Twitter

Twitter can be a fun way to keep up with friends and family with short messages as to what is going on in your life. Celebrities also use it to connect with their fans. But some twitters would be better off creating a blog with the number of tweets they send out. Bad person that I am I unsubscribed from Ellen DeGeneres for this reason. But Ellen created her own tweet app so she is much easier to follow now. I think that Twitter could be great promotional tool for the library promoting new programs, registration dates, new or old collections, etc.

Virtual library

It's nice to know that there is a place I can go and find reliable sites to search for information. I wish that HeritageQuest would "translate" the handwriting of the census materials. Newsbank obituary searches was pretty good for finding my relatives in Illinois, California found nothing.

We need to promote these resources to our patrons.

Podcasting, IM and Downloadables

Hmmm. what to say...I don't particularly enjoy hearing books read to me so I think that is unlikely that I would ever download a book. That being said...I do enjoy radio plays (thanks Beth for ordering the Torchwood series) and if there was a particular actor that I thought would be entertaining to listen to I may 'deign' to listen to a book being read to me.

I have listened to some podcasts of radio programs that I either missed or didn't have live access to. I seem to always find the ones that you can't download and in most cases I would have like to have been able to download the podcast to my iPod so I didn't have to sit at my computer to listen to it.

Instant messaging. Again I'm not too sure that I would "chat" with someone that way. If I wanted a conversation I would probably pick up the phone. On the other hand if it is a quick and easy question it may be more efficient to IM. I could see IM being useful to library staff to find out if the person they need to talk to is available and if they are in their office or a service desk.

Wikis and Google Docs

Wikis are a great tool. However, from personal experience for personal use you need to find the right program to do what you want to do at your level of expertise. I have a used one of the free ones and when you have problems there is not always someone available to answer your questions satisfactorily.

Google Docs is a good way to maintain documents that edit/use via different computers. My only problem is that cell width with some of the Excel documents changes once the document is uploaded Google Docs. A small inconvenience for the ability to access your document from any computer. I had not noticed the templates before so I will be experimenting with those at a later date.

Social Networking

Well I've looked at Facebook, My Space and LinkedIn. While they are all quite interesting I'm not sure how I would use them. The people that I want to connect with have my contact information.

Searching Facebook was extremely frustrating. If I'm looking for someone and don't know the city where they currently reside how am I supposed to find them? I did like how libraries are using Facebook to promote themselves. Like all promotions we need to be diligent and keep updating everyday to keep our "fans" interested.

MySpace and LinkedIn were okay. For LinkedIn I didn't find many people in my network. I guess librarians aren't using it yet.