Thing 23. Final Thoughts

First I wish to thank everyone who put together the 23 Things on a Stick Program. Next, I wish to thank all of my co-workers who kindly offered me assistance. Without their help I would never have finished. I especially want to thank Carol, Heidi, and Adele. Although I did learn about new technological advances all in all this was a very frustrating experience that took up way too much of my time. I will continue to Blog but I will pick and choose what I work on and when. Thanks again.

Thinig 21. Part 2

I read the articles on Gather and Web Junction. I am not convinced that Gather will become the new MySpace for books but I will keep checking it out in the future. As a result of reading these two articles I do plan on looking at social sites for genealogy and crafts. I also joined NING and uploaded two videos. I really like the video "The First Help Desk ", about a befuddled monk who needs a co-worker to help him understand the "new technology" of a book, as opposed to a scroll. Sometimes I feel like the monk. It took a long time to finally get a NING badge to upload on my Blog. After I copied and pasted the URL it would look okay on the preview but refuse to load because the tag wasn't closed. After repeated attempts and I finally clicked on the button that says don't show this message again and somehow it worked! Very Very frustrating for myself and my coworkers.!

Thing 22. Staying Current

I resolve to spend at least 30 minutes a week keeping up with new technology tools and trying to apply these tools at work and home. I plan on using Web Junction-Minnesota and Webinars from Minitex to help me reach my goal. I will blog once a week about my new tools and insights.

Thing 21. Beyond MySpace: Other Social Networks

Thing 20. Libraries and Social Networks

I registered for Facebook and added two friends. Currently I have five friends. I completed a profile and joined the Librarian and Librarians group. I also visited MySpace and checked out the Denver Public Library and Hennepin County Library MySpace pages but chose not to create my own. It is good to know about Facebook and MySpace but I spend most of my working hours in front of a computer and prefer to spend my non-working hours exercising, reading, playing games, crafting or actually talking or meeting with friends.

Thing 19. Podcasts

I watched the On the Road with MINITEX Podcast with Beth Kelly, the former director of the Duluth Public Library. I found the interview fascinating, especially her discussion of working in a newly integrated library facility. Since I was born in Duluth I enjoyed her brief history of the Duluth Public Library, particularly the part about the library being a women's supported library (after originally being a subscription library for men). She also spoke about current topics in the library world today, such as the library being a place of civility where respectful discussions and self directed learning can take place, the importance of readers advisory, the cooperative nature of libraries, and who will libraries be serving in the next few years when senior citizens outnumber young children in our communities. Trying to add a RSS feed for this podcast was challenging but with the assistance of my colleague Karen we were able to add the RSS feed to my Google Reader. More detailed istructions would have been helpful. I do plan on listening to the other On the Road MINITEX podcasts.