Thing 7:Communication Tools

Our library has been using email for 25 years. In fact our "telephone" service when we had DRA was Instant Messaging. I spent many hours "talking" with people at SELCO regarding ILS and cataloging. I send many email messages each day to staff and they are reminded to check email when coming on for a shift. We also have Ask a Librarian on our website and get several questions a week locally and from far away. I have been IMing with my two sons who are in college for a couple years, although they seem to use this less and less. IM would not work very well with our staff since we move around too much to different computers. I leave my email open all day and know when someone is sending me mail. I have done a few text messages on my cell, but prefer to call and if the person doesn't answer leave voice mail. It is a lot faster than typing all that I want to say! [Yes my age is showing]

Thing 6: Online Image Generators

Another fun and useful thing for generating publicity!

Thing 5: More Flickr Fun

Thanks for the warning. It is very easy to spend a lot of time playing with these tools! Publicity is a challenge and visuals are important. These would be valuable free sources for promoting events!

Thing 4: Flickr

That was fun. See all the work that is piling up! Since I don't have a digital camera this was ALL new. Fortunately John helped me get the pictures from the camera to the computer! You could spend all day looking at photos. Some lovely shots from around Owatonna in the Library of Congress site. Tags are a continuation of adding subject headings in cataloging. I did figure out you have to use quotation marks if you want a phrase i.e. "23 things on a stick". I wonder if the picture is supposed to show or if the box with the little x is enough???

Thing 3. RSS Account & Feeds

I can see that RSS can be a time-saving device, but having to set up more accounts and remember names and passwords (even when you try to use the same one) is very confusing.
I still am not convinced that I have the time to read all the stuff coming in. I have spent another 10 days on all of the readings, etc. I haven't found anything to be addicting at this point.

Thing 2:What is Library 2.0

My goodness that was alot of reading and linking and digging farther into the concept of Library2.0.

I thought I could take 1 or 2 hours a week from my time off of the desk to finish "a Thing", but that doesn't seem to do it. Therefore we add another thing [no pun intended] to our plates and something else suffers. When do we have time to order, weed, arrange for programs and publicize them, et. al???

I am participating, because I realize technology is constantly changing and I am way behind. It is not a priority of mine to keep up, but I at least need to be aware of what these terms mean and can make an informed decision about what is really necessary for the community we serve.

The internet gobbles time like nothing else. The vastness is overwhelming.

On scale of 1-10 (10 being high), I am about a 1. I don't feel our library is much over that either. It would be interesting to hear how an expert in the field would rate us, since often times we are more critical of ourselves than others.

I am looking forward to see how my views change after exploring 23 Things.

Thing1

Whew! I did it! It only took about 4 hours. I wonder if my e-mail address should be showing. Hmmm. I had fun with the Avatars although a question did arise when the directions said to Copy the code to LAYOUT and my Blogger Dashboard said TEMPLATE. Thanks to Aurora for letting me know they are one and the same.