20th Thing: The Final Thing

Well, I've done it; I've done it all! It was in turns fun, intriguing, frustrating, rewarding, time-consuming, but above all, educational.

There is stuff out there that I never dreamed existed. There are some things, like LibraryThing, the image generators, YouTube and Flickr that I'll no doubt use again and again. There are other things that I doubt will become a regular part of my life. Nonetheless, I am happy to have learned about each of them.

If you were a little timid about playing around on the internet and trying new things I hope that this project has emboldened you. So keep exploring! Continue to check out new applications. If a patron comes into your branch and mentions an application you're not familiar with -- check it out! And share what you learn with your co-workers and our patrons.

The web changes so quickly. No doubt we could repeat this project in another year and have 20 completely new things to explore. So let's try to take a little time each week to explore some new website or application.

19th Thing -- Podcasts

Well, I think I'm more of a visual person. I do like music and enjoy listening to it but I'd rather attend a live concert than listen to a CD or an mp3. This may explain why I love to read but don't care for talking books and why I only listen to the radio while I'm doing something else. It may also explain why podcasting just isn't my cup of tea. But I did explore some podcasts and I even subscribed to 2 cruise-related podcasts. I had them sent to my Google Reader account rather than my Bloglines account.

There are lots of library-related blogs and I'm sure that many of them are quite useful. At this stage of things what I really wanted was a library humor blog. I haven't found one but I may check back from time to time.

I can't imagine ever wanting to publish a podcast of my own. I don't have anything to talk about that I think more than a handful of people would be interested in hearing. But that limitation has not stopped thousands of other podcasters and bloggers.

18th Thing -- Web 2.0 Tools

There are such a lot of nifty web 2.0 tools that it will consume as much time as you choose to devote to them. As a result, it took me many long minutes to settle on just one to write about. I limited my exploration to the award winners and, after dabbling with the travel sites, decided to write about Zillow. Zillow is a tool that provides a great deal of information on real estate. You can enter the address of a property and very quickly retrieve - among much other information - the estimated value of the property, the number of square feet, how much property tax was paid and - in most cases - photos of the property. I know that all of this information is public record but it is still amazing how much information can be gathered in a very short time. In addition to seeing how my house compared to others in my neighborhood I also looked at the listings for the other houses that I've lived in. Zillow is a useful - and fun - tool.

17th Thing -- Online Productivity Tools -- Google Docs

I was introduced to Google Docs at a Library of Virginia workshop a couple of years ago. Although it's a great collaborative tool I hadn't used it regularly since that workshop. Now Bill and I are preparing a workshop for our Managers and Librarians. Any time you need to learn something well enough to teach it to others you invariably learn about the idiosyncrasies of the thing. Google Docs does have some but the usefulness of the product outweighs them.

Although I've created this post in Google Docs and uploaded it to my blog I'm not really sure what the advantage is in doing it this way. It seems easier to go directly to the blog and create my post there.

The ability to work in real time with others in different locations and to maintain and easily view all revisions to a document is the real benefit of Google Docs. When several people are working together on the same document it can be very useful to know who made which revisions and be able to compare versions and, if necessary, go back to an older version of a document.

I'm looking forward to having our Managers and Librarians adopt Google Docs as a useful tool for the collaborative work that we all do.

16th Thing -- Wikis

There has been some really interesting use of wikis. I particularly like the SJCPL subject guides wiki. The PRL R&T department has recently been talking about pathfinders but we're finding the traditional printed format much too limiting. A PRL pathfinder wiki is very likely in our future! Near future or distant future remains to be seen.

The Best Library Practices and the Library Instruction wikis are also places that I'm sure I'll be visiting frequently. I'm always looking for ways to make our training better and these sites seem very useful, I'd like to think that I might one day have something helpful to add to the wikis.

Friday Pontoppidan, my Second Life Avatar

That's me in the sunflower t-shirt. I did finally figure out how to put on the shirt that I got at the library but I don't remember how I did it. If you double click on the picture you'll see my bald spot. I have no idea who the person stuck in the table is. Creepy.

15th Thing: Second Life

I have an account in Second Life. I've had it for well over a year now. My Second Life name is Friday Pontoppidan. I have visited the site several times but rather than finding it interesting and engaging I've found it a little weird at times and occasionally creepy.

On one of my 1st visits to Second Life I learned to fly. That was really fun. I liked soaring high over the landscapes and across the ocean. Then I landed on a island. There were lots of buildings but no people, so I explored. I went into a building that seemed to be under construction and I fell into a hole. A very deep hole. I couldn't climb out; I couldn't jump out. I yelled, "Help" -- or at least I typed it. Maybe I should have typed it in ALL CAPS because no one heard me. To save my virtual life I could not figure out how to get out of that hole. So I just quit the program.

I came back several weeks later. This time I visited the ALA site and a virtual library. I was given a t-shirt - virtual, of course -- for stopping by but I couldn't figure out how to put it on. I was also very confused by the bonfire on the roof of the library. Live fires in or on library buildings just seem like a bad idea to me. But I guess I'm just not thinking virtually. Anything is possible in Second Life.

I know that part of the supposed draw of Second Life is the chance to interact with people from all over the world in this virtual world. Social interaction. The problem with that is that I'm not that great with social interaction in the First World. So when I see other people in Second Life rather than go up and chat with them I tend to walk away. Once I ended up on another island -- there are a lot of islands in Second Life. I heard drums and I saw a large group of people in the distance with torches. That time I didn't walk away, I ran. Until I remembered that I could fly; then I took wing.

The last time that I visited Second Life I was attempting to show my husband the interesting world and the people there. We were in a park. There was a biplane flying overhead. There was also big gray bunny person and several cat people. Then a figure dressed in black dropped in from the sky. I said, "I think that fellow has a gun." My husband, ever the optimist said, "I think it's an umbrella" just as the fellow started to shoot his "umbrella." By this time I've become fairly adept at getting out of Dodge quickly.

I haven't been back since then. I know that there must be less strange places in Second Life but I haven't had much luck there. I also have doubts about the lasting usefulness of Second Life to libraries. The program requires a lot of computing power and a high speed connection to the internet. Some of our patrons have neither in their homes and even some of our branches would have difficulties running the program. I think that Second Life, at least in its present form, won't have a major impact on how we provide liibrary service.

I should have known that Second Life was going to be a struggle for me when I created my avatar Friday Pontoppidan and she somehow ended up with a bald spot. Apparently female pattern baldness is a problem even in the virtual world.