Whew! What an adventure :O

Hey hey! Play to Learn is over :( But goodness, all the stuff I learned!

First off, Bloglines has become my favorite discovery of this whole program. I used to spend so much time catching up on things and getting frustrated when I missed an important post. Now, not only can I organize everything into categories, I can add things like library blogs and art blogs easily and keep track of them. It's something that is going to help me learn a lot of new things for a very long time to come.

It really surprised me that, once you sit down and think on it, so much online content and applications can be used in the library system. Going into this program I would have never thought of using something like Myspace or Flickr as a tool for patrons. Sitting down and brainstorming, though, I realised all the possibilities to expand resources to our patrons, and pretty much for free!

I know in the future I'll be reading back over my posts and the PTL to remember all the nifty and fun things I learned. I always considered myself pretty adept at the Internet and such, but thanks to this program I found all sorts of new places and technologies. :)

Now we just have to see about implementing some of these ideas. I'm just a page, so I'm not usually privvy to any planning of events or library ideas, but now I know if they need help with putting into action any of these things, I can step up and volunteer help, plus I'll be informed enough to help patrons who might have questions! You never know when another employee or patron might need help, which is why I feel so good about being informed and learning everything that went on in this program!

I would definitely participate in any future PTL or similar programs! Knowledge and learning helps everyone in every role grow, which makes the team better than ever!

invasion of the podcasts

Podcasts are something really new to me, since I didn't believe it would interest me, or that I had time to listen. Then I realised how much I love NPR, plus often I am drawing at home or doing crafts and get tired of the same old music in the background.

First, I looked around the Yahoo search and found a site called soundroots.org, which showcases a lot of music from around the world. It looks very interesting.

I also did a search on podcast.net and found a Japanese culture podcast which talks about learning the language, proverbs, people's experiences in the cities and so on. I love learning about Asia, and can read some Japanese, so I thought this might be good to further my study of the language. I added another Japanese language learning course just to compare them when I get home.

I think something like this would be great for libraries, but you'd have to make sure you had someone with a nice voice, and add a little bit of humor to keep it interesting. You could plan a course on a subject and end it with a big event at the library.

You could do, say, a 4 week program about one of the eras from American Girl, have readings from the books, talk about the time period and what children did for fun, perhaps even have music from that time period. Remind the patrons listening that they can come in and find not only American Girl books but books on that era too, and have a display in the library with the books and info on the podcast so patrons on this side can join the listeners. Then, at the end of the course, have an in library party with crafts from that time period, maybe some snacks and a prize given out to those who could answer a short quiz based on the podcast. This way you are reaching out to bring the patrons who come in and the ones who use the internet together in a fun activity.

youtube and more! wheee~

Oh goodness I watch so much stuff on Youtube its crazy. I don't go for the blog like post much, but everything from strange advertisements to cartoons to funny skits...

Here are two videos featuring a hobby I have loved for years: Super Dollfie collecting. Japanorama is a British television show which goes over the strange, odd things that come out of Japan. (Such as hugely expensive customizable dolls haha)



Here is a news cast showing a "Doll's Party" which is a huge convention sponsered by Volks, the main company that creates this whole phenomena. The owner of the video has disabled embedding, so you'll have to pop over to see. It's in Japanese (but is subtitled in English)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkXODboqQms

and for something COMPLETELY different - The song Thriller as done by India:

web 2.0 awards

It was easy playing with all the nifty applications and seeing what was out there. Personally, I loved colorblender.com because it will help me with art. But I couldn't really see a use for it in libraries unless you were teaching a color theory class.

43 things could be useful if you used it as a sort of ongoing program. You could have a series of classes dealing with setting goals and then use the site to help people follow through on them.

Things like One Sentence could be used in creative writing classes.

Untitled

This is a test of the Zoho Writing System!

 

I think something like this would be great for libraries in different states or even countries to work on a project together. You could even assign different colors to participants so you can see who edited what when.  Say you have a large German population in your city and there is the mother of all Oktoberfests going on in Germany. You could have people there write, post pictures, etc to a document that you can print out and display for your patrons.

 

Or say you want to hold a program about exotic animals. You can ask your own staff to not just submit ideas but write their own paragraphs. That way everyone comes together as a team and you end up with a cute little book of weird animals for kids to look at. (My vote goes to the okapi!)

 

wikiwikiwiki

I have always loved wikis, simply because they bring together a group of people to share knowledge and ideas.

I think a wiki for a library would be a good way to have conversations between the staff. Say you have a children's event about dragons. You could put something up to ask for ideas. Someone could add links to dragon mythology sites (which you could then tag on delicious for the kids to enjoy, too) Or someone might say "hmm, I saw a good medieval craft site for a dragon mask" and link that, so now you have a craft to do just by throwing out ideas and having people chime in.

You could set up a wiki for the Friends of the library to communicate and share ideas and organize book sales. Or the genealogy group could share their favorite links, strategies and ideas for searching online or off. You could have a local history page where you can post reminisces from older patrons about days gone by, with scans of old postcards and photos all shared by the community for today's youth and such to enjoy.

week 7: a tagging we shall go!

Almost everyone I know uses delicious (I can never remember where the dots go) I have not had a chance to really check it out before now. I added a billion things to Bloglines and have a couple other web places I visit, but I think as a library something like this would be really useful. Imagine having an event on say, alligators, and using delicious to find links on gators or Florida wildlife so kids could look up information before and after. There is only so much you can pass on to kids in an hour or so, right? Something like this would allow them to browse many other resources. Or, for genealogy you could post a tag focusing on census records, local town pages that might have history, and then the patron could use delicious to search along as their whim, almost like a wiki, going from tag idea to idea.

I use tags on my personal blog and if I need to reference a post on something in the past, all I have to do is click the "crafts" tag or "dolls" tag. Tags are a great way to give access to a group of related posts or links without a lot of work organizing them.

With technocrati, you could customize a library blog with tags so people looking up "Florida libraries" or "libraries with youth programs" would find yours easily. If you had specialized blogs, like a "collections" blog listing new books, you could then direct people to that as well.

Wendy Schultz' article onLibrary 2.0 and beyond was interesting. Personally I don't think I would go for a virtual library, but with things like Second Life and such I can see how it would appeal to others. I think, however, there is just something in holding a book, the weight of it in your hands, the turning of pages as you lose yourself within, that a virtual world couldn't replicate. Perhaps in a Library 4.0 we would be equipped with fake "books" that plug into our USB port and get filled with whatever text we want.

John Riemer's article on bibliographic information was pretty interesting as well. I know our own electronic resources get under utilized, and I think it's just because patrons don't know about them. Sure, as college students we know the pros of researching online journals, but say a mother is looking for a medical study on her child's cold medicine. She wouldn't think to go to an online journal, I'm sure. Yet connecting all the catalogs and resources together would allow her to find that with appropiate tags. Of course, tagging everything would take a lot of manpower.

I highly disagree with Stephen's Librarian 2.0 assessment that patrons should be informed and involved in all decisions for the library. Getting their opinions and feelings for what they like in the collection, what they'd like to see improve or change, and feedback which allows us to form our own decisions is very important! However, the same thing that makes the library great - its diverse scope, mixing of communities and ideas -- would be a hinderance if patrons made decisions on how resources were used or funds allocated.

If you say have a hundred dollars and offer to buy a group of new books, one person might want the newest hardcovers in fiction. Another might suggest some older paperbacks to get the most of the money. Yet another patron might want to invest more in your special collection. Someone else might argue that more Spanish books are needed. They all have admirable and important passions, but having so many people like this could lead to confusion and perhaps even resentment if a patron feels another is being favored. Librarians and other employees stay in touch with what is popular in general, through their patrons as well as the marketplace. Who knows? Using that hundred to fund something out of left field might bring in a whole new patron set you didn't know existed!

This is why the "library 2.0" is important, you can reach those who don't usually make it down to the physical library and bring in new materials and programs in order to serve them too while keeping your current patron base.