share lists of books used for special programs. I have used my list for readers advisory. In that respect it's a life-saver.