#24 The End? Or Just The Beginning?

Whew! It's taken me a really, really long time to finish my 24 Things, but I made it on the very last day of my deadline. I'm such a procrastinator, but I'm proud of myself for sticking with it and accomplishing something that only a few other coworkers finished. I am one of the least computer savvy people here so almost everything was new to me. Of course, I had heard of blogs and YouTube, but didn't have a clue what an RSS feed was or what tagging was all about. My favorite things were Flickr and the online generators and Library Thing. Oh, my, gosh, I love Library Thing! It is the one thing that I continually use. And I think wikis are definitely the way to go. So how has it assisted my lifelong learning goals? Immensely. I've learned so much and I'm grateful I had the opportunity to do so. Thank you Jerianne. I am so glad I did this and would definitely do it again.

#23 Podcasts, smodcasts!

The best description I heard for podcasts was TiVo for the radio. I love being able to listen to my favorite radio shows so I added feeds forNPR's "Splendid Table" and "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" through Podcast Alley. Since we were asked to look for something library related I went to Learn Out Loud and added "Booktalks Quick and Simple" by Nancy Keane.

#22 Downloading audios and videos

I don't listen to audiobooks so I probably won't download anything from R.E.A.D.S.;however, I did search for and found "The curious case of Benjamin Button" which is popular now because of the movie. I think it's a great service and I have a story to tell about introducing a patron to it. He had been listening to books on our Playaways and asked if we had any new ones. We didn't, so I told him about R.E.A.D.S. His wife helped him download a couple of things and he was hooked. The last time I saw him he showed me what he was listening to so it makes me feel good to know that I was able to introduce a patron to a program that he absolutely loves.

I watched a travel video from MyLibraryDV earlier in our 24 Things when we were exploring online resources. This is not the place to find current hit movies, but it does offer some popular series such as Antiques Roadshow, Globe Trekker, and Michael Chiarello's Napa and a smattering of foreign films from Film Movement. I think it's a service worth having and you can't beat the cost.

#21 You too can YouTube

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This is called "Faith the two-legged wonder dog" and is something I read about just the other day so I decided to check it out. Faith was born with two deformed front legs and has learned to walk upright like a human.



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#20 Discovering other Web 2.0 tools

Okay, I'm in a hurry to finish my goal so I'll admit I cheated. I picked something I'm already familiar with -- WorldCat. I use it to search for records when I'm cataloging zines. All you do is search for a title (or author) and if you get a hit then you select the library that holds that item. I don't find a lot of titles but when I do it's nice to be able to look at them in a marc format. Not all libraries offer marc records and some others have skimpy records, but it's still a great source and definitely worth using.

#19 Social networking

I like the blogs that Bangor Public Library uses : I think it's a great way to promote the library so why not use it? I checked out Bookspoke and read a review that made me sort of nostalgic for the Mary Stewart books I read a long time ago. I also looked up someone I knew on MySpace and was amazed at the things people write about themselves. I guess it's fun if you have the time to devote to it. I didn't create an account so I couldn't look at Facebook, but maybe I will go back to it.

#18 Web-Based Apps

I tried Google Docs and set up an account but couldn't seem to get it verified. It did allow me to continue working so I used the spreadsheet to create a volunteer list for a work event. I did the same thing with Zoho Writer and also created a document for a work manual but couldn't publish the document to my blog. Even though I hit a couple of snags, I can see how either one would be great for collaborative projects.