It's a wrap!

What have I learned in the last 10+ weeks?

I already had a blog, but it was fun to have one where I didn't have to worry about what I said appearing front-and-center on our library's homepage. It was also fun to see what other library staff did with their blogs. Some were really spectacular!

RSS: valuable information and it could be very useful. I would like to see SDLN develop this for the OPAC so patrons could sign up to be notified when new books come in. It does add to the amount of stuff to look at but I can ignore it just like I do some of the listservs I'm on.

Flickr could be useful for publicizing programs and events at the library, although you'd have to be careful about showing faces of minors.

I enjoy the couple of podcasts I signed up for and using RSS, still come. I need to look for more content for library use. Most of what I looked at was for personal interest. If we had the technology and expertise, creating a few podcasts/videocasts would be useful in training the public to use databases or just for library promotion.

Office 2.0 kind of works. Although we got it to work with our SDLN accounts once, the next time we tried it, it required gmail accounts. We couldn't seem to discover what we had done differently. Makes it unhandy to have to create contacts in several different email accounts. Once in, it works OK, although we've been doing something similar on our network for years - using a Word document that everyone can open and edit. We'll still try Google docs for awhile.

Facebook is/was fun. I became friends with library staff, my daughter's friends (because they asked me! As one said, "It's groovy to be friends with your mom, Sara". I think she thought I would understand the word groovy.) and with nieces from various points in the country. The library also developed a facebook page and we've added some content. The challenge will be to keep it fresh.

Delicious was interesting to search and find relevant topics. I haven't developed my own account yet. It could be handy for often asked questions, repeat school assignments, etc.

We're thinking about making public information available on a wiki (one that selected personnel only can edit). Info such as policies, programs, etc. might lend itself to that format. It would make it easier to edit than a standard web page.

I have a Library Thing account already. I may hit my limit one of these days and I'm too cheap to pay for the service, but it's nice to have a list of my favorites. I haven't used the social networking part of it much. I just spent a pleasant 15 minutes with it and it could be additive.

All in all, this has been a great exercise for me to do and it was good that other staff members were doing it, too. That way we motivated each other. Otherwise, I'm not sure I would have kept it up because of the time commitment.

Let's talk about time a little. 2.0 is a lot like peanut M&Ms--I can't stop. I look at delicious and go from interesting site to interesting site and suddenly discover I've spent 30 minutes without accomplishing anything. Yes, I've read some interesting things, but it doesn't get the strategic plan written or board meeting info prepared. I've decided I need an egg timer (I'm sure there's a free one on the Web somewhere) that I can set and when my 15 minutes are up, I exit. Otherwise, my productivity will decrease even more than it has with lists, email, googling, etc.

I like the idea of reminding myself: What have I learned today? And will try to keep that attitude.

Wow, is this a long post! So much for 15 minutes :)

Thanks, State Library, for getting us into 2.0.