At long last, Thing 23

Yippee!! I'm finally done. And I'm really glad I kept going. This was a really interesting, albeit frustrating, set of experiences. I'm pretty sure that I won't ever think about, much less use, many of these things. But it's really nice to know the language that our users are coming to us with, and to be acquainted with the types of technologies they're using. I'll probably try to keep up my Facebook account, and my Good Reads account, but we'll see if my resolve lasts past the end of the week. Not sure if the Blog will continue or not. Thanks to Metronet, etc. for sponsoring this, and I'm looking forward to more Things in my future.

Thing 22--keeping up

I've been following some of the suggested blogs for some time in my Bloglines account, especially Tame the Web by the extremely voluble Michael Stephens, and Library Trainer by Lori Reed of the Charlotte/Mecklenburg County Public Library, which deals specifically with training around Library 2.0 and Web 2.0, along with things like the LJ Insider, and several from various parts of ALA, and of course the Minitex Reference Services one. I've now subscribed to Library Stuff as a way to keep up with more general library news. We'll see if I can keep up with that one any better than I can with Michael or Stephen Abrams.
Almost done!!

Thing 21--other social networks

If I spent as much time exploring these other social networks as I'd like, I wouldn't have time to actually have a life worth revealing to my friends on these other social networks. Ah, the irony! Of course, I'm not sure that even without spending any time at all on the social networks would mean that I'd have a life worth revealing to my friends on the social networks. That being said, I played with the Good Reads site, and think I like it better than LibraryThing. I thought I linked it to my Facebook page as a list of what I'd read, but I couldn't find it, so I'll have to try again. I also played with Gather.com--especially the MPR version of it, and linked to Flixter to check how "movie compatible" I am with some of my facebook friends. I'm thinking the only one that I might keep up with is the Good Reads listing of what I've read, but that would involve trying to remeber to go in and update my list every week or so, which, given my advancing years and retreating memory, might be a stretch.
On to 22.

Thing 20--Facebook

Well, I set up my Facebook account, and within 2 hours, I had invites to be friends with 5 people, and now, three days later, I've got 14 friends (more than might admit to it in real life). Although I have to admit that my daughter is a reluctant friend--she'd rather I didn't snoop in her account, and really, I'd rather not know most of what she's writing about. I can see the utility of this for far-flung friends like my daughter's now-dispersed college crowd, but since I see most of my "friends" on almost a daily basis, I'm not sure how much I'll use it. The other reason I may not is that it will remind me all the more forcefully just how dull and boring my life really is. And since it's dull and boring to me, imagine how dull and boring it'll seem to those who have chosen to befriend me. It may be their lives will seem all the more rich and fulfilling in comparison. In which case, I guess that it does have some utility after all.
I'll probably spend some time exploring the site and the add ons over the next couple of weeks. I did join the Libraries and Librarian and the ALA groups today, and will watch to see what happens with those. I'm also intrigued by the photo sharing possibilities, and will think about how I might load my Europe pictures to share them with those who have expressed interest in seeing them. But as I said, they'll probably be surprised at how dull and boring Europe can seem when seen through my eyes and camera lens.
Only three more. I'm gonna make it after all. (I wonder if I can find a sound clip of that line from the Mary Tyler Moore theme song. More than likely. But I'm gonna go home instead.) On to 21

thing 19--podcasts

I've listened to individual podcasts in the past on specific topics in which I was interested as they came to my attention, but I've never really gone looking for them before. I looked at some of the podcasts from Minitex and MPR, and at a couple of the directories. I can't see myself using the directories, because I can't see myself going looking specifically for a podcast on any topic. I'm happy to listen to them if I run across them in an information search, but the idea that I would start with the idea that there might be a podcast on a topic I'm researching, and then go to one of the directories to find one, seems unlikely. I did add the podcast for skits from The Morning Show to my Google Reader account, and tried to add NPR's podcast of Daniel Pinkwater's reviews of children's books from Weekend Edition, but it seems not to be currently produced. It showed up in my Google list with podcasts about sports with Frank Deford. So I unsubscribed. Besides, there's already too many blog postings in both my Bloglines and my Google Reader accounts to keep up with, so I don't want to add too many podcasts there that would sit there guilting me out.
I'm up to 20!!! Yeah!!!

Thing 18--Youtube

Stop me! Stop me now before I watch another Obama Girl video. I have a feeling, I could really get sucked into this one. This is by far the most fun of the things. I watched A LOT of video, and had to stop myself from watching more. It also best shows the dichotomy of the web. Lots of really creative stuff with no real value other than simple amusement--like the Obama Girl series--although I suppose there is value in simple amusement. And then there's lots of interesting and valuable historical footage--like the Minneapolis bridge collapse, and a short excerpt from a history of television comedy from the early 60's narrated by Ernie Kovacs. And then there's stuff like this really creative introduction to a local library in Nebraska. I think it's really clever.





I'll probably explore YouTube more on my own, but I'm seriously concerned that I'll spend way too much time at it, so I'll have to be careful.

On to 19 and podcasts.

Thing 17 completed

Well, not entirely, but completed enough to move ahead with 18. I tried the Ebsco page composer and got it mostly, but I couldn't get the photo into the web page. I know that playing around some more would help, but I didn't have the time. I did the Proquest web page and that worked slick. I can see using that to share articles with patrons as well as with colleagues. The ability to send whole search strategies and results as one web page rather than as a bunch of individual emails is actually really cool.

I've got an account at NetLibrary and have used it for both ebooks and downloadable audiobooks. I haven't used the notes feature, and with the way I use it, am not sure I would ever need to, but it's nice to be able to mention in my working with patrons using it.