Elaine is AMAZING!!!!

Not only does Elaine answer Web 2.0 questions with a great deal of patience, she is amazing with the photocopier too. I managed (not quite sure how) to jam some cardstock in the Kyocera. When I followed those not-so-helpful diagrams, I managed to tear of the corner of the jammed paper, creating an even bigger mess. More diagrams popped up, Elaine popped out to help and mastered her way through the new array of arrows until the problem was resolved. Elaine learned that there is a B4 knob and I learned that Elaine is amazing at solving photocopier problems!

#20

It was interesting to go in and see people's favourite restaurants, books, places to vacation, etc. I thought there would be more on the favourite book page, but maybe I'm ahead of the game for once!

#19 Wikis

I think wikis are fun and could be useful for collaborating. I wish the highschool kids used them for group projects. Any parent of a teenager knows how irritating it is to try to get together a group of kids who all have different work schedules, significant other schedules, etc. A wiki would allow them all to add in their own parts and then someone could edit the whole thing before submitting it to the teacher. My favourite wiki was the Webster Public Library's Children's Series Binder http://seriesbinder.lishost.org/index.php/Main_Page. Not only is it great for finding a new series for a patron, it solves them problem of what order they should be read in. I can see myself using this resource. It was interesting that it was a collaboration between library staff and patrons, but to become a contributor you must e-mail them for a password. Someone still needs to monitor the site or false information could be posted. However, most of the wikis I looked at seemed not to have been updated recently. Like anything else, it's having the time to spend on it. I could see CAF having one - we could list good read-alouds for class visits, programs that we felt went exceptionally well, etc.

#17 Web 2.0

I felt most of these articles focused too much on technology and ignored the value of human contact/service. Although we do need to keep up with changing technologies, I believe that, at least for our community, the customer service we give is valued by our patrons. I see this in CAF, when someone comes to us for reader's advisory instead of using the databases and I've also noticed it in Borrower Services, where the other day there was a line-up whilst the self-checks sat empty. This is not meant to knock the electronic services we offer. On another given day, I'm sure that the reverse could be equally true. I feel that we need to offer both, so that all the needs of our various patrons can be met. Rick Anderson may have noticed a 55% drop in circulation but we have experienced the opposite, with circing our 1 millionth item a month earlier than last year. Rick's opinion is definitely based on his own experiences, with desiring to move away from what he calls a "just in case" collection. One of the comments I hear the most from students is that they need a print resource - teacher's orders!

#16 Technorati

I find Technorati easy to use but I was really surprised when I compared a search with Google and Google Blog Search. I tried searching for word searches, as I use them as one of the printable activities in Reading Buddies. Technorati only had 4 results, compared to 166,000,000 for Google and 59,491,638 for Google Blog Search. I hate to admit it, but I am definitely a google girl!

#15 Tagging and Delicious

I thought Delicious was great. I found it easy to use (except getting the little icons on my browser). I don't think I'm as interested in the social aspects of it, but having the information organized by tags worked nicely. The only problem I had with this exercise was that the link to Several Habits of the wildly successful Delicious users didn't work.

#14 Online Image Generators

OOPS, I forgot to blog about the online generators! What fun. I created a lego mini-me, complete with bling which was tons of fun but had a hard time saving it. Then Carol mentioned the cool text site so I went there http://cooltext.com/Render-Result?RenderID=442254615 and had fun creating a register now sign. This is something that I'll have to play around with more, as the amount of options are incredible.