Tweet!

I signed up for Twitter and tweeted a couple times. Hmmmm....not sure what I think. I think it is kind of dumb. I did a search for Lincoln City Libraries and found my friend Kathryn commenting on her practicum attendance at our inservice day this past spring. It was kind of fun to read through her previous tweets but were these things I need constant updating about? Love you Kathryn, but I don't think so.

I'm intrigued by the British PM tweeting. How could we use this in libraries? I think it would be awesome if our director would tweet throughout the day and keep staff updated on what's doing on with Admin.

Thing 12 - LibraryThing

Am I a bad librarian if I view LibraryThing as one more thing to keep track of? I created an account and added my books, but I can't see myself doing the social networking thing on here. I can see library uses for the tool however. Keeping book lists, providing lists for customers, etc. As for me, I have my way cool paper journal I keep my book lists in.

I am considering adding Internet to my phone so I can update my Facebook account when away from a computer. boy - my priorities are messed up!

Thing 11

Blogging about technology........
Technology can be great when it is useful rather than just a new "toy." I HATE it when someone or an organization gets a new tool, device, or form a technology just because it is cool and they don't have a planned use for it before they get it.

We use a wiki at work to track all of our youth volunteers, their schedules, tasks, etc. This is useful because any staff member can get on the wiki and use the information there to supervise our volunteers.

Another example is from a conversation I had with my aunt this morning. She just last week went to one of the public libraries in the Twin Cities for a class and was SO excited. She said to me, "did you know about databases?! I didn't know libraries were so cool!"

On the other hand, I see no use (in my life anyway) for Twitter, useless blogs, etc. I will admit to being a Facebook addict however! ;)

Thing 10

Create Fake Magazine Covers with your own picture at MagMyPic.com

Thing 9

Thing 8

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lincolnlibraries/291578537/#blogthis

Here is a pic from a chocolate display at our branch a couple years ago. YUM!

I had a hard time finding a picture on Flickr in the general "pool" of pictures with the Blog This function, but when I went to my own Flickr account the first picture of mine I looked at had this capability. Is this something Flickr users set for each picture or am I just a poor searcher? :(

Thing 7

It was interesting to look at the various tools to help find blogs to subscribe to. I've always just relied on plain dumb luck to find blogs I was interested in. I didn't add any today as I already get more feeds than I can keep up with. Who has time to read all this stuff and still work? At what point to do we reach info overload? There is some really good stuff out there but my Bloglines account is starting to look like that pile of professional journals I keep meaning to read and never get to. ;P

We do need to know these kinds of things because this is how many in the world get their information now. And if libraries are going to the curve or even be ahead of the curve, we need to be in the know. What was confusing about this? The search tools homepages seemed "busy" and you really had to be committed to searching through them. I'm somewhat surprised by this when you think about the "clean" look of Google, and we know how successful Google is!

Thing 6

I already had a bloglines account set up but have let the feeds acquire over the past many months. As part of Thing 6, I opened it up and found I had something like 4000 feeds I had not yet read!
So - how can libraries utilize RSS? Well for starters make everything on your library website a feed that your customers can subscribe to. Example: Parents can subscribe to the updates about children's programs. That way the onus isn't on them to check the library website everyday -- instead we put the information easily in front of them - yeah! You could do the same with new books, adult programming, or any other aspect of your website you update regularly.
In my personal life? It's a great way to bring the info to me without me having to do any work. Love that!

Thing 5 - Instant Messaging

I spent some time today IM-ing with Ms. Allana at the NLC (Hi Allana!). I had no idea GoogleTalk existed -- is there anything Google isn't involved in?

To me, IM is the precursor to texting. Same type of thing -- short messages with abbreviations to communicate in sound bytes rather than in paragraphs. I think this is great when sending an entire e-mail will take too long or isn't necessary. The drawback is the other person has to be online. This is not true with e-mail or texting.

I don't use IM in my personal life, texting is much more convenient. I can see using IM at work with a group of people stuck in various offices. It is probably a good option for people contacting the library with questions, but I think text is an even better option because the customer isn't tied to a computer.

Begin with end in mind

Perhaps the hardest thing for me in this process will be to begin with the end in mind. I'm not entirely sure what my personal goal is for this adventure. Becoming more aware and better able to help library customers - sure. Perhaps a focus of mine on this journey will be being mindful at each step of how I can use this as I work with library customers.