20th Thing

I enjoyed exploring the various applications and concepts. I didn't find too many that I would use at work or even at home, but I gained an understanding of what they're all about. I now feel that I am better prepared to assist people at the library when they are discussing or trying to use this stuff.
I would certainly participate in a future program like this in order to broaden my horizon and be more technosavvy.

Gaming

After trying a few games I remembered why I always watched my friends place Frogger and Centipede and all those other 80's games: I'm not very good and I get too frustrated by my ineptitude.
I also enjoy watching my daughters play online games and am amazed how fast they surpass me.
I'm not sure of the ramifications this has for the library. Does this mean that staff who are gamers need constant rewards/praises to produce/improve? Do the war games cause our patrons to be more competitive or violent? Are professional sports teams in serious jeopardy or not having future recruits because soon everyone will rather be playing virtual baseball/hockey/deathmage?

Google Earth

Google Earth was fun to browse and watch the map spin from one spot to focus on another. I enjoyed seeing my house from above and zooming through canyons like one of those Disneyland virtual helicopter rides.
But I'm not sure I'd turn to it very often as a reference tool. Too many times the screen went blackish-grey when focussing on a spot, or else one quadrant of a map would be blurry with weird colors. I also noticed that geotaggers were often inaccurate with their tagging.

Avatars & Second Life

This is my Tektek avatar...


And this is my DoppelMe avatar.

I think avatars are an interesting way to create an anonymous visual persona.

I've never gotten into virtual communities like Second Life because I'd rather spend my free time with my wife and kids and friends exploring and living real life.

Online Applications

I can see Googledocs, Zoho and similar web-based applications being very useful. I could see using the Share feature to collaborate with others, and I really like the idea of being able to access a document anytime, from anywhere.
I liked the simplicity of Googledocs and the easy composing and save features. Zoho is also pretty cool, and seems to have more options.

Search Engines

Comparisons of metasearch engines:
We worked on an Information Request this week trying to find specific facts about the Green Parrot Snake which lives in Central and South America. It took us a while to find exactly what the patron wanted, so I thought I'd do a simple search in these search engines.
Dogpile -
Seemed to bring just as many commercial sites selling green snake products as it did informational info.
Mamma -
Less commercial sites showed up in the results, but very little informational sites came up. Most of the results were sites which just provided photos.
Rollyo -
Had a few more informational sites than than the other two.

So in this case the best search was Rollyo.

However I would still use Google, since these 3 didn't give that many results, and I kept feeling like I was missing the really good stuff that Google and the other Google products find (Scholar, Books, etc.).

Podcasting

I listened to:
1) In Good Company - a booktalk podcast from Wadsworth Public Library
2) An Introduction to the WSU Owen Library Map Library
3) KPLU's BirdNote

I have never created a podcast nor really listened to one before, but I can see their usefulness in libraries. Booktalks and reading stories are good uses of this technology.

Online Image Generators

Interesting.

Overdrive

Spent 2+ hours trying to get Overdrive to work applying all the tricks and workarounds provided on the Comments page but was never successful. I actually had no problem downloading this product when we first got it a couple years ago, so I figure I've completed the assignment.

I was surprised by how many titles were checked out with waiting lists - this seems to be a very popular service. I also noticed all the old radio shows like the Shadow, which are pretty cool.

Tagging

I recently worked at STA and noticed that Rob or someone had setup a del.icio.us account of sites they used often for Reference. It was nice to have resources identified for questions that often came up. Plus, unlike Favorites, they were portable and easier to categorize and label.

I can definitely see this being a useful tool at the reference desk.

Wikis

I thought it was interesting that you can add videos, chat, calendars and other features easily to a wiki.

One major negative aspect is the fact that your work is never permanent, never safe.

I can see the advantage of libraries and librarians using wikis to collaborate on bibliographies, discussions and other projects.

Online Streaming Video

YouTube:
interesting site, videos took a looooooooong time to load and were pretty grainy, perhaps a nice place to keep videos that you want to share with others. I could see libraries using it for building tours or explaining how to use a database/website/etc.
Hulu:
quality videos, loaded quickly, nice summaries of sports events as well as movie/tv clips. I don't know how libraries could take advantge of this.
Fancast:
grainy videos, doesn't seem to have as extensive collection as Hulu. Same comment as Hulu regarding library usage.

Online Social Networks

I thought Facebook was interesting, although not as flashy as myspace. It definitely seems geared towards academics.

I have no idea why these things are so popular, except I suppose the fact that all people have a need to feel validated and worth something and these sites provide that.

Photo sharing

Pretty cool site to store and share photos. Also neat to look at the amazing, beautiful and weird works of great and not so great photographers.

I chose this photo to explain the name for my blog. I got to see this stunning bird (Greater Necklaced Laughingthrush) on a trip to Kauai last summer.

Social Music Networks

I registered with both Pandora and Finetune.

I liked the component of Finetune where you can create your own Playlists of you favorite 45 or more songs.

I enjoyed the way Pandora chose artists similar to the ones I chose so I was exposed to other artists I wasn't familiar with.

RSS and feed readers

I like the fact that you can get all the updated info from blogs and websites at one site, as well as see only the newest stuff that's been posted since you last checked.

I can see patrons liking libraries to use this so that too are updated in the way above.

I'm not sure how I can use it at work, but perhaps knowing it's available will provide an opportunity in the future to take advantage of it.

IMing

1) I've used IM before just in experimental situations, not as a regular occasion, unless Virtual Reference is technically IM.
2) I was suprised to see that you can tell when the other person is typing a message, which I can't see when I'm doing Virtual - that's a nice feature.
3) As someone who doesn't enjoy even talking on the phone, I don't envision ever using IM in my personal life. Professionally I could see using it at the Reference Desk if I wanted to ask the same question to a bunch of people at once.

Number two

If three through twenty are like one and two, this will be very easy and enjoyable.