The End...Finally!

I found this exercise interesting and maddening at the same time. When you work the Children's Department, summer is not the time to go wandering in cyberspace. Your project time is dedicated to preparing for programs, doing book orders, stats and managing the volunteens, but with a bit of prodding from my friend Laura I have reached the end... at last!
My favorite explorations were Libratything and Image Generator because they were so much fun.
The program has helped me by making me aware of what's out there, things I might have not found out on my own. And the biggest surprise might be just to find out that the world of the Internet is much bigger than I thought.
This answer the last two questions, the thing to do would be to make it available at a different time, not the summer and in that case I may participate again. But if it happens again at our busiest time, then I simply would have to pass.

Digital Collection

I love Books on CD and can't imagine driving, even to the corner store, without them. I explored our library's digial collection and I see the potential. In our constantly moving world the ability to listen to books whenever and wherever you choose is just amazing. Here's an excerpt from the book I chose,

This is the spellbinding hour-by-hour reconstruction of the most destructive and powerful storm ever to strike New England.

On the night of September 20, 1938, the news on the radio was full of Hitler’s pending invasion of Czechoslovakia. Severe weather wasn’t mentioned; only light rain was forecast for the following day. In a matter of hours, however, a hurricane of unprecedented force would tear through one of the wealthiest and most populated stretches of coastline in America, obliterating communities from Long Island to Providence, destroying entire fishing fleets from Montauk to Narragansett Bay, and leaving seven hundred people dead. They never knew what hit them.

Podcasting

I listened to Podcasts of children's books from the Dever Public Library. They were o.k, but why bother? Personally, I much rather listen to a book on cd.

Those Funny Foreign Commercials!

My experience with youtube is limited to the occasional music video or "newsworthy" personality, but I love those foreign commercials! I particularly love this one advertising a language learning system. Yes, the library could make use of this technology to advertise programs and services and maybe even make it fun!

YouTube

...and the Web 2.0 Award goes to...

Lulu.com! There was much of interest among the award winners, including Cooked (where you could film yourself creating your recipe a la food network), but as a reader and writer my vote goes to Lulu, where any budding author can self publish her masterpiece.

Zoho Writer

So this is Zoho Writer. I like it. It's a cool word processing program that can be accessed on the Internet. Convenient, simple to use and it has all the tools necessary to create a good report (provided the writer has the necessary tools to write a good report.) When it comes to creativity, word processing programs are no help at all.

Playing in the Sandbox

Playing in the pbcls exploring web 2.0 sandbox. Interesting to see other people's favorites and to add my two cents to the equation.

To Wiki or Not to Wiki...

My children introduced me to wikis with the ultimate wiki, Wikipedia. On the plus side, wikis allow everyone an opportunity to put in their two cents. On the negative side, wikis allow everyone the opportunity to put in their two cents (misinformation and all.)
For libraries, wikis can be a great source for readers advisory, collection suggestions and policy development.

Web 2.0

To me, "Away from Icebergs" was the most interesting blog on Web 2.0. I agree that libraries and library personnel need to change and adapt to the times and the needs of patrons. But that shouldn't mean "anything goes." Just because people want to eat everywhere doesn't make the library a restaurant. Just because people want to chat on their cell phones doesn't make the library a park. Librarians, who are required to have a Master Degree, shouldn't have to spend most of their work day refereeing patrons arguing about computer time. A library should command and demand respect, for its collection, its mission and its employees.

Searching...

Searching the PBC Library's url showed 73 blog reactions, mostly about the mouse tutorial. Who would have thought that a little rodent would be so popular?
Tag searching for Web 2.0 resulted in 39,804 posts. Some related tags were Ajax, Tech Crunch and Internet. To me, they were a bit confusing and I'll probably never pass their way again.

So Delicious!

I find del.icio.us a wonderful tool to keep your favorite sites handy not matter where you are.