Week 12 - Conclusion

Dear "23 THINGS TEAM",

I know it must have taken a lot of work for you to pull all these lessons together and I want to thank you for "encouraging" me to it. My experience with the "23 Things" was totally positive. While many of the THINGS are not really relevant to my personal life--I still don't have enough time to socialize with real live people as much as I'd like--a few of them have been VERY useful. Most of all they are useful to my ability to understand and serve our library patrons.

We have already discussed ways libraries can use Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, Wikis and YouTube to advertise and publicize programs and services. Several of the other THINGS are useful to share with patrons like Zoho and google.docs, RSS feeds and Library Thing.

Personally, my igoogle page has helped me organize information a little more efficiently at work and I intend to use Picasa at home to organize and share family photos.

If I read a library book I really enjoy, I feel like I have to buy a copy for myself. I rarely read them all the way through, again, but I fear unless I buy them I will forget them or what it was that I liked about them. My bookshelves are getting mighty full and my pocketbook mighty empty. I am thrilled to learn about Library Thing and intend to use it to keep track of the books I read and what I liked about them.

As far as new areas or technologies to explore, I haven't a clue. After being exposed to the "23 Things" I will be watching out for discussion of new technologies in the professional journals and think I will be braver about trying them out.

Week 12 - Web 2.0 Awards

At the SeoMOZ AWARD SITE, the category I chose was PHOTOS AND DIGITAL IMAGES. I have boxes of family photos that I have never organized and put into albums. After my mother-in-law died we also became the depository for VERY old photos and daguerreotypes from my husband's side of the family.

Looking at Flickr and some of the other online storage sites convinced me that I need to store these photos some place where they will be preserved in case of a fire, tornado, etc. Also it would be wonderful to be able to allow other family members and genealogists access to these photos.

The top three in the PHOTOS AND DIGITAL IMAGES category was Flickr, Picnik and Picasa. Flickr has a huge collection of images, however, as far as organizing my photos it looked like there were only two choices--sets & collections.

Picnik looks like it is number one for editing pictures but is not a place to store or share them.

The site I was most impressed with is Picasa because it allows you to store your photos in "beautiful web albums" with collage, slideshows, photo text, maps and geo-tags. It also lets you share them with others and print them.

I couldn't tell for sure, but suspect that Flickr can do all these things, as well. However, Flickr didn't "speak my language". I feel more comfortable with the way Picasa describes itself. It is also rated a little higher than the other two in "usability" which is important to someone like me just starting out.

Week 11 - Instant Messaging (Pt. 2)

I haven't actually managed to IM with anyone yet, but I DID figure it out. When you are in Meebo, you look at your "Buddy List". Buddies who are online at the same time as you are at the top of the list. You can then IM them. I can see why users may not want everyone to know everytime they're online. Hence the discussion on "anonymity" etc. on the IM sites.

Week 11 - Instant Messaging

Pt. 1: I have never used IM before. I had some difficulty signing in to Meebo. I think it's because I'm not on any of the e-mails mentioned. I was finally able to register through my FaceBook account. I did use "Preferences" to customize a little bit.

However, while a "Buddy List" shows up on the site, I don't know how to engage in a conversation with them. Do I need to be on FB for them to contact me? Perhaps none of them were online at the same time I was?

To Be Continued....