Thing 35: Books 2.0

In our library, I have not seen much change in the borrowing of books being influenced by kindle or other electronic book type things. I think that people like to have the physical book in their hand. That's part of the whole experience of reading it, feeling and smelling the book. I also think that people find it hard to read on the smaller electronics and it hurts their eyes. Personally, I like the whole process of going to the library, looking through the books, seeing a cover, and actually touching the book. I think that the electronic devices make it seem like you are more of reading a webpage than a book. I think that its not the same experience and because of this, there won't be a mad rush of people switching over. I already have been a member of LibraryThing from the first round and I absolutely love it. I mainly wanted to join so that it would organize my books for me and I would just have to coordinate my shelves. I wish that I would have more time to finish entering all my books but soon, I hope. I looked at a few other sites that were on the list, but I think that I still like LibraryThing the best. I created an account with the Shelfari website. I really liked the look of this site and was excited about it until I joined and got started. There was no organization for my collection and it seemed to be more of a book talk site rather than an organization and collection site. I also looked at the BookLamps site. I joined because once againI thought it looked cool. I was way confused and didn't really figure out what to do on the site. We already use the KDL What's Next site at our library and it has come in handy quite often. The last site that I looked at was the Living Social website. If I spent more time on the internet for entertainment, then I would definitely join this site but it just seemed like one more thing that I wouldn't have time for.

Thing 34: Is this our competition? --Online Answer Sites

I think that a lot of people like the idea that when they ask a question on an online answer site, they are able to do so completely anonymously. They aren't afraid of looking stupid or anyone making fun of them for what they ask because it cannot be tied to them. I also think that to many people, the idea of doing things on the internet gives them the idea that things are being done faster and more efficiently.
I saw a lot of relationship and sex related questions. I think that this is because of the privacy and secrecy that the internet allows them. These are questions that they may be too embarrassed to ask someone in person and perhaps want the opinion of someone who is impartial to the situation. These are questions that they don't necessarily need an expert or a professional to answer, they just want an opinion. So, these are questions that are not really appropriate for a librarian or to be asking in the library.
I did not participate in the slam boards. I think that libraries are coming into this question and answer technology on their own. Using email and instant messaging, people are able to contact and use the resources of the library without even stepping in the door. We are making a virtual library as a place and people are using this place to interact with librarians and get their questions answered in a timely manner. They know that they are getting an expert or professional answer and I think that they value this more than an answer from wikianswers or askville.

Thing 33: Travel 2.0

I have done a lot of looking at travel sites in the past. The last dozen trips or so that I have gone on, I have done all the planning and booking online. I think that it is great that we are able to access this information online and to take care of virtually everything. I only recently have gotten into the sites that go over traveler's reviews and advisory. I checked out a couple of the sites that were on the list. I had been to tripadvisor.com before and i think that it mixes well with the other planning sites such as expedia and travelocity. I have read reviews about hotels on travelocity and expedia and thought that those were helpful but I really liked how tripadvisor.com goes into more detail and seems to be a lot more helpful. I also checked out farecast.com and looked up some flight costs from seattle to fargo. I was a little disappointed that I could not get the cost forecast feature on these destinations but i am sure that is just for the major airports and destinations. I also checked out the blog My Kugelhopf and I absolutely loved this!! I think that I am going to have to live vicariously through this blog. The pictures were amazing and the words were very well written. It was a great advertisement for the areas that she had traveled to. I think that this is the sort of advisory that I would find most helpful. If I had the means to do a big trip, say to Europe again, I would definitely check out this blog or one similar to find places of interest to visit.
At the library, we get questions about traveling and about travel guides. Our library has decided against purchasing more travel guides since they are so expensive and they need to be updated quite often. These are great resources to provide for patrons. In fact, at our library, we are providing a class this summer about travel resources and websites. I think that many of these will come in very handy.

Thing 32: Google Maps and Mashups

I have used Google Maps quite a bit before. In fact, in my Internet Searching class that I have taught here at the library, I also show people how to use this website and a few of the neat things that can be done with it. I have not used the My Maps before. I had a little difficulty with My Maps and finding all the place point describers and the different features but I asked a coworker and she helped me a bit. I created a map of where we will be going on our honeymoon in a week and a half. I created some place markers for places of interest that we will be going to and some things that I like along the way. I looked over the mash-ups and took some time with the local brewery one and found some places of interest along our trip that we may have to check out. I can see adding the google maps feature to the library website to show people where the library is and to perhaps to help them with directions to the library. I can also see it working to show people where important places are in the city such as the post office, city hall, courthouse, etc. An interesting way to also use it for the library would be to create historical walking tours that people would be able to print off and follow throughout our community and find important places in our history. Here is my map that I created:

View Honeymoon in a larger map

Thing 31: More Twitter

What does your Twitter page say about you? How does it reflect your personality? Have you given people enough information about you so they have some sense of who you are as a person?

I had heard about Twitter before I created my account on the previous Twitter thing. I was excited to create an account and to be involved in this online sensation. I now use twitter on a pretty regular basis. I tweet about how i'm feeling, what i'm doing or about something cool that I saw on the internet and want to share. I have started following alot of celebrities and people that I admire. Its cool to become a part of their daily lives (almost) or at least to see a part of their lives that you might not normally have the access to. I have not found a whole lot of my friends and no family that I know of uses twitter so its become kind of a little different and almost a secret thing that I can vent into or use to say things that I might not otherwise say. I would say that I am in the microblogging stage. Although I am not constantly or daily updating my status, I try to as much as possible and I have 1x1 conversations with other peeps. I think that twitter is an excellent way to connect and to get your ideas and thoughts out there. I think that it is connection. Although I may be a little technology phobic when I think of being able to tweet from phones and many other devices. I like my phone to be used for calling people and texting directly to another phone. I don't have internet access on my phone or a full keyboard and I will resist this until its humanly possible. But I do like twitter and I will continue to use and communicate through it.

Thing 30: More Ways to Use RSS and Delicious

I have been using my RSS reader very sporadically since the first round of 23 things. I have added a few blogs that I have gotten from co-workers and I have added all my co-workers more things on a stick blogs. I really have only organized my feeds into one group ( more things on a stick blogs) and have let the rest go all willy nilly on my reader. It does help me keep up with the more things on a stick group but really I don't check it enough for it to make a big difference. Honestly when I do get around to checking it, I usually just end up scanning and deleting. I have not used Delicious at all since the first round but I was a large fan of it then. I went over a few of the tools that were offered in this thing. I looked at the feed-my-inbox and if I were really to keep track and read my RSS follows on a regular basis, I think that this would be a tool that would come in handy. I don't like having to log into a ton of websites to see updates so this would help streamline that. I also checked out spokentext.net. I found this site to be extremely helpful but not necessarily for the reasons that it should have been. I am getting married in a week and a half (yikes!) and my brother (an ordained minister) have been going over the ceremony and everything. It has mostly been done over email because he is in the Navy and we don't get a chance to talk much. I was able to put a draft of the ceremony into spokentext to create a sound recording of it. It was a lot different and very helpful to hear the words and how they go together rather than just read them. I was very impressed. Another tool that I checked out was simpletracking.com. My husband-to-be is a shipping and receiving manager and this tool made me think of him and how if i were in that situation, this would be a very helpful asset. The last tool that I looked at was SPREED. I liked this one because I tend to read a little faster and it let me test how fast I could read. I was entertained.

Thing 29: Google Tools

I went through and looked at a few of the tools for this thing. I searched the Google Books and read a few pages in various books. I got into Frog and Toad and was a bit disappointed when I was unable to read the entire story. I understand that with copyright laws, they could not have the entire book on there but I do like the ability to search within the books to perhaps find a passage or quote in a particular item.
I also watched the videos and then downloaded Goolge Chrome. It is a new server still in Beta testing. I like it so far. I am a huge supporter of Firefox but also an avid Google user so I am torn as to what server to use. I like that with Google Chrome, it keeps track of all your most often visited sites and creates your homepage to reflect those sites. It might not be the best for privacy on a public computer but I think that for my home computer, this could be very beneficial. There is, of course, always the option to browse incognito and there would be no record of the sites you have visited. I think that I will have to download this onto my home computer and play around with it a bit to get used to what it has to offer and to see if I will have to make the switch permanent.
I also browsed the Patent Search tool. I thought that this was VERY neat. I found patents on a brine shrimp hatchery, swimming goggles, fishing lures, and weatherstripping for doors and windows. I was very impressed, I had no idea that this information was that readily available to the public and I am absolutely delighted that it is.
I learned about a few new tools in this thing and I hope that I can remember to use them when the time comes. I think that the Patent Search will become a good tool to use for reference. I can just imagine someone coming to the desk and wanting to know everything about a certain patent or product.