ktsquizzie

23 Things-Round 2! #7 Web Communication

2008-06-04T07:39:00.000-07:00

As an avid user of texting myself, I think its great that libraries have begun to incorporate this into their ever expanding arsenal of communication tools. For today's patrons I think the more communication options they have at their fingertips the better. The library where I work just implemented a online chat reference tool and so far it has gotten rave reviews. I would like to see our office begin using some sort of inter-office chat service, making it easier to send out impromptu messages to all available staff.

Email is used all the time and it can very easily be quite a drain on our time. I found the productivity hints to be helpful. I think that using something more temporary like inter-office chat would be a good way to cut down on some emails that are irrelevant as soon as the message is read. My inbox is full of many of these messages, taking up virtual space unnecessarily, because i rarely get around to deleting them.

And webinars are great. Recently, our consortium has used them to view product demos. It is a great way to get many people together virtually (who are not in the same geographic location) to hear an "expert" (who is most likely even farther away than we are from each other) demo their product or expound on their area of expertise. I found it especially useful that some of the Minitex webinars are archived so that people can go back to them at a later date to review or for their own benefit.

Twitter is something i have heard about from friends who use it. I think it would be fun, but not totally necessary. At the moment I think Facebook, which has twitter-like potential with your status updates, is enough for me!

All in all, there are so many options for communicating online that personally you have to pick and choose. I think that libraries can utilize some of the most popular communication tools, but that it would be somewhat of a waste of time to try and "do it all".

23 Things #6-Online Image Generators

2008-04-04T10:15:00.000-07:00

How fun is this? These programs make creating something slick and professional for any library event/purpose super easy and fast. What a great tool to use for National Library Week! I think I will try my hand at creating promo material for our annual book sale.
Here are the images that I created using the Trading Card and Movie Poster tools. I found the Trading Card tool a little dorky and there weren't enough options.
I had a little more fun with the Movie Poster tool. It was a little cumbersome because I couldn't see a preview of what the options i was choosing would look like so I had to go back and forth a few times and fix a few things.

2008-04-02T21:11:00.000-07:00

23 Things #5-Flickr Fun!

2008-04-02T20:57:00.000-07:00

I saw this on a few other people's blogs so I thought i would give it a try. I had a little trouble getting it to post on my blog, but a few tries and it worked just fine!

I can see why it would be easy to spend a lot of time using these different mashups! I think that these tools could be helpful to create cool graphics/designs for various things on our library website, and maybe use them to do creative things with photos of our library. For example, we could use the Caption mashup to put together a online photo tour of the building that shows patrons where things are-different collections, people who can answer their questions and even the bathrooms!

23 Things #4-Flickr

2008-03-18T16:10:00.000-07:00

It is wonderful to be able to have a place online where everyone can store and share pictures. It just makes sense.
Signing up and uploading photos to Flickr was a breeze, but I had some trouble posting from Flickr to my blog, so I just uploaded something from my computer that i also uploaded to Flickr. It is a picture I took on a trip to Chicago last summer.
I am definitely interested in using Flickr personally to organize and store my own personal photos. As a library we have used Flickr to document our library's renovation over the past few summers.
I don't have any problems with having public photos on Flickr, even pictures of myself. For anyone who is concerned about that there is the private option that will keep their pictures from being accessible by any other Flickr user. I read a few posts from Librarians who were concerned about posting pictures of pieces of artwork and found it very interesting.

23 Things #3- RSS

2008-03-18T15:55:00.000-07:00

Ah...this is wonderful. I can keep up-to-date on a wide variety of websites and blogs all in one spot-i love it!
What I probably like the most is that an overview of your unread information is accessible in one click. The quick scroll down your "home" page lets you find what you want/need to read first and what you don't have to read at all. This is a perfect way for me to keep up-to-date on a broad spectrum of information in a short glance. This is helpful to me because it brings info directly to me-i don't have to browse for it and risk getting distracted by other articles, information, etc. It helps me be efficient with my information browsing time.

23 Things #2

2008-02-20T19:42:00.000-08:00

Although it is sometimes hard to find time to dedicate to the learning of the 23 Things, I think that the content and my desire to learn more will draw me back often to keep exploring these new applications. I have already involved myself in some of these online tools, but doing something like this is helping me to learn much more than i would on my own volition. I am learning how to blog-something i have always wanted to do but just never got around to until the 23 Things!
I am also excited about learning more about Web 2.0 through this program. I have only heard bits and pieces about this-umm....movement and how it relates to libraries and I am looking forward to expanding my knowledge.

Onward and upward!

So i've created a blog... now what?

2008-02-06T19:09:00.001-08:00

Why create an avatar of course! How fun... the options are endless. And it was a very easy process. I think the hardest part was coming up with another password for a new email account!