#23 (Week 9)

Well, thank you, folks, for making this experience possible for all of us. It required way too much of our time, impacting our job performances, and leaving some here at my branch frustrated because they're so far behind, but it was fun and enlightening, and has expanded my internet repertoire.

What things did I especially like about it? I'm glad I was exposed to blogging. I don't know that I'll continue to blog on a regular basis - it's hard enough for me just to keep a journal that only I will read - but I'm glad to have some idea of what blogging is all about, and how it's done. I really enjoy Flickr, and that actually led to me connecting with a relative I've heard about but never talked to, because she has photos on Flickr, and I contacted her about them. I'm not yet entirely sold on RSS feeds. I simply don't spend enough time on the 'net, but I can see how they would be helpful, and now that I know about them I might start utilizing them at a future date. I really enjoyed Flickr mashups and image generators, but I'm not sure how they can be applied to library work - I'm sure there are lots of clever library employees who will figure out ways to use these tools for the library. The Web Awards list was interesting, but again I'm not yet sure how to apply that technology to work. Rollyo might prove useful, once I get in the habit of using it. Del.icio.us, Technorati and Library Thing are all interesting, but I'm not sure how much I'll use the first two. Library Thing I'll probably return to from time to time. Wikis - now wikis are cool. They have some drawbacks, but they have a lot of pluses. I can definitely see uses for wikis at libraries. Actually, I have already used Wikipedia any number of times, so I already knew a little about wikis, but now I understand them a lot more. The online productivity tools are a really great idea, though I'm not yet sure how well they work, but I definitely like the idea of being able to access my data no matter what computer I'm on, or share that data with others who are at other locations. YouTube is a blast, but also a major potential time waster. Still, it's a great resource. Lastly, podcasts and ebooks are both wonderful technologies, and in the future I definitely expect to make use of them, but right now we have too few terminals here at my branch for me to spend time at work making use of them, and since I only have a dial-up modem at home using them is very frustrating.

So...would I participate in a program like this again? Yes. Many parts of it were a lot of fun, and I do feel like I better understand, now, what some of our patrons are doing on our computers, and with our resources. I also feel like I now have some new tools at my disposal. However, in future it would work much better to present smaller segments that don't take so much time, or schedule more time for each participant.

Anyway, thank you to all of the members of the committee that put this together. On the whole I definitely felt it was worthwhile, and I feel like it is a way of further empowering us employees.