Thing # 18: Socialize!!

Social networking is fascinating! I've had a MySpace page for about three years, and a Facebook for around one year. I like both of them, although I've spent a lot more time on MySpace than Facebook. They both have their pros and cons.
The main reason I first joined was to keep in touch with friends and family. They are both great about helping you keep up with stuff; better than just email, because the information in spread out over multiple people, rather than requiring the owner of the information to notify each person individually of news and pictures and whatever.
I've looked over some of the pages of libraries, and I think they're great! I think they could be improved upon, because they don't need to be a simple extension of a webpage, but should be more dynamic and interactive.

Thing # 17: Podcasts

Podcasts are very interesting and informative radio-type shows that can be listened to whenever convenience allows. I've never really gotten too involved with them, however, mainly because I haven't taken the time.

I wandered around a couple of the pocast directories, and found some interesting things. I added one to my Reader named Let's Travel Radio. It's interesting because they have a wide variety of different programs and themes. I don't know if I'll make a habit of listening to them, but they're fun for a change.

When I was in grad school, I had to use Audacity to create an intro to a podcast. It was fun to do, and not difficult, as long as you pay attention to what you're doing.

Thing # 16: The Best time-waster ever!

I absolutely love YouTube. You can find the best (and worst) videos ever! I like music videos, and short clips from movies and tv shows.
I love FRIENDS!


I also enjoy watching Library book cart drill teams perform. Here's our drill team, the Suwannee River Rollers, performing at the Florida Library Association Conference 2008 in St. Pete, FL.

I can definitely see YouTube being a great thing to advertise library programs, give tours and orientations, and even offer reference and reader's advisory or read stories to kids. We'll have to try some of those and post them on our website.

Thing # 15: Roll it on out

Rollyo is a pretty cool search engine builder. I can see using it for shopping, travel, recipes, or even specific reference questions. I think the biggest problem is that it can be too limiting. One of the biggest points on search engines is to find websites you've never heard of. If you limit your research only to sites you already know about, you're probably missing out on a ton of great information.

Image by: jlastras

I did a search on asparagus, limiting it to recipes and health. Almost all of the hits were either http://www.allrecipes.com/ or sponsored sites that had nothing to do with my search. I like allrecipes, but it's not the only place I want to search.

I think it can be very useful, but you have to learn how to use it correctly. It's not as easy to use as Google, that's for sure!

Thing # 14: Who's productive online?

With all the cool stuff online, I can see how some of the online productivity tools can be very popular. I really don't know how much they really boost productivity, though.

All the widgets are a lot of fun and great time-wasters, but I don't see them as tools for simplifying things. I added the countdown widget to my blog (not that I'm ready to be done with 23 Things) and I found it as easy as any other html code copy/paste.

The online calendars are great. I use Google Calendar to keep my entire life organized along with the rest of my family's. I wanted to try out Scrybe, but I had to just put myself on the waiting list for it. I'm trying to find a good calendar program right now to help keep out meeting room schedulres organized. Right now, we have an old-fashioned day-by-day calendar, and it's so easy to overbook, or just have the calendar disappear of the desk.

I'm really excited about Zamzar. We don't have Office 2007 or Microsoft Works, so people who bring in files from those programs can't open them. Zamzar will (hopefully) help us out with that issue.

Overall, I think it's a lot of fun to play with this stuff, but a lot of it is a pain or a big time-waster, rather than a time-saver.

Thing # 13: Books and More Books!

I could spend days in LibraryThing. No, really, I think I could. I'm sure it's a well-known fact that most librarians love books, and I'm certainly no exception. It's a really fun way to find out what other people and libraries are reading.

There are so many uses for this website. Book clubs, small libraries, groups of friends, ...etc. could find this extremely useful. Did I mention that I love books?

So, I think this is a great way to organize personal libraries, just for the fun of it. The internet is such a cool place, and it's constantly evolving.

Thing # 12: Wiki knowledge

Wikis are great communication tools, because they're a great way to share knowledge and information without having to email. There are definitely many uses for this, and of course, the most common wiki is Wikipedia.
I know that there are two schools of thought on Wikipedia. It could be terrible trash that people just make up for kicks, or it could the wealth of human knowledge stored online. Personally, I don't believe in either extreme. There is plenty of information that is open for debate, and plenty of people defend their Wikipedia words to the death, but it is not the be all end all of knowledge.
Okay, back to wikis in general. There are plenty of uses for wikis, from recipes to teaching tips, web resources to packing lists. I don't think to use them very often, but I'll have to play with them more.

Thing #11: News and Stuff

Social Media is an interesting thing. People are always interested in knowing what other people like or don't like. This is why sites such as Digg, Reddit, Newsvine, and Mixx are so popular. Of course, there's always information available that isn't so popular or mainstream. These sites could be used as tools to create popularity for information.

I can certainly see how useful these sites would be for use in the library. You never know when a patron is going to ask about a news story, and it's always a good idea to stay informed. Of course, gossip and jokes seem to be fairly highly rated on some of these, which is not surprising at all.

I think these are probably time-wasters in many ways. It's great fun, but we can get so bogged down in any of these sites, that we can completely lose track of what's going on locally or even in the building where we are sitting.

It's an interesting problem.