Thing #9

Life Long Learning
The article '15 steps to lifelong learning' was thought provoking.
I have taken courses in Webjunction before and would like to take more in the future. I would most be interesting in exploring the computer course like powerpoint, excel and such along with customer service courses.

Thing #8

Online Apps
I could see google docs being benefitial to projects like our newsletter. It would be great if there were a place where we could log on and see the upcoming newsletter and it's progress at any time and be able to comment or make corrections like dates right then and there.

Thing #7

Wikis!
These are great. I can think of so many ways to use them. I love the group aspect to them. This is something that I might try setting up and using personally.
I went to the www.pbwiki.com site and although I didn't set one up, they said it only took 60 seconds and was free - sounds good to me!
Possibly later when I have more time, I will create an account and update the Wikipedia entry on Roselle to include the library.

Thing #6

I have used AIM in the past. It's plus side is that when you are logged in you can see who else from your contacts are logged in and can istantly communicate with them. So if you are looking for someone to chat with you can easily see who is not busy...but the down side is if you don't really want to chat with someone that can see you are online, you are kind of stuck.
I think IM refernce is a really valuable service to offer. I thought it was interesting that in the list of all the libraries offering this service Illinois has the most libraries! If possible, we should add gtalk to our trillion account.
My favorite part of Thing #6 was the list Lynn made available of the AIM acronym dictionary - very informative and useful. GTG

Podcasts

Thing #5
ENJOY!
I always seem to take the more difficult road when doing these tasks. This time I was trying to use items from youtube, didn't work. With help from Lynn, I was able to find the podcast I was looking for right from the original source, ALA focus. There are many applications for this technology, including being used by our president to keep us informed. See the website I have listed on the right from the whitehouse for both the president's blog and various podcasts.

Infinitely Wise Leader

IMG_7277
Originally uploaded by snyders.christy

Thing#4
Flickr was difficult to navigate at first, but with a lot of help from our infinitely wise Playtime 2.0 leader (pictured) I was able to upload all my pics and set up a group. Let me know if you would like an invite in my group to view all my pics of our coworkers on the job!

Thing #3

Facebook: I like the way facebook makes it so easy to communicate to a number of people all at once and have them all see the entire picture.
Example of what I mean: Last summer my son wanted to have a volleyball tournament/party in less than 24 hours. He posted the party to his facebook page and it went right out to about 40 people all at once. Because he is in the age group, 19-20 yrs., that use facebook as a part of their everyday lives, he and everyone else, heard back from all the invitees within a few short hours. I think he only had to follow up to 2 people with phone calls. In the end he had a party of some 35 or so kids and was able to shop for all the hot dogs, chips and pop he needed within 24 hours. I found that remarkable!
I think for facebook to be most effective you need to incorporate it in your everyday life as my son and his friends have. For my personal use, I don't have the time to spare and because it is not used on a daily basis by all my friends it doesn't have as much value to me as it does to my son.
I can see value for the library, it would give us a way to communicate to those in our population that do use it daily, mainly the teens and 20 somethings.
I do have concerns about safety and personal information being available for viewing to the general public, I think it is very important to use the privacy settings. I also think it would be a good idea to offer programs here at the library on safety and privacy issues related to these social network sites. Many people are not aware that they can restrict their page from others.