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.

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.

Thing 18: online productivity tools

Thanks to Amy, I've been using Google Docs to share documents that need to be edited by others. It's a great alternative to e-mailing files back and forth.

Thing 9: Merlin, etc.

Well, this was fun! Browsing through Merlin was like a stream of consciousness experience. I found Beth's link to finetune and am listening to my favorites as I do the rest of this exercise. Then I browsed through some library blogs and ended up at the Columbus (Ohio) Metropolitan Library web site, where they refer to databases as "premium resources." I find that terminology quite a clever marketing ploy.

Thing 8: RSS

I set up several feeds on Blogline and could probably find quite a few more, but I've got 15 more "things" to do...

Thing 7: technology

Digital cameras have made marketing professionals' lives much easier. Back in the old days, we took pictures on film, had to wait for them to be developed, cropped them manually using a crop wheel, and submitted them to printers. (I know, I'm showing my age...) Now we can see pictures immediately and edit and manipulate however we choose in a matter of minutes. What's next?

Thing 6: Warholizer

I need to save more pictures to my laptop to fully explore all the Flickr tools. I wanted to make my own librarian trading card (even though I'm not a librarian), but then I saw this Warholizer tool - cool! I could have all kinds of fun with this - personally and professionally!

Thing 5: Greetings from Austin

A couple of years ago, I spent a few days in Austin with my best friend from college. She lived in South Austin, a part of town known for its quirkiness. That's something for Austin, whose slogan is "Keep Austin weird" (as in, keep the locally owned stores in business instead of malls and big box chains). As we walked from her house to South Congress Avenue to do some shopping at those local stores, we passed this mural on the side of a building. I loved how it was just like one of those old postcards you don't see much anymore.

Thing 3: very first post

I finally made it to the blogging world! Now the fun begins...