#26 and #27 Final thoughts

I don't want to gush too much here and be uncool (or more so than usual, anyway), but I think this has been a fantastic learning experience. I'm very happy to have been offered this opportunity and I learned a lot. The only drawback has been finding the time to really explore these things; which I haven't done yet. I will definitely go back and look more closely at the things we covered and explore more on my own. I think I had been stuck in a bit of a rut, just Googling and using the Web resources I already felt comfortable with, and now I realize how much more there is out there... how the Web is evolving and changing so quickly. I would like to do more continuing education like this in the future as more new resources emerge.

The most difficult part of this experience for me, aside from the time factor, has been blogging. I'm just not very comfortable writing a blog. I thought I would probably be completely comfortable with this by the end of the 27 things, and I am a lot more comfortable than I was at the beginning (and less self-conscious), but I still find blogging to be the most difficult part of the whole thing.

Some of the most surprising things for me were things that we didn't actually cover, but I took note of during Stephen Abram's talk, like Second Life. I realize that we couldn't cover it in this exercise because of the software and time involved in getting set up, but I have found Second Life interesting in many ways, both good and bad -- does this type of "virtual world" represent the next stage of the Web? Maybe a couple of years from now, we will all have avatars representing us running around on the Web and interacting with each other.

Other surprises were simply the amount and variety of tools that are available on the Web, for free, these days. I loved Library Thing and couldn't stop cataloging my books, and I'm amazed at all of the free software applications that are available now. I didn't realize the extent to which most of these things have a social networking aspect to them.

I don't know which discovery exercise I would choose as a favorite; I enjoyed them all in their own ways. The ones that required us to create or upload photos were a bit less enjoyable for me because of the time involved. I'm also reticent about having a lot of personal information about myself on the internet, so I tend to not fill in online profiles much.

I found the discovery exercises to be so well-written that I didn't need much help along the way, but I would like to thank our advocates for volunteering to be there to help us; we had plenty of great help available in my department. As for the last question, would I do it again? Absolutely! I've been telling all of my friends about the cool learning program we're doing at work (the more technology-oriented ones are excited; the technophobes are a bit horrified... but I've told them it was not mandatory participation...). I would do it even if we weren't getting an mp3 player; it's just icing on the cake, and I don't have one so I'll be happy to accept it.

Thanks to everyone who made this possible, and I hope we can do more of this in the future!

#25 OverDrive

I might as well reveal that I am one of the eBooks troubleshooters at Answer Line (a shout out to my fellow eBooks support folks!). When patrons are having trouble with eBooks, they fill out the web support form (the "support" link at the bottom of the eCollection page) and the Webmaster forwards those to us. We then take a look at them and either answer them if we know the answer, or forward them to OverDrive's technical support staff. OverDrive will then get back to us within 24 hours with an answer. We also help people who call in with eBooks questions.

Working with eBooks has been a great learning experience for me and I'm glad to have had the opportunity to learn, although it was a bit of "trial by fire" at first. When we first launched our eBooks service, we had people call us from literally all over the world, asking if they could have access to our eBooks, because we were one of the first public libraries to offer them and word got around, I guess. I had a call from Sweden and more than one call from India, as well as several from other parts of the U.S.

Now if only we had eBooks that were compatible with iPods... but we know that's not up to us.

#24 Podcasts

Podcasts -- what can I say? At this point, I think I'm feeling a bit of burnout from our whirlwind tour of Web 2.0. I can see the usefulness podcasts, especially since they are so quick and easy to create. In a library setting, we could have podcasts on our website explaining how to do various things, like placing holds. Some people are better at following instructions when they hear them instead of reading them. Or we could have podcasts announcing upcoming activities or events at the library. Maybe even book talks or other library presentations could be available as podcasts...

For our discovery exercise, I found an interesting book review podcast and added it to my Bloglines rss feeds.

#23 You Tube

I have been looking at You Tube for a while, just for entertainment. But recently, I started using it for information more than entertainment. For example, I was working the day of the Kentucky Derby and forgot to tape the race, but the next morning I was able to watch it (from many different angles) on You Tube. I've made the jump now to looking first at You Tube for any video that I want to find on the web.

For the part of this exercise where we embed a video from You Tube, I have chosen a great speech by Michelle Obama that I first saw on www.barackobama.com.

#22 Choose your own adventure

I looked at both Web 2.0 Award nominees and Webware, and I found Web 2.0 easier to use and faster for finding the applications I wanted to try. I wanted to use one of the nominated Personal Organizers on Web 2.0, but the first two that I tried gave me errors instead of going to the page (so I guess they were down... not a good sign). I ended up signing up for Voo2do but I don't really like the layout of it. Still, I'll check these sites out from time to time to see what's new.

#21 Google labs

My favorites in Google labs are Google Mars and Google Sets. In Google Sets, I put in boots and tent, and the list came back with "the ten essentials" in the number 3 spot -- pretty impressive!

#20 Online Software

This is something that I didn't know about -- these are very useful tools. I first went to Google and tried their word processing software; it was nice and the layout was familiar since I use Word usually. Then I tried Zoho, and I must say, it looks much snazzier and in my brief assessment it appears to have much more to offer than Google.