Relax and Reflect

Well, it's been a fun journey (again). Even after having done the original 23 things, it was still worthwhile to go back and do these 20, both to reacquaint myself with things that I'd forgotten and to hit a few new things.

Some of my favorites: Pandora, Overdrive downloadable music (either it is underutilized or I just have different taste from the average SIL user), and RSS (I use it every day for library related feeds). My Facebook account is still intriguing to me, although I haven't put much time into it, I keep finding requests to become people's friends.

I think one of the most important things that we can draw from this model is that new technology is not (and should not be) scary. We're not going to break the computer (probably not even going to crash it).

I'll now be blogging for MAR on a semi-regular basis too, less scary after starting this admittedly boring blog.

I think one of the most difficult things about this program from a scheduling point of view is addressing substitutes. Supervisors should probably get together to talk about what worked best in ensuring that each person had time for this (as not every one works one day a week at their home branch).

Would I participate in this type of training again? Yes, as long as it was something that was enhanced by this type of set-up. I think some things are still best in-person for more instant response to questions. Other newish web technologies though are ideal for this type of training.

Fun With Games

I'd forgotten how much I like some of the fast games (I don't like to get sucked into games that take up hours and hours). My sister introduced me to Sudoku on her Nintendo DS, so I had to play it to help keep the brain active. Also, I've long had a passion for computer Mahjongg - another game that takes up your attention.

As far as implications for the workforce goes, maybe we could try to make scheduling more like a game (it already resembles Sudoku) - also use games more often in training.

Google Earth

What a fun toy - I looked at a few Sno-Isle libraries as well as my own home. I thought it was interesting that it shows to take the ferry from my house to Clinton, but only gave driving directions to Gig Harbor (taking the ferry to Southworth and driving the rest of the way takes about the same amount of time, but it is much more pleasant).

I'm wishing I knew about the Places feature during my "Staycation" (I could have looked at lovely pictures of the Eiffel Tower - no, that would have just been depressing, but they are beautiful pictures.

Search Engines

I had already played around a bit with Rollyo to create a tool that would look up kid's crafts from the sites that I've looked at time and time again. Not a bad tool, but probably not something I'll use on a regular basis.

After looking at Mamma and Dogpile, I had mixed feelings - I'll probably try them out again. Mamma especially seemed to have the craft sites that I put into my Rollyo tool. I was surprised that on Dogpile so many of the first hits were taken from Google ads. Also surprised to see a Camano retreat come up in both places (though perhaps I shouldn't have been). Of Mamma and Dogpile, I preferred the display of Mamma.

Avatars and Second Life

So here is my avatar, which does not look much like me at all (certainly not as much as some of the teen librarians do!) Making it reminded me of creating a Mii for the Wii. A virtual self feels safer than posting real photos and allows a person to either show an idealized version or just a fun fantasy nothing like reality.

I don't live in Second Life and don't care to (with my commute, I have enough difficulty finding time to live in my First Life!), but I do know several people that find a virtual reality a comfortable addition to their real lives (I've got lots of gaming friends and relatives).

I did find it interesting that most of the videos that I saw about Second Life show a pristine, solitary environment - maybe that's just what I chose to view or maybe it says something about how we feel about the increasing density of our cities.

Overdrive

So the last time I used Overdrive, I commented in my blog that downloading the media console was the most annoying part (but that I'd only need to do it the once) - unfortunately, I still needed to install, as I did not have the most recent version.

Other than that, if I were an audiobook listener, I would love this service. I think that having the "Always Available" section, makes it a little less disheartening when you see a long list of items that you need to place a hold on. Last time, I downloaded a Ramona book - this time an old Sara Paretsky (many of the books by my other favorite authors were already in use though).

I think that it's great that some of the titles can be burned to CD and eagerly await the day when this service will be compatible with the IPod (although my MP3 player works just fine).

This is extremely popular - my mother-in-law (who lives in Eastern Washington) got a library card, just to check out this service. I had another phone call who lives in the same home town from someone whose Seattle friend had told her about how wonderful SIL is. The only complaint I get is the download limit and that you are not allowed to turn things in early (one woman stated she listens to one per day).

Keep expanding service - it's been exciting to see the number of titles added since we started a few years ago.

del.icio.us

Once again, I could see oodles of time being spent using this tool. I tried both del.icio.us (what a pain to type out - next time I'll have to copy and paste) and Google to look at information about roving reference.

With del.icio.us, I had far fewer to sort through and was able to find other related tag names to explore (as well as seeing the number of other users that had tagged the sites). I was a wee bit surprised to find items about spinning wool interspersed with library related things.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, it was very useful to have access to the old bookmarks from the Sno-Isle site - our new website is much cleaner, but we definitely have some favorite old bookmarks that it was useful to be able to access.