By the skin of my teeth

My favorite tasks were, in no particular order: fiddling around with bloglines- it's so much easier than checking each site individually, using the online applications- google never ceases to amaze me with what they offer, and looking through blogs about the library or basically discovering that there are so many people out there who are interested in making libraries very technologically advanced.  

There are several things that helped my lifelong learning goals- all but about 2 of the tasks were completely new- things i had heard of but never explored myself . It was perfect to be 'assigned' these tasks so that I could make myself do them. Although, I still refuse to join facebook.

The format and content were great and seemed to be all-inclusive. maybe the only change would be to make this exercise mandatory for all staff- at some point. 

Ebooks

I remember ebooks from college.  I'm impressed that QBPL offers them; it's a very technologically savvy option for customers. I would be curious to see the number of patrons who take advantage of this option.  

I used Adobe and took a look through some of the books. There are several I would be interested in reading- perfect for vacation or when I am away from the library or English language bookstores. 

YouTube

I love YouTube, but am really unsure of what benefit they would serve to libraries. I usually look at ridiculous sketches such as Justin Timberlake's infamous song and compilations of Family Guy clips.  If I had to profess love for clips, those would be the ones; or the zuma zuma song clips.  Maybe I'm not experienced enough in the ways of YouTube, but it seems more fun and entertaining than actually informative.  Maybe the way to go about using it would be to have the younger patrons suggest what they think might work. 

podcasts

This is one thing I've been doing for a while; since 2004, at least. Personally I like to listen to Brian Lehrer and Leonard Lopate on my way to work. WNYC has a veritable cornucopia of great shows to listen to.
For more work-related issues, Talking with Talis looked interesting.

Web 2.0 winners

I was looking around Yelp and was suprised to see that a lot of the NY stuff was in Brooklyn. Yeah, that's right. Alas, nothing about Queens. As for Lulu, I was suprised that it wasn't about reading books, but more about publishing your own. That's cool and all, but seems like it should be under a different heading. I realize they also sell books, but the homepage isn't well geared toward buying books.

Oh poor Microsoft

I just bought a new Mac and was worried about it not having Office. Converting files is easy, as I was reassured by the salesperson. However, even if it weren't, there's google docs. Why is google so brilliant?

Facebook

It seems very natural to use some of the facebook applications in the library. JStor and Book iRead are probably the most useful in the actual library. My wikipedia is really fun, but probably has almost no value to work in the library besides just simply being entertaining. Older patrons would probably enjoy Book iRead, if you can get them comfortable on the computer.

Uncyclopedia

So much more fun than wikipedia. One of the best parts of the site is the advice for funny articles. Really, humor is such a science.

Wikis in the library

The idea of a wiki with recommended books is excellent; one of the overwhelming reasons I read a book is because I read a review of it. Also, having librarians contribute to the wiki would help customers 'trust' the reviews as they are coming from books experts.
Subject guides are also a great idea- especially for high school students. It seems like the first step after setting up these wikis would be to offer free classes and/or tutorials to library customers so they understand the service and how to use it.

Library 2.0

As I'm not a librarian, my response to the whole thing is probably more of a customer's view. I am in favor of change and moving with the times and though it is difficult to implement change in organziations, this is a necessary idea. Seeing as libraries are a service industry and HAVE to have customers in order to stay funded I can't believe there is debate about this. I worked in a branch that basically served as a computer station. NO ONE ever checked out a book and most of the questions directed to the librarians were about the copy machine and where they could fax. In an ideal world, libraries shouldn't have to jump through hoops to keep their doors open, but there is also the reality that people don't read like they used to, especially kids. Therefore, getting kids and those who spend more time on the computer than in a book into a library is going to require something like Library 2.0.

Quite the competition

Might as well add technorati to the list of now daily sites i check. Why not? It's nice to have a glance at sites I'd never look at normally and then jump over to bloglines for my meat and potatoes. I've been procrastinating on this list of tasks to do, but for some reason these recent activities have been really enjoyable.

On a roll now

Del.icio.us would have been great to have in college. I'm afraid it's going to be addictive, kind of like wikipedia. You click on one article and then read every related link possible, unless you are at work of course. I actually ended up looking at the 3 library comparison for a while, although i noticed that no one bookmarked it. ha.

Play Week, eh?

The online image generator was a little difficult to fiddle with. I really liked  the Tibetan name generator and there was one on Delft- using those patterns to create wallpaper. link: www.royaldelft.com

American media, what is there to say? I went to a panel discussion by the BBC in London on the American media's failure to accurately cover events, namely Katrina and the war. Ergo, a link to a search engine with a few American sources and some international ones as well. Fit to print on: http://rollyo.com/

Newsreaders

I've got so many sites that I want to check each day, it was easy to make up a list. I'm currently obsessed with Top Model and love to read the reactions to tyra's increasing arrogance bordering on craziness. As most American newsfeeds are rather trifling, the only options really are foreign sources. Has anyone even paid attention to CNN recently?

exploring Flickr

I've always been partial to Flickr and now with Snapfish dying, it really is the easiest one to use. Mashups seem like the dominant site these days; google's and yahoo's offerings are much easier to use than the old sites. I was thinking the other day how I used to get around without it, especially in NYC. Queens is really confusing with 30 RD, 30 Dr, 30 Ave and 30 St. Mapr is also a really fun project.

Ah, Queens Library

The first entry on the road to the gift card, er, the road to lifelong learning. Actually, I josh. This is a well devised program that is timely. Learning at your own pace is also a refreshing change from signing up for workshops which include learners from all points on the spectrum and therefore cannot possibly meet everyone's needs.