Is this really the end? Just the beginning!

23 things has been a whirlwind experience. My friends and children are impressed with my new expertise. I must confess I am surprised with all the added knowledge. I have enjoyed the challenge and found many of the exercises helpful for my job. I now have a notebook with two pages of usernames and passwords! Delicious and Bloglines have been my favorite discoveries and I'm now on Facebook to the delight of my children. And....to continue my lifelong learning, I bought an Iphone.

This experience has changed my mind on several web 2.0 trends. For example, I didn't "get" tagging and now I'm a big fan. In fact I would like to see library patrons have a chance to rate and tag books rather than review them.

E-Audiobooks

OverDrive worked well for me on my home computer. I downloaded the software to my computer without a problem and then selected a book. Success. Since I do not have an MP3 player yet, I decided to try burning the book onto CDs. I just burned the first several chapters of the book to try out the process. I will download the book to the MP3 when I receive it.

PODCASTS

I'm a new owner of an IPhone so the first thing I was required to do was sign up for ITunes. Now here I am looking for Podcasts. Wow! there are podcasts of just about everything. Most of the morning and evening news reports are podcasts. I searched for book reviews. I could spend a day just exploring and deciding which ones to download. I decided to start out with NPR, Nancy Pearl, Washington Post books, Book Digest , New Yorker Books, NY Times Books and Horn Book. There is so much information available and so many ways to receive it.

You too can YouTube

My all time favorite YouTube video is Dancing Matt. There are certainly many sites for entertainment and self promotion but the sites I like the best are instructional. When you can't figure out a crochet or knit stitch or how to increase or decrease, a video is sure to be available on YouTube. These videos are lifesavers!

And it would be wonderful to see patrons sharing their library experience on YouTube. For example, "look how easy it is to download a book on OverDrive". What about posting a teen game night video? The possibilities are endless.

Social Networking Tools

Yeah for MySpace and Facebook. The teens have found us at West Chester Public Library and are keeping up to date with the latest scheduled activities. As the months go by hopefully more teens will be introduced to the books and activities offered here. We also have the West Chester Public Library blog and our "book- cart" blog which will be sharing the latest books available at the library. Building online followers of West Chester Library continues to expand our library base and community awareness. Keeping up with the latest and relevant web applications will be both exciting and challenging.

Discovering WEB 2.0 tools

Bookmarking sites are a wonderful help. I am really enjoying my Delicious site and so decided to see what Stumbleupon, the number two rated site, has to offer. What a different presentation. It seems much more interactive and visual and would probably have greater appeal to the younger Facebook crowd. As one travels around the site and tags interests, you push the button stumble upon and sites will come up for you. Each member rates the recommended sites thumbs up or thumbs down. Your likes and dislikes are noted and new site suggestions become more refined. Each participant will also have their permanent list of favorites. Members may display their image and share their favorites with the public. This might be a fun addition to Delicious.

WEB BASED APPS

This is a great way to share work on a document when everyone does not have access to Microsoft Word etc. In Google Docs, a document may be created and marked shared. You may list the email addresses of those you wish to share the document and collaborate. Documents may be emailed as an attachment or published as a Web page. I decided to create a document marked Recipes. I wrote up one family recipe and will share with family members. All family members may add their special recipes to the document. For libraries there can be many different applications from a place for brainstorming ideas for Summer Reading to several people working on a grant application. Documents could also be posted for proofreading.

Playing with the PBWIKI

I now have an account and have added my blog to favorite blogs. I also added a book to favorite books. This was a very simple process.

So what's in a wiki?

If you haven't checked out the Loudoun Public Library and the Bull Run Public Library "public wikis", take a look. Loudoun Library provides their patrons with RSS feeds of their updated new books lists. The patron may choose from a number of different book catagories. The RSS feeds are set up by Engagedpatrons.org whose service is free to qualified public libraries. The service will also help set up interactive blogs such as Bull Run Library's "All Fairfax Reads". This blog lists the most popular books of the week. Patrons are encouraged to write a book review or click on the catalog to place a hold. I noticed that not many books had patrons reviews. How about allowing the patrons to tag the new books? This could serve as the patrons ever changing readers advisory.

Web 2.0

Sarah Houghton's definition of Library 2.0 provides a general and non-threatening definition for all libraries to consider. "Making your library space(virtual and physical) more interactive, collaborative and driven by community needs" fits in perfectly with our library's mission statement. We now have two blogs, gaming nights for teens, MySpace and Facebook for teens and a staff Wiki. What will be next - a public wiki or tags for materials in the catalog? The possibilities are endless and libraries must keep up in order to be revelvant to all segments of our population.

Technorati

I have attempted to explore Technorati on several occasions looking for it's value for libraries. I particularly was looking for something that would provide information I needed in a concise and fast manner that would not waste my time. Clicking on the "popular" main category, I selected "books" and found an answer for me. Listed were books "that people are talking about right now and linked to Amazon in the last 48 hours". This is a quick way to find what is interesting to people at the moment and make sure that the library has books to offer on the topic. Five out of the top twelve books were books about Twitter. Self improvement and financial books completed the top three interests. This site can be a fast check for those who do bookordering.