Summary

Well, this will probably be my last post on this blog, since I am just not interested in maintaining such a site. I have, however, enjoyed learning about some of the tools that I hear people discussing. I have found that some of the terms / tools are creeping more and more into our discussions at work, so that is a good thing. I know that it is vital that I keep up with new tech tools and trends. I most enjoyed learning about wikis, which seemed very practical to me; in fact, one of our staff members created one for staff feedback on our Halloween costume ball.

I am a bit frustrated by the huge amount of staff time that has been invested in this project. While I think continual learning is vital, what was supposed to be a very quick and easy project has consumed huge amounts of time for staff. It think any future projects should be tested with "regular" staff, not IT staff or techies, to determine real time that will be required.

MOLDI

I am impressed by the number and variety of titles of audio books on the site, though there were many not available of the titles I was most intersted in. I can see why this would be great for anyone in a rural area or any other place that does not have easy access to a library with lots of audio books or for someone who used a portable device for listening. Since I have access to many audio books and listen to them either in the car or at home with several CD players, this is not a service I envision myself using any time soon. I have, however, recommended it to many of my friends and customers, and some of them have told me how much they appreciate it.

PodCasts

I added a book review podcast RSS feed called Much Ado About Books to my bloglines account. It was fun to hear some short sections of books being read, though without an MP3 player or other such device, I don't think I would be interested in sitting in front of my computer and listening to them. I would rather read the book or the review.

I can see where it would be great for customers to be able to hear short clips of books that are featured on our webpage before they reserve them.

YouTube

I can certainly see why people are infatuated with YouTube. There are hours of entertainment, although the quality varies greatly! I watched clips from trips in Botswana and Zambia, the Sarah Palin clips from SNL that I had heard about but not seen, and various other categories. I was impressed with how many clips there are that show you how to do something. I can see where such clips, if well-produced, could be a real asset in explaining a process to a customer - even a short clip on how to use self-checkout on a help screen.

In honor of the upcoming presidential election, I chose to imbed a clip on how to interview a candidate for presidency!

CML's Tool Box

We have recommended gmail to people who need an e-mail account. We also have a gmail account at the branch that we use to attach people's documents when their computer is about to reset and they have no email account or flash drive. It's a great tool.

Web 2.0 Awards

I was interested to find that WorldCat is one of the award winners in the Books category. We certainly use that several times a day.

I had never been on CraigsList, though I had heard much about it. I have friends who have located roommates through the site. I enjoyed perusing it, though remain skeptical about wanting to contact people unknown through an internet site.

I didn't see that the travel sites were much better than the well-known sites, at least the prices for travel weren't any better than Expedia, etc.

Goggle.Docs

I like the idea of being able to share documents. In fact, I created the beginning of a document that I may use for a personal project. I can see where using these shared documents could be very helpful for task force members. I had a little trouble creating the document because the size of print kept changing back to the original size each time I started a new line, even though I chose a different size; I had to change the size on every line. A pain!

I listened to an NPR article the other week that was talking about shared documents and documents and other materials such as e-mails that are stored in clouds rather than personal computers. The issue is that there is no guarantee that one can always be guaranteed access to these documents; they are at the mercy of the provider, and if the provider denies access, you are completely out of luck. Many people are not reading use agreements before using a provider's "cloud" and thus have no idea they no longer own the documents stored there; they are now owned by the provider.

The other concern I thought about is that, as a supervisor, I like to track the work of my employees (i.e. know what each person contributes) so that I can hold them accountable. I wonder how that happens when each person is just going in and making changes. Is there some sort of tracking that tells you what changes each person made?

Still, it seems like a great tool for collaborative work, as long as people realize the limitations.