#23 I am crossing the finish line!!

I can not believe I finally made it to the finish line! It was not easy for me to make the fist step, but at the end, I only have positive comments about this project. I found that I am not as computer illiterate as I thought I was.

I discovered a few useful tools I never would have the chance to use if it is not for this project. After getting over the anxiety and frustration, I do enjoy the excitement of learning new tools and I plan to continue to use these new tools.

Very likely I will participate in other similar project in the future; however, it will definitely work out better for me if it goes a slower pace.

Finally, I want to thank you, QL L2.0 team: your continuous support and encouragement made the learning process smooth and fun. Thank you.

#17 Playing with Wiki

Wiki is the last exercise I am doing before I cross the finish line #23, brcause I want to spend more time to check out Wiki sites and learn how to edit or create a page. Library Success is very impressive and I would like to work on the site in the future since I have already signed up an account there. It is a great idea for librarians to share ideas and sucess stories in an informal way, and this is a right place to contribute. Today, I did my exercise on a different site, just to see how the process works. http://www.wikihow.com/Sandbox/How-to-Grill-Tri-Tip

QL Digital Media

Although I have known QL offers a good digital media collection, I never really take the time to go and check that out before I start this exercise. Follow the steps to search through the collection, I ended checking out three titles in my ditigal cart, one OverDrive video, one OverDrive Audio Book and one Adobe e-book. It took a long time for me to finally download OverDrive Media Console and update the security code. 900+ titles seems a big collection, but I find the collection is too limited. And I don't think QL has enough publicity of this service to reach out to the community.

Podcast

I explored Podcast.net where there is an ocean of various podcasts. By entering the keyword "library or librarian", I was directed to some interesting podcasts. That is "Check It Out - Produced by the Sausalito Public Library - Show #101: Es Cuba with author Lea Aschkenas Podcast Date: Jul 6, 2006 14:20:28". It is an interesting interview with author Ms. Aschkenas who spent three years to write Es Cuba and half year to edit it. She talked a lot her experience of Cuba. I think if we can add this format to our book discussion group, I bet it will add a lot more fun. Our customers love to hear author talks.

I want to point it out that I did have to download QuickTime Player before I was able to listen the podcast. It also took some time for me to figure it out how to add this podcast to my RSS feed in my Blogline account. But I did it. And that accounts.

You Tube

You have to be dead not to know what You Tube is about. I have tried a couple of times in the past exploring the site, but it is just too much for me and I got discouraged. Unless you are uploading your video or you know what you are looking for, you could spend hours not geting much out of it. This time I did watch a few interesting videos, but still it is too time consuming and I am not into visual stuff. I also come across porno videos that don't belong there. I wish the site can be better controlled. Here is one of the video I watched.

Web 2.0 Tools

Craigslist is one of the familiar websites for me. I was told it first started in California, then spread over to many other locations. It is amazing that so much information can be posted on the site and shared by millions of online users. I like the site because it is easy to use and it is a great tool to get yourself familiar with a community, look for an apartment or a house, to sell or buy anything or everything. My husband and I sold a few things posted there. One thing you have to be very careful is that there are plenty of scams there. As for library, this is not a choice.

Google Docs is a life saver.

Google Doc is so straight forward and the only thing I can say at this point is that I wish I discover this tool early. I can think of many times in the past when my life could be much less hectic if I used Google Doc. Now if I work on a document at home, I can easily to see or edit it in the library or vice versa, so I don't have to carry around my flash drive all the times. I also like the sharing idea. That means different librarians can share spreadsheets of book orders to speed up our selection process. Who says Learning 2.0 is a waste of time! I think I actually start enjoying the exercises!