Google Docs...

Oh how I love thee:) I hadn't really explored this wonderful part of google before and am very excited by what I have found. It was very easy to get started and user friendly. I was immediately thinking of ways to use this both professionally and personally. I started a spreadsheet of books I would like to read. This way the list can travel to home and work, being updated anywhere. I also started a quick list of go-to recommendations, sorted by genre and age. This will be such a blessing when I can't think of the great book I just read and would fit a customers needs perfectly. This will help out greatly. As for use throughout the library, this could easily replace the v drive, allowing employees to work anywhere on pretty much everything. It would also increase the sharing of ideas. Here @54, we have an electronic flannel library including scripts and scans of the pieces. If we uploaded this to google docs and sent a link to youth service staff they could use it and add to it, greatly increasing the number of flannels all branches would have access too. It would make creating flannels easier because you wouldn't have to come up with the pieces, just recreate them.

Learn & Play @CML wiki

I just finished up Thing #16, contributing to a wiki. I have to admit this had some confusing parts. We had to create a log in and then wait to be granted access. It would have been nice to just be able to go straight through and be able to explore, but instead I had to ask for help, then wait to explore. This was discouraging and in turn made it so that I didn't want to spend anymore time on this.

I added my blog to the favorite blogs, of course.

And my favorite quote that I added to the Favorite Quote page:

"We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even if it is only picking grapes or sorting the laundry" ~E.B. White

All in all, I think that wikis do have some value that they can add to the library experience, see my last post. And this exercise was helpful and seeing how they work and can be changed. I learned a lot, even if it was aggravating.

Learning about Wikis

Continuing on to #15 (I skipped ahead one. I'll go back, I promise...), learning about wikis. I enjoyed the Common Craft video. Always enjoyable and explains technology so well.

First I took a look at SJCPL Subject Guides. I found this very helpful. I think this would be a nice added feature to CML's Reference subject pages. The home school page is a perfect example of how we could add more relevant content to our website. I think that a wiki would be a great place to home school parent to share lesson plans and great local resources that they have found.

I really liked the Book Lovers Wiki. What a great way to get more adults involved in SRC, plus teaching about web 2.0 tools. And wow, having them integrated into their catalog, how nice.

I think the most important thing I am taking away from this exercise is how much information the public can provide to the library for us to share with others, and all this can be facilitated by using wikis.

Delicious

Ohhh, I love Delicious. Lately with all the great blogs I've been reading, I've come across many great ideas that I would love to use but had no way of keeping track of them. And Delicious is the answer. Now I can save all those great ideas I find, organize them and access them anywhere with the internet. I know that this is tool that I will continue to use. I can't wait to get home and add it to my toolbar.

I found Delicious easy to use. It was simple to add pages that I was viewing to my account and add tags. I didn't find the search tool to helpful, although I'm sure it could be to some extent. I am mostly excited about keeping track of the great ideas I see online and being able to recall them. I am daydreaming about the possibilities:)

Twitter

For thing #12, we had to explore twitter. I signed up for it. I can see how this technology could be useful. However, I don't think at this time that I'll use it for personal use.

On twitter, I searched for frugal tweets. I generally follow frugal/money saving blogs and noticed that a few could be followed on twitter. They do a quick update on twitter of deals they are showcasing on their blogs. If I had twitter set up to work on my phone, this may be a nice heads up because sometimes the deals go fast and I would be able to take advantage of them.

As far as libraries using twitter, I think it would be nice to get reserve notices this way. I hate the emails and I really hate phone calls. But a little tweet stating my books were waiting would be great! Another great use for twitter would be for branches to have accounts and send out daily tweets of that days activities and programs.

Feel free to find me. I'm RachyKate.

Library thing

Thing #11 (I am way behind) consists of setting up a library thing account. It was very easy to set up and start having fun with. I loved the recommendations and finding books to enjoy based on those I already have. I also liked the word clouds, exploring books by tags others had created. I think I will continue to use this tool to organize my ever growing collection of books.

Check out my library!

The Road Less Traveled

I had a lot of fun with Thing #10. I headed over to the Generator Blog and created a wordle of the Robert Frost poem The Road Less Traveled. I spent way to much time on this activity because it was so much fun.