Number 23

Well, I've enjoyed this, in that there were several things that I knew of, but had not used, or explored. I believe there are a few that would be useful for the library to use, and the one that truly stands out to me here is the rss feed, for keeping up with all the new additions to the library website. I also believe the podcasts could be valuable, for the reasons I enumerated in my blog on that exercise. There are some of the more social things that I do not believe would be particularly useful for the library to actually participate in, but nevertheless were useful to me as a reference librarian to know about, so that I will understand what customers are asking for, and be able to help them better.

Great fun!

Numer 22

Since I am a user of Overdrive, and we are no longer going to subscribe to NetLibrary, I took a look at the Gutenberg book site...excellent choices of books, etc., and could be very useful for our customers as well. I would suggest we make this available to them on our homepage so that there is another choice for them, especially for those books that might not be "popular" and therefore picked up on OverDrive. I also like the fact that there is an rss feed available, so you can keep track of the new books that are added there.

number 21

Podcasts....can be annoying and useful! I've been a fan of them for several years now, since they are a great way to find information on something, and listen to various broadcasts, etc., that you might have missed in other searches. The problem is finding them...and I was not really thrilled with the directories given. I tried a search (with variations) on Tut and the exhibit that is in the US right now, since I'm going up there next weekend. The ONLY directory that had anything was the yahoo directory, and yet I had already viewed several prior to this, so I know they are out there. I found that I did almost as well by doing a plain ol' google search for them. The one good difference in using the directories is that ALL you get are podcasts, instead of podcasts and queries about finding a podcast! I think I like the yahoo best of the three given, since it allows you to search for series and episodes as well, and will also give you that "did you mean" feedback in the same way google does...and that can lead you to other directions. I do think the search styles could be better, since I tended to get the same hits using King Tut in quotes as I did when I just entered the words...there is no way to really search for a phrase.

Now....how can libraries use podcasts? Personally, I believe these could be a great asset to a library...everything from book discussions to various types of programs and speakers, to make these things more accessible and visible to people, as well as making them available to homebound people who might want to come to some things, but are unable to.

Number 20

I was already very familiar with youTube, since many of my friends post various CW videos there, so I thought I'd look at another one. I went to yahoo videos and found this one that made me laugh! Keep your eye on the baby panda!



And I figured I'd try and embed it here as well, so we'll see how this turns out!

Number 19

I played around with the health sites, and found them to be a good way to consolidate a medical/health search in one place. I tried several topics, and the first sites that came up were always legit ones from medline, etc., although wikipedia was pretty close to the top there as well....however, I do think it is a good way to get nothing BUT the medical info when you're looking for stuff.

Number 18

Actually, I've used google docs, and shown it to customers as well...it's great that people can use this tool if they don't have a good word processing or spreadsheet progream on their computer at home...this is so convenient for that, and also since it is attached to google, it's then very easy to attach it to your gmail without having to download it and save it anywhere.

Number 17

Well, I had problems adding my blog to this list...I did manage to get it there, but it does not appear to be a live link...oh well.

I did manage to add a comment to the "rather be knitting" blog that was there.