23.Give feedback about the program

Firstly a big thank you to the team of 23 Things. I have found it to be the best Staff Development project yet. One of the reasons I wanted a career in libraries is that they are at the forefront of technology and as part of our job it is up to us to keep abreast. I would welcome similar projects in the future.

Of course the whole thing seemed quite daunting at first but as you dived into each thing it seemed to get easier to find your way. I have learned so much and I will be using and promoting to my family and friends all of the awesome Google products, Delicious, video sharing and possibly Skype in the future.
I am not a fan of the social networking sites of Facebook or Blogs as I prefer to leave my computer and get outdoors to socialise.

I guess how all these Things can be used in Libraries depends greatly on how our managers want to incorporate them into our present system and style of offering service.

What is mind blowing is the rate of new innovations and changing technologies. With the Obama campaign we had CNN with the the hologram technology. Maybe we could all sit at home in the future and have our holograms beamed into the library!

22. Read about and explore various web based communication tools including Skype, MSN Messenger and Meeboo

Wow - what a lot of mindboggling information.
I have added Google Talk to my favourite product iGoogle - I cannot praise Google products enough!! I am so enthralled by what I have created and find it soooo useful.

Skype looks interesting - our friend in the Bahamas always uses this tool and is at us to set up our account. I am not sure I really want others to see me in my "relaxing" clothes at home when I am on the computer link - not a good look I am sure!! We find phone cards quite inexpensive but maybe Skype is worth another

21.Find and listen to a Podcast or two

Podcasts are quite interesting and could have uses for those with businesses or are in to documenting their activities.
An Iinteresting one I found was about a Catholic priest's travels in Canada.
The CNN In case you missed it which I have included in this blog. This is all about the historic election in the USA.

20.Watch YouTube videos people have made about Libraries

The Philippines - a country not known for its libraries but with an extensive history I was fascinated to find this video about how to search Filipiniana.net

This is a full-featured digital library and a research portal that gathers the most important and significant documents and artifacts on Philippine Studies and makes them available on the Internet for free. It has one of the widest and most comprehensive collections of Filipiniana books and documents spanning the Hispanic era to the contemporary period, categorized under history, culture, religion, literature, science, economy, society, and government.

Filipiniana.net combines full-text research materials and snippets of contemporary publications with non-textual materials such as maps, photographs, videos, paintings, illustrations, and tables. It has a master electronic archive, an online searching and browsing facility, knowledge maps, and thesaurus. Each material has an executive summary and introductory notes, subject headings, hyperlinks to additional information and references, and a "cite me" feature which generates a bibliographic entry. Filipiniana.net also hosts forums and blogs in the user community.

In disseminating knowledge Filipiniana.net also preserves culture. A large part of its materials consists of rare and out-of-print books and documents that would otherwise not be readily available. By serving as a repository of materials on the Philippines, Filipiniana.net ensures that these materials will be kept safe for future generations.

Filipiniana.net follows the world wide web consortium (w3c.org) recommendations for universal and transparent web interoperability as well as open and non-proprietary standards. It subscribes to the UNESCO vision of empowering people by democratizing access to information and knowledge through a free flow of ideas in words and images.


Watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6J7G_oErKlc

Although you can watch this at YouTube you can no longer embed the link into a blog.

So I have included a FUN YouTube video.

19. Put a photo of your pet on the wiki

Love the name Wiki and interesting how it got its name - Honolulu another of my favourite places!!

My grand-dog, Emily is both here and now on the VU Wikibrary.

WikiPedia is a great online source of quick information which I use frequently.

I can see some great uses for wikis.

18. Read about the Library 2.0 movement and explore new developments in Library related interfaces such as Encore and the new EBSCOhost 2.0 interface

There is so much information out there in cyberspace and it is fantastic that people are coming together to organise it better, link things easier, personalise it and make it more interactive. Software before seemed to be the ONE in control but now with these new programs there is a feeling of being in control and getting what you want faster.
For Libraries these are interesting times and I look forward to all the innovation. ENCORE certainly is a more comprehensive interface.
For students it is exciting as I felt that in the past there seemed to be a trend towards a price being put on knowledge with restricted access to databases and other commercial types of information. Now to have information and a forum for interaction put out there for free use for students and researchers from the comfort of their homes is refreshing and an exciting concept.

17. Playing with delicious

I did find it quite good to view "delicious" as I found some great information including these youtube videos on two of my favourite subjects - delicious Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. This social bookmarking site would be most useful in sharing with my sister-in-law who is even more nutty over Roger! Other interests would be handy too!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mulAi7cno2Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PagAQ1yRatA