Week 10 #23

This was a fun program, and I really appreciate Harris County Library letting us learn all these new things. It is important for librarians to keep up with the new technology, and I appreciated the opportunity to explore some of the new things that can be done on the web.

I loved creating my own blog, my son (22) and daughter (24) were very impressed! I thought creating an avatar was great fun. I have found bloglines to be one of the most useful tools for me. I use it daily to catch up on various topics of interest, including my favorite comic strip.

I was surprised to learn about the webbased apps, free word processing and spreadsheets. I thought only microsoft office products were used.

I think Podcasts could be useful to our library by having podcasts of some of our programs, so patrons could hear the different programs we offer. Podcasts on using the library might be helpful as well.

I would like to learn about anything new. I'm not sure what other web 2.0 applications are out there. If we could do this program again in another year with new things to learn, I'd love doing it. It is also great that we made this learning experience available to our patrons. All in all this was a very positive experience, and I'm glad I had the opportunity to participate.

Week 9 #22

We have a very good selection of downloadable books and videos. I have to admit that I hadn't really looked into what we have. The free sites don't have nearly the selection that we have. LibriVox didn't have any of the popular authors that I tried searching, but they do have a good selection of classic literature. Wowio has a nice collection of nonfiction titles, but I didn't see any of the more popular titles.

It's really amazing that one can download videos. Technology is really progressing. That is something I will have to try. I have an ipod that I'm still figuring out how to use. Now that I can download audio books, I want to learn to download them. I found a book, Walking, that I could listen to when walking. Now that would be cool. I think the e-cookbooks could be very useful too, especially now at holiday time.

Week 9 #21

I listened to some podcasts that I found through podcast.net. I listened to some health and fitness podcasts and found them interesting. I found one for Sunnyvale Public Library and listened to their Mother Goose Storytime. Since I am new at doing baby storytimes, I wanted to see if what they did is similar to what I've been doing (it is). I also listened to Kankakee Public Library's interview with Sue Monk Kidd and part of their teen poetry slam. Pretty cool!

I subscribed to Book Voyages, podcasts about children's literature including book reviews and interviews with children's authors.

Week 9 #20

I watched a few videos on YouTube. I have heard a lot about YouTube, and I think I've been sent some funny videos from my friends to my personal e-mail. However, I tried seaching for some funny or interesting videos, but I didn't really find anything I thought was that special. I did watch the old librarian film, and a couple of library videos that were kind of cute. Betty Glover Library Workout and Librarian, a music video were sort of funny, but nothing that made me laugh out loud.

It seems like there are a lot of frustrated actors out there. It's interesting that people make videos about anything. I searched for story times, and found some where people were reading children's books. One was actually a video about a dominatrix, so you do have to be careful.

I think libraries could include videos of some of their programs on their websties to show the kinds of things we do. A short video of a library storytime would let parents to know what to expect when they come.