After a shaky start and help from coworkers, I buckled down and sequentially worked through the 23 Things.  I liked some of the exercises better than others.  Among the exerciese, I liked setting up this weblog, working with Google maps, adding RSS feeds to Bloglines, and, of course, playing free arcade games.  I learned quite a bit by doing the exercises and by reading up on each topic.  I’m also glad that I will receive 10 hours toward librarian certification.  Thank you to the energetic team of librarians that put this project together!

The original Web used technology through which people could retrieve information (I know this is a simplified statement). Web 2.0 uses technology that is interactive. Because of this the various social networking sites have sprung up, as well as RSS feeds, podcasts, wikis, blogs, and many other applications.

On our journey through 23 Things we have examined many of these new applications and learned more about them. Library 2.0 applies Web 2.0 tools. That is why our library is able to create such blogs as staff picks which people can read or subscribe to as an RSS feed, why our library can provide access to downloadable audiobooks, videos, eBooks, and music, and why some libraries can establish Facebook accounts through which they interact with their teen customers. There are many other applications which I have not listed and which of which I may not be aware.

As one article pointed out, libraries cannot plan technology projects that span a multitude of months because technology is changing so fast. But on the other hand, I think that each library needs an overall plan as to how it will be using new technology in the library and what part of the new technology the library wants to use. Libraries should not embrace all new technology just because it’s new. They need to know the direction in which they are going so that they implement the right (for them) technology projects.

In summary, I’d like to say that I have learned new concepts and applications by going through the 23 Things and finishing the tasks, some of which I enjoyed more than others.

Podcasts are useful if a person wants to download the podcasted items to an iPod, computer, or some such device or if they themselves want to make a podcast on the internet. There are several sites which have an incredible number of podcasts listed there. Podcast Alley has a listing by subjects/genres and if one clicks on that, he/she will get a lot of podcasts on that topic. The site can also be searched by terms. Podscope.com can be searched for the spoken words found within an audio or video podcast and works like any search engine. Get A Podcast and Podcast.com are other sites where one can search for podcasts. On all these sites a person has to register in order to download many of the podcasts and definitely to upload podcasts and comments. One can spend all day going from podcast to podcast, but much of it seems to be personal opinions and personal creative uploads.

I looked and listened to lots of videos on YouTube, Metacafe, Google Video, and LiveLeak. On YouTube and Metacafe you create and download your videos (if you sign up) to the site, however, anyone can watch most of the downloaded videos. Metacafe has the more unusual short-form videos and aims at uniqueness in entertainment. Google Video works like Google, except that it looks for videos. If you type in a term, the search engine will look for videos on that subject and will find videos on YouTube, Metacafe or somewhere else. LiveLeak is similar to YouTube, but it focuses on current news and events video clips. You can find videos on world news items, politics, war, entertainment, and the like. These videos are also used to generate discussion. The LiveLeak forum includes a blog and chat. You have to register to use these. Video sites are great time wasters, but not as much fun as game sites.

I followed the instructions under Thing 20 and explored YourMinis website. I opened Startpage, clicked Add Tab, and moved the widgets around. I did that a few times and found that it was great fun. I also changed some colors and changed some things on the To Do widget. I assume that if a person signs up at this website, then she/he can customize her/his own Start Page or Home Page. Since YourMinis has a calculator, calendar, to do list, it can be used as an organizer.  And since it has news, entertainment, sports, it can be used to set up the informational part of a Start Page.  Then by opening tabs, one can add other useful items such as Amazon and Bookmarks.  Plus, one can have links to e-mail, blogs, podcasts, Flickr, MP3, and a zillion more. This may be a site that I’ll check out further on my own after 23 Things is over.

The Web 2.0 Awards site is pretty awesome.  It is a site to which people can go and find a good website in their subject category. I picked “Employment and jobs” as that is an area in which many library users are interested. I looked at the top three sites, Standoutjobs.com, careerbuilder.com, and monster.com. You can check out each site to see what it has to offer, but to apply for jobs, you must get a user name and password.  I did not do that, since my goal was not to apply for a job, but only to check out the site.  Both careerbuilder and monster gave quite a bit of career guidance information without signing up. Both of these sites also have the capability of searching for a job and limiting it to a location without signing up. I liked careerbuilder the best because it had the most limiters on the search page. The search could be limited by industries, location, job-categories, salary range, etc. To me this site also gave the most helpful job search information and career guidance help. For libraries, these sites are ones to be aware of, as there are so many people searching for employment and job information.

I created an account on Del.icio.us and added some bookmarks and created some tags.  To me, tags are like subject headings which make finding like materials easier.  Del.icio.us is an interesting site and useful if someone has many websites, articles and/or topics that they want to save and then be able to easily and quickly access.

I looked at all three start pages, and they seemed pretty similar. Each have weather, calendar, news, tv, movies, to do list, etc., and a person can customize their own start page.  I picked My Yahoo, as I have Yahoo e-mail.  I also signed in on PageFlakes, but then decided I did not like it.  I can’t really describe why. How do I “unsign” from there?

Calendars, to-do lists, and the like are useful if a person has access to a computer at all times and if he/she has a lot of activities to track. I think those tools are better suited for business/work related activities for people with busy schedules full of meetings and deadlines.  They would also be more useful to larger families where family members need to keep track of what everyone is doing at a particular time.  I still like to carry my small paper calendar around so that I can easily and quickly check when I am working, when I need to be somewhere else and when my husband has special meetings or field trips.  

Backpack appears to be an excellent tool for work-related activities, such as meetings, brainstorming groups, Balanced Scorecard and similar teams. For these kind of groups Backpack is helpful because schedules, ideas, memos, documents, etc. can be easily shared and updated among group members. I was really impressed with this as a very useful and in-depth business tool.

I looked at the social networking sites listed under Thing 16 and signed up at Facebook and WebJunctionOhio.  Facebook is the more general site where one can find old friends and acquaintances, whereas WebJunctionOhio is geared toward librarians and can be used as a networking tool and as a way to find library related information, sign up for web courses and the like.

Both sites, and I’m sure the others also, were easy to sign up for.  Although WebJunction required  library/work related information when creating the account, whereas Facebook required only one’s birthdate.

I read about Social Media and Social Networking on Wikipedia and checked out the five sites under Thing 15 — Social Media Sites.  There is a great variety in Social Networking sites from Newsvine which is based on actual news stories and discussion of those, to Reddit which deals with voting on ideas and covering opinions to StumbleUpon which finds websites to match a person to his/her interests.  These are interesting websites and useful to those who want to spend much time chatting on line and sharing their opinions, but not something on which I would like to spend my time.