Extra Super Secret Bonus Sets 1 & 2

Social networking has blown up so much in the last couple of years it's just insane. I remember signing up on Facebook when it was just college students (you had to have a university email to join) and look at the behemoth it is now. I have a MySpace page but I'm hardly ever on it, and I rarely use instant messaging anymore, although I have a couple of accounts. Twitter is the one thing that I've totally resisted, although sometimes I peek at my witty friends' feeds.

Facebook-- I waste entirely too much time on this site, but it's fun. I've been a little leery of posting too much info there; I tend to err on the side of caution. It's such a great way to keep in touch, though. I have tons of family and friends in Japan and Seattle and it's awesome to see their pictures and chat with them online all in one place.

And currently I'm beating Michael in Scrabble on FB, which is of course awesome. I welcome all challengers, except Stacey (your reputation precedes you!). From my page you can also see a video of several staffers at the Medical Lake Founders Day Parade, working our Book Cart Drill Team magic. Worth a look.

#23 Final Thoughts (that sounds morbid!)

I've learned alot doing this program. Much of it I was already familiar with, but it was great to be exposed to stuff I hadn't used like Technorati and DIY search engines. I hope I can keep up with emerging 2.0 ideas and programs. I'm sure my seven year old will clue me in when I start to get behind the times.

I feel it's very important for me to keep learning about stuff like this-- I want to be able to give customers the best assistance possible and that often includes some of the topics we've covered. I wouldn't mind having a Learning 2.0 part two. :)

#22 Overdrive

Another thing I've been using for a while. I listen to audiobooks while I clean my house-- makes it go by much faster! Currently I think my favorite thing I've downloaded from Overdrive was the His Dark Materials series, read by Philip Pullman. Tim Curry reading the Lemony Snicket books is pretty awesome, too.

I've never had a problem using Overdrive, but I know how hard it is troubleshooting for people over the phone when they're having issues with it. I think it helps that I'm fairly familiar with the process.

#21 Podcasts

I've been listening to podcasts from NPR for a couple of years; if there's a program scheduled that sounds interesting that I know I won't be able to catch I'll download it. When I lived in Seattle I'd listen to them while riding the bus (headphones are a must unless you want all kinds of interesting folk chatting with you).

I checked out Podcast Alley and found few book and library related podcasts to peruse. Book Snark sounds particularly interesting. I've noticed that many of the podcasts listed haven't been updated in a while-- I wonder if the trend has sort of peaked.

#20 YouTube

I think I already posted about keeping in touch with my little brother via YouTube (he posts lots of goofy videos with his friends). I use YouTube alot, probably too much.

A couple of months ago there was a gentleman at ML who wanted to get a CD in with a particular song on it. He knew the title of the song, but there were several different versions of it sung by various people, so we logged on to a software station and went through the YouTube vids of the songs so he could hear them until he found the right one. Luckily we had that artist's CD and he was so happy to have it come in a few days later, and not have to order them all just to find the song he wanted.

This is one of my all-time favorite vids:



Gah, that still makes me sniffle.

#19 Award-winning Web 2.0 sites

Most of the sites listed on the Web 2.0 awards page are great. One I haven't seen before is Fixya, a tech support site structured somewhat like Yahoo answers-- people post questions and then answers are given by both regular users and registered 'tech gurus'. I could see this being a useful resource for library customers having trouble with devices like mp3 players and digital cameras, or even their laptops. Fixya also features the manuals for hundreds of thousands of products. You can search for specific products or browse by manufacturer to see manuals and posted questions. I could see this being a good resource for when customers have questions about their devices beyond our knowledge.

#18 Web-based productivity applications

Another thing I use fairly frequently. I'll save stuff to my Google Docs account if I don't have a flash drive with me. I also have this laptop that's about a day older than the Dewey decimal system, and by not installing any programs on it and using purely web-based applications I can save tons of space.

I wonder sometimes about the safety of saving very personal info to one of these thingies-- I suppose they can be hacked just as easily as anything else.

I created a Zoho account and imported my (somewhat disorganized) storytime theme spreadsheet, if you want to see:

http://sheet.zoho.com/public/zeldapinwheel/storytime-themes