#20. Podcasts (week 11)

I subscribed to a food podcast. It has recipes and general cooking tips. It's pretty interesting.

Podcasts are another good way to quickly get valuable information to wide audience. It is hard for me to commit to checking something like a podcast or a bloglines account regularly. I barely have time to check a couple of websites, when I group everything of interest together in one spot, it is great for organization purposes, but if i read it all I would never get any work done. Hence, my bloglines account is overflowing with interesting tidbits of news that I will probably never get to read. I have a feeling that the same thing will happen with my podcasts.

Podcasts are a great idea, but I think the only way that I could get into using them more is if I synced up the podcasts that I subscribe to with my ipod. That way I could listen to them on the go.

#19. YouTube (week 11)

I found that most of the interfaces for the video sites were pretty similar. Youtube is still my favorite, but that is mostly because I have used that one for the longest. One of my favorite things to use youtube for is music. Not only can you find original songs, but a lot of times there are instructional videos for learning to play songs too. I also looked up a few recipes.

Youtube could be used many different ways in the library. One of the articles I read for the 23 Things talked about librarians training the patron to use all of the services that the library offers in order to get the most out of their library experience. Well, we could make training videos and post them on youtube. This would allow patrons to train on their own time, and it would save the librarians loads of time, because they only have to do the training one time. I am mean we could even pair training videos with IMs so that if a patron has a question about the video it could be answered right away by a staff member.

#18. Firefox Add-ons and Extensions (week 10)

I had no problems adding the Cruzcat search to my tool bar. I was also pleased to see some of my favorite websites also had search bars, so I also added expedia, amazon, flickr, and imdb to my tool bar. I think that these little search bars make it very easy for the patron to quickly check to see if we have a book that they want to check out. This function makes it very easy for those outside of the library to check our holdings, again making the library more accessible. This is a great little add on, that I will likely use often. I have to do a lot of holdings checks and that search bar will make life a little easier.

#17. Online Applications & Tools (week 10)

Zoho writer was so easy to use. Everything was straight forward and everything worked the first time. I had absolutely no trouble uploading a large word document. I think that sometimes great technologies can be cheapened because they are difficult to use. This is not the case with Zoho. I wish that I had known about Zoho when I had classes that required peer reviewed papers, it would have made life so much easier.

#16. Library 2.0 (week 9)

Michael Stephens brings up a really interesting point that I completely agree with. He says that libraries/librarians need to make good, fast decisions, regarding technology. I think that speed is very important when dealing with technology. There are new niches create on the web every day, some of these could be extremely useful in the library environment. But if these new technologies are not incorporated into the library quickly and made available to patrons then we run the risk of missing out on the benefits that these new things could bring to the library user.

To me Library 2.0 is a way to make libraries a more relevant. Incorporating these new technologies makes the library more accessible, and will make the overall library experience more fulfilling for the patron, which is what libraries are all about, right? I think that the 23 things that we are doing right now is equally as important as the technology that we are learning about. Closing the gap in "tech" knowledge between the patron and the librarian is the only way to make the technology work for us. After all, if the librarians don't know about it, how can we incorporate it into the library?

#15. Custom search engines (week 9): Rollyo and Google Custom Search

This was my first experience with custom search engines. I decided to make a search engine to help me follow my favorite sports team, The Ohio State Buckeyes. Since I live on the West Coast now I have trouble staying on top of the latest Buckeye football news. So I entered a few sites that I know have some good information, and I also expanded the search to include sites that I didn't list, the results were fantastic.

This is another piece of technology that makes student life much easier. The ability to filter internet search results that easily makes custom search engine very valuable to those doing research online. Had I know about these sites a couple of years ago, I would have had a much easier time researching paper topics.

#14. Instant Messaging and VoIP (week 8)

This was not my first time using IMs. I have been using them for many years, I have had an AOL IM account for awhile and use it pretty frequently.

IMing in the library could be very helpful. The one good use of it would be for staffers to communicate amongst each other. It's quick, it's easy, and it's informal. It's a great to ask a co-worker a quick question, and it's less intrusive than a phone call.

Another way to use IMing in the library is as a "virtual reference desk". All we need to do is have one person replying to questions that may come in from patrons. We have a wireless network, people bring their laptops to the library, so this would allow them to seek help from anywhere with out having to physically be at the reference desk.