after 23 1/2 - still playing with this

#23 and a half

This has been quite a journey! I truly did not expect to discover and learn so much. I feel rather "techno-savvy" right now although I can see it's an ongoing process. At the beginning, I thought,"Create a blog? Me??" Not growing up with computers, I had to struggle with some of these "things" but it was in the end really worth it. I definitely see me continuing to keep up with these and hopefully utilize them when educating and informing customers.
My favorite exercises involved the visual side of things. Flickr, YouTube, and the Generator Blog all appealed to me. (And please check out www.swivel.com ) Also, I had always thought I would have no use for reading blogs but when I discovered what's out there, it was amazing to me. There's some wonderful creativity out there and now I can view it and be inspired by it.
I also found myself thinking of ways to incorporate all this with librarianship. One thing that struck me is that so many librarians I meet have interesting backgrounds. We have diverse areas of study under our belt. I can imagine perhaps using this to the library's advantage by finding venues to share what we know. Maybe those knowledgeable on a topic could work together create area specific guides and have them posted.
What would I change about this program? Maybe a little more time would be nice. Also, initially, I did not get much validation at work for spending time on this (although my aclm was encouraging). I felt vaguely guilty about it ( I was the only one in my library working on it.) Perhaps if it was better promoted and endorsed, this would not have happened. I don't know.
Yes, I would definitely participate in another discovery program of this type. I am extremely grateful for the opportunity and the guidance. Thank you, QL Learning 2.0 Team!

Audiobooks

I'm at my home computer so I checked out an audiobook from the QL collection. I downloaded the OverDrive Media Console software first. I suppose I'm just not really an "audio" person because both the audiobooks and the podcasts don't personally interest me. I think it was useful for me to check out an audiobook because I can now better share this service with my customers. I had no idea that customers can burn some of these to a cd too. I noticed an audiobook of Wayne Dyer's is popular and can see why. He's a popular motivational speaker on PBS and to hear the words in his voice would be nice for some.

Podcasts

I looked through the directories with the keyword "library" and then added a podcast, Rock and Roll Librarian, to my bloglines account. Talis has some interesting library speakers/discussions. The truth is this doesn't interest me as much. I can see how it would be a useful way to present an offsite panel discussion to a group. The fact that it's an ongoing feed of current information is good too.

You Tube

I chose the Duke Ellington video below (also check out the ones streaming below once you start it...Satin Doll is nice) because I remember all the school children coming in for information about jazz musicians for a school project. We quickly ran out of books. I love the way they could have actually heard and seen these musicians as well. I can imagine putting something like this in with a guide to books and other reference resources. The multiplicity of all these resources just blows me away sometimes. Making them more accessible seems imperative. (For what I dislike about this site, well, I can see there's some really dumb stuff on there too.)

Don't Mean A Thing if it Ain't Got That Swing

Web 2.0 Award Winner

2nd place in the Visual Arts category went to Swivel. What a fun site! Basically it provides graphing of information. There are some fascinating facts along with graphs that make comparisons easy. Could this be useful as a reference tool? Yes, perhaps for those really pesky arcane reference questions but it also just makes for some cool perusing. Take a look at this... as the site says, "may your love of data guide you".