Thing 21: Podcasts, Smodcasts!

For this discovery exercise we were asked to take a look at one or two of the podcast directories listed and see if we can find a podcast that interests us. I picked Yahoo podcasts and selected NPR book review podcasts to add as a RSS feed to my Bloglines account. I picked NPR book reviews because I don't get a chance to listen to NPR as much as I would like to. Now I have another way to stay up to date with some of the latest news from NPR.

Thing 20: You too can YouTube

What I liked about YouTube is that it gives people a chance to have their 15 minutes of fame. It gives musicians and singers a chance to be heard and possibly be discovered by a record company. What I don't like about YouTube is that anything can be posted. There's videos posted of people fighting and doing all sorts of other things that I won't mention. You get the good, bad and the ugly. Over all I think YouTube is a good thing. Can I see any features or components of the site that might be interesting if they were applied to library websites? Well, patrons could click on a link to see what a storytime program, summer reading program and adult programs are like. I picked this funny and cute video because of the beautiful tiger cubs and the cute monkey. Adorable and smart!

Love the sport and the music!

Thing 19: Discovering Web 2.0 tools

I selected Wetpaint. What I liked about Wetpaint was that it has combined the finest elements of blogs, social networking and wikis. While exploring Wetpaint, I discovered a wiki by Nancy Pearl. It was very user friendly. It offers a lot of great info that I found useful. Could I see any applications for its use in a library setting? Patrons could create a wiki of their favorite books, cds and dvds. We are often asked if we keep a record of all of the items that they've ever checked out. This could be a good way for them to keep track of what they've read, listen to or watched.

Thing 18: Web-based Apps: There not just for desktops

For this discovery exercise, we were asked to take a look at Zoho Writer, create a document and then document your discoveries in your blog. At first I didn't know which Office Suite or Productivity Tools to choose. Finally I picked show zoho. After I decided what I wanted to do in show zoho, I had fun with it. One problem I encountered when I added a text box, was that I couldn't backspace or highlight a letter or word to delete it. I had to delete the whole text box and start over again. Here's what I created!