Thing 7-Online Communication Tools

We use Groupwise to schedule meetings and classes now, and I find it useful for printing out the week's activities in the ITV rooms I schedule. I went to Doodle, Meeting Wizard and Meet-O-Matic and tried out their sites for scheduling a meeting. They all looked easy enough to use, and I would definitely try one out next time I want to figure out the best time for everyone to meet.
1. E-mail! I watched the video Inbox Zero by Merlin Mann and was quite impressed. This is my problem too, I really need to follow his advice with the 5 actions to take each time you are in your in-box, especially for my personal email. I posted a link to both items.
2. IM- I can see this being a better way than email to do on-line reference questions or let a patron know when their ILL has arrived.
3. I viewed the video on SMS, read the article and agree that we need to get with text messaging as a way to interact with our patrons, with mobile devices as prevalent as they are, knowing when you have resources available to you immediately is a great idea, with gas prices so high, people want to make as few trips as possible and as I learned in an ITV conference the other day that young people would find out something from you in "a couple of days" if you emailed them, SMS is instant.
4. My supervisor and I participated in the Minitex webinar on Academic Search Premier. We learned how to navigate around in the site, and how best to help our patrons with their searches. It was a great tool for interactive, collaborative help on this database. I have taken other Webinars as well, mostly through College of DuPage Teleconferences. These are also great ways to learn about library topics as well as asking questions, via telephone or email.

Thing 6-Online Image Generators

I went to the link, Trading Card Generator and put together a trading card using a picture I took on my way to work one morning. This would be a cool thing for students/teachers to use to acknowledge each other, or parents and grandparents to make cards for their children/grandchildren to show support and pride in their accomplishments.

Thing 5- More Flickr Fun

I checked out the flickr site and learned about the services that programmers have added using the API feature of flickr. This is just so cool, that there are so many extras to this free program. I checked out some of them. I also added a link to one of the mashups and plan to make some cool photo mosaics with my photos that are on flickr already.

Thing 4- What's Fun About Flickr?

I used Flickr to upload pictures to the web to share with family and friends. I added descriptions, and rotated some of them. It's nice that you can choose how people use your photos, and to keep them private if you want. I also went through the pictures on Flickr from 23thingsonastick. Lots of fun going on in our area libraries, and it's neat to see it on the computer, without having to drive!

Thing 3-Learn about RSS

RSS or Really Simple Syndication is a great way to keep up on favorite sites and their postings. I added 6 feeds to my Bloglines account and it was simple to do, as long as you remember to scroll to the subscribe button. This is a wonderful time-saving device for busy librarians (or anyone) to use to keep up with their information needs. It would be great for teachers to have the students work come to them when ready for reading, grading time, etc.

Thing 2-What is Web 2.0 and Why Should I Care?

When Web 2.0 evolved after a brainstorming session between Tim O'Reilly and MediaLive Entertainment in 2005, it became clear the the Worldwide Web was in for a big change. We now have Wikipidia rather than Britannica Online in the first generation of the web. We talk of blogs when before it was personal websites, etc. It is a fact that the web is now not just a tool for looking up information, it is a tool for web-based services to help people perform their jobs.

When I think of Library 2.0, I think of how we can change our old habits and evolve the library into something relating to today's Web revolution. We need to get people into the library, just like Web 2.0 kept people from abandoning the web after it seemed to have burst its bubble. In my library space, I see people using the computer stations far more than books, so we need to keep our databases current, and keep upgrading our website so students will go to it for more information. Perhaps we should promote Online Reference Services on our webpage along with the library catalogs and ILL. I like the idea that we could set up a MySpace page and have a student or group of students manage it. I think this would bring in more interactions from the students as well.