Monday, November 26, 2007

Thing 23: the grand finale!

What I liked most about 23 Things was learning about social networking. While the number of options can be overwhelming, it's good to know about them so we can begin thinking about how to use them for the Library. I don't normally fear new technology, but some of these seemed rather intimidating - until I completed the exercises. Blogging? No problem. Del.icio.us? My new favorite.

Now I'm ready to take what I've learned (recognizing that there's always more to learn) and begin talking with my coworkers about how to apply them here. If another discovery program like this were offered, I'd definitely be interested.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Thing 22: e-books

I'm more than a bit troubled by the fact that the Manual of Surgery was one of the top 100 e-books yesterday. I'm visualizing a surgeon standing over a patient with a scalpel in one hand and an e-book reader in the other ("Let's see...it says cut here...").

Thing 21: podcasts

We are privileged to have Dennis Wood, the Library's podcasting guru, on our team. He created the Library's first podcast at the 2006 A+ Celebration. Listen.

Thing 20: YouTube video explained

Some of you have asked why I use Smokey Bear as my IM image and you're probably wondering why he's my chosen YouTube video. Here's the deal - my father-in-law was a career Forest Service employee and Smokey became something of a Lassen mascot. In fact, we visited Smokey's museum and grave in Capitan when we lived in New Mexico (it was a couple of hours from Las Cruces, where we lived). We have a couple of great pictures of us paying our respects to Smokey.

By the way, it's Smokey Bear, not Smokey the Bear. A good way to remember that is my father-in-law's explanation: my name isn't "Christie the Lassen" and it's not "Easter the bunny."

Thing 20: YouTube

Thing 19: web 2.0 award winning sites

Wow! Reviewing this list of web sites is like exploring the Internet for the first time. There's so many options it's almost overwhelming. However, it's helpful to have them sorted with short descriptions. When I have a free hour (or ten), I want to go through the list to see what could be most helpful to the Library.