#23 My favorite discoveries were Flickr for pictures and the RSS feeds. This program has made me realize there is so MUCH information available on the internet and access to that information is vital, when relating to library users today. My life long learning goals are still to continue to learn, but to understand my limitations and to ask those with more expertise for assistance. Again, I was overwhelmed by the vast amount of information on the web and I know there is much more than what these twenty-three things touched upon. I feel I have an introduction to the topics in the program, but certainly do not feel proficient enough without further study and input from those more experienced. I am certainly in no position to comment on changes to format or concepts. I am just thankful for the opportunity to be exposed to Web 2.0 in a self-paced format. If another discovery program similar to this was offered, I would participate, if my life situation allowed me the time. I would describe my learning experience as an eye opener, informative, and enlightening in reguards to some of today's web technology.

Project Gutenberg
Three million books downloaded each month just from iBiblio. I had no idea downloading books was so popular. The MP3 players are amazing little things, and the convenience of multi-tasking while listening to a book is very appealing. With 100,000 free books available, who couldn't find something they wanted to listen to. I found the selections of computer generated or human read books quite interesting and there was also music and pictures. The Project Gutenberg also offered an RSS feed, which is nice. There were many titles of books I would like to read. I don't like to sound so old fashioned, but I have never liked listening to anything through head phones, and I'm not sure I would be able to focus on a book being read to me. I have tried listening to audio books in my car, but find I have troulbe driving and listening effectively. I will still try again in the future, and I am glad to know that downloading books is widely used around the world.

Padcast was problematic on my home computer, but I think I successfully completed the RSS feed to my Bloglines account. I guess I would rather read something written instead of watching a video. Again the podcasts give current information in video and audio form, which is interesting to a lot of people. The Podcast.net seemed to offer the widest range of searching for subjects, if you knew what you were looking for. The Podcastalley.com seemed to have a lot of paid subscriptions, and the Yahoo Podcasts was easiest for me to use because I wasn't looking for a specific topic. The Maryland Essential Resource for Library Information Networks (MERLIN) has a lot of useful information.

YouTube

What I liked about YouTube was not much except you could see up to date video, but most of what is on this site does not interest me. I chose a video about endangered animals. The pictures of the animals are nice and the message to help keep the animals from becoming extinct is a good one. The video gives just general ways to prevent this: stop abusing our resources and our technology. At the end of the video there are some other things to do to save the animals: stop destroying animal habitats, reduce pollutants, and reduce "something I can't read." The writing over top of the animal pictures at the end is hard to read and it flashes on the video quickly. Use in a library might be names of animals endangered and pictures of them. More information about how endangered, etc. could be obtained after knowing the names of the animals. Use of YouTube in the library would be current events.

Web 2.0 Awards

I looked at Biblio.com under Books and found a site for used book searches and buying and selling. They claim to have 50 million used books. The top tabs were helpful: Search, Browse, Bookstores, Textbooks, and Rare Books. I could look in the rare books for a long time. On the left side of the site there were also categories of "Community" which offered book reviews, discussions, and collecting, and "Customer Service" with an email address for questions. The bargain books for under $2 was also fun to explore. This may be a useful tool for helping a library user to find the possible sale price and/or value of a book they own, or maybe a source for ordering a book they would like to own. They also have out of print books which are sometimes requested.

Google Docs

The organization tool I use the most is probably calendars, so I chose to make a calendar. The good features were easily being able to add an appointment, the ability to add the calendar to my tool bar, emailing the calendar to myself and others was easy, and the "Agenda" button printed each day's events in order on a single page. I wasn't too impressed with the printed version, but that is not the purpose of this site. I can see the usefulness of these Google organizational tools.

Wiki

I found the different uses for Wiki's interesting: as a library website, a pathfinder to locate library information about certain subjects, for an event, and as a resource for a specific group of people, to name a few. I also thought the number of times accessed and the last date modified was interesting. The applications I thought most useful to a library would be the subject guide and the book lovers (book reviews, etc). However, the book lovers developed by Princeton Public Library appeared to need updating from 2006! This is another issue for staff of the library. All of this technology takes knowledge and TIME to update and keep active with participants. I was glad to see that editing seems to be limited to some degree because I have concerns about the reliability of information coming from unauthorized sources. I think a Wiki is a useful tool for otaining interesting information quickly about a topic, but then the information needs to be verified by other sources. A Wiki is a great way to share ideas and opinions, to work on team projects, and to gather information. Links in a Wiki to other sites are helpful and useful.