I'm going to be late to the Branch Leadership Team meeting, but I'm excited that I'm finishing up the 2.0 items. Week 9 was probably the easiest of all because I have researched many of these items already. I love YouTube!!!! And between YouTube and podcasts (Things 20 and 21), I think we could do some really great training videos and recordings. I read through the podcast instructions, but I also attended some meetings about this over a year ago when Gloria and I went to the Learning Conference in Orlando. I think we really need to develop some training scenarios and let staff persons play the various roles -- it would be fun and probably "stick with" people more to see and/or hear it "live" so to speak. Also, if I'm not mistaken, the Technology Department was buying or has purchased some of the equipment we would need to get started on this. . .so does anyone want to write a script?

I also have downloaded books and/or dvds (Thing 22). . .of course, the fact that MyDVD has one of my favorite John Wayne movies available (The Angel and the Badman) helped a lot!

In summary, this whole 2.0 thing has been a great learning experience. But, quite frankly, it is overwhelming (exciting, too, of course. . .all the new technologies that spring from each new thing), but it scares me a little, too. I just read Jeffrey Deaver's book, "The Broken Window," one of his Rhyme mysteries. . .but the plot centers around a company that mines data about everyone and, quite frankly, knew everything about everyone down to their last purchase within 20 minutes. Although it was fiction, of course, it does make one wonder about how much of ourselves we're putting out there for the world to see when we log into all these sites, use all of these technologies that contain our name and/or a profile. What will the next few years (or even months) bring? Wow!

Deirdre, thanks for instigating this and helping us all through it!!!!

Let's talk about Week 8 stuff. . .first of all the tools to help you share things: I thought this was a great idea, especially since I've suffered the frustrations of not being able to upload things without current version of this or that (usually Publisher). I tried Zoho, but it was extremely slow!!!! I copied one of my own spreadsheets into it, thinking this might be handy to access work at home, but it was so slow, I don't know if I'd use it much.

As far as the web tools go, I expored the "recipes for success" but, actually, a great many of those items are things I've used already, such as Twitter, MySpace, and various other sites like Amazon, etc.

I'm beginning to think this is technology is a giant black hole that if you really let yourself "fall into". . .you'll never be able to claw your way back out!!!

Well, I was further along that I thought on this 2.0 stuff. I had looked at Week 7, but not blogged yet, and I just reviewed some of the Wiki stuff now. Obviously, there are certain areas where this has great potential -- especially when we're trying to collaborate on something system-wide. I have nightmares, of course, about areas where it would not be beneficial (like my Circ Manual -- I can just imagine the fun staff would have if I let them get their "hands" on it (ha ha). . .

But in developing training programs, in creating lists or informational sites (such as the young lady who developed the Wiki for a conference so that others with more knowledge about Chicago could add pertinent info to it). . .those are great ideas!

Okay, I've finished Week 6, Things 13, 14, 15. . .I joined Delicious and bookmarked a few things. I explored Technorati but I decided not to "claim" my blog at this time. Quite frankly, I'm a bit overwhelmed and do not want to be inundated with too much. . .I was not particularly impressed with the most popular tags in Technorati.

I can see how it might be very valuable if you take the time to find specific tags/blogs of interest and attempt to keep up with them. But at this point, I just don't want to take the time to search for items of interest. I have found that it is far too easy to get sucked into spending hours on such stuff, which is not the purpose here, I think.

I really enjoyed reading the Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 (Thing 15 I think) and read through several pages of perspectives from various individuals. I think the library world (even here in the Midwest) needs to be ready and open to huge changes in the next few years -- of what is possible and, more importantly, what is going to be expected from us by our customers!

Well, I just explored Delicious (Thing 13, I think), watched the podcast, and signed up for it. I watched Obama's acceptance speech since it was one of the more popular tags at the moment on the Delicious list (and since I didn't stay up for the speech last night).

I also found a bookmark of interest to my daughter Alex and emailed it to her.

Should be a helpful bookmarking tool -- and, quite frankly, I've never bookmarked much before because I don't get on the Internet much here at work (except for my bank account and SamePage), but I plan to use it more now. I have in the past saved the American Library Journals (on line versions) because there are articles of interest I want to keep -- but it would be much more efficient to just tag those articles and not save the whole on line magazine in a folder, so I will start doing that, I think.

Okay, I've been trying to catch up so I tried to subscribe to Bloglines, but it won't let me (won't send me the validation email, although I've asked for it several times). I have, however, subscribed to The Generator Blog and I've played around with the "fun" stuff, like Letter James, FD toys, Wordle. . .I really liked Wordle. . .I used the library curse (for those who steal books) and turned it into a Wordle.

My daughter is a photographer and has been talking about creating a photo album on line with the pictures she took of Uruguay last January, and with the on line image generators, you can really create some neat stuff. If I were at home, I would spend more time playing around with the photos on my laptop. I think I might create a calendar with my pix for someone for Christmas.

I set up an accounty with LibraryThing -- haven't had time to add much to it yet, but I'm hoping this will help keep me organized about the various mystery authors who are my favorites and their various series about the same detective, that I liked to read in order.

And I also set up an account in Rollyo, although I'm not sure how much I'll use it -- I only have a few websites that I use consistently.

But I think the real problem is that there is far too much out there -- the mind boggles! And I can truly see how people can get hooked into playing with this stuff and never get anything done! It's nice to know the tools are there -- but the next step has to be how to manage those tools and not get either "overwhelmed" or end up spending all your free time on the computer! No wonder the obesity problem in this world is growing -- get away from the screen and exercise!!!!

#6 and #7 Flickr

Okay, I did some exploring -- actually found some Sudoku puzzles on Flickr to print -- someone make sure I never work on these in my office because I am a bit addicted to them. I know, I'm weird, but when I get home each evening, my method of relaxing is a glass of wine and completing the Sudoku puzzle in the "Weird Herald". . .

In regard to #7 Flickr, sometimes I'm just overwhelmed with the amount of "stuff" out there -- you could literally waste (and I mean waste) hours playing around with all the options. I did create a Library Trading card.

One thing that is technology rated that I read about in the on-line American Libraries is the new option from Time Life to get magazines like you can NetFlix. . .you can get three magazines each month for 5 bucks and pick and choose what you want -- now that's a kind of cool option for people who love magazines.

Well, I have important Circ work to do so this is all for now. I'll try to catch up on weeks 4 and 5 next week!