Finished!

Finished the Northbrook 8...actually 9 (w/Podcasting). I am glad that everyone is able to experience these elements of "Library 2.0." It does not have to be overwhelming if you pick and choose what is relevant to your life or if the library chooses those tools that will most effectively connect with patrons.

Podcasts

I subscribed to Sarah Long's feed via Bloglines. The podcasts are interesting, but I don't have much time to listen to these or watch videocasts online. My daughter downloads free podcasts from iTunes for her iPod. Podcasts are easy to create and add another dimension to the Web experience.

Northbrook Portal/MyMediaMall

I easily downloaded the Overdrive software and an audio book. I also downloaded the Adobe Digital reader and an e-book, a Yellowstone travel guide. The e-books might especially be useful to recommend to patrons when some of our newer nonfiction books, such as test prep and travel guides, are all checked out. The process was easy, I just had to make sure to follow the direction links.

The Northbrook Public Library Web site can stand a few upgrades....hopefully in the future we can direct patrons straight to it in an easier fashion, rather than it being a "tab" amongst the others in the portal without a unique address. We could also benefit from a cleaner and more user-friendly layout and the opportunity for interactivity, as may other library Web sites offer.

Wikis

I have previously used a Wiki on a collaborative project, and it worked well. I added a post to the Northbrook8 "Reference" page. It is easy to use, but sometimes a blog is sufficient for certain needs.

Social Bookmarking

I easily added "The Onion" to the list, it's my favorite online laughter source.

I will start del.i.cious account for my Yellowstone trip planning bookmarks. I have them at home, but it would be useful to access them from other computers and also make them available to my husband when he's at another computer. I am sure I can get some good site ideas from other users, as well.

Social Networking

I am already a member of Facebook, LibraryThing and LinkedIn (I don't use this much). I communicate with friends and family on Facebook and enjoy the pictures, etc. that my "friends" post. I have gotten back in touch with people I have not seen in years! It is the perfect answer to the question..."Where are they now?" I use LibraryThing to keep track of my books, but I don't use it to "network" much. I do leave my profile/library public so that anyone can see what I have read. I like looking at other libraries that LT flags as similar to my own to see what others are reading and I love reading the comments about books.

I tried GoodReads just to check it out. I don't really want to change my "social cataloging" application, although GoodReads does have a nicer looking interface. For someone who wants to "talk books" with others, it looks like a better choice because it is set up for a lot of networking but for my purposes, LibraryThing works well.

Click here to view my LT library.

Flikr

Easily uploaded a photo of the kids to Flikr. It has nice networking tools.

Since I use Gmail and Picasa, it is easier for me to upload to the Picasa Web Photo album, rather than have a separate Flickr account. This way, I can just do one login to Gmail and get at my photos, as well.

In Yellowstone news, we are working on planning our Yellowstone stops...click on the link to see Old Faithful erupting:

http://http://www.nps.gov/PWR/customcf/apps/stream/stream.htm?parkcode=yell