Thing 19: Other Social Networks

I have a confession to make and it's going to give my age away.

I've joined a Ning for the combined 20 YEAR reunion for Allen D. Nease High School classes of 89-90-91. They hunted me down, said all sorts of nice things to me about how they missed me and I joined the Ning. Class of 1991 - Go Panthers! (it's not been 20 years for me. yet.)

Wow. I feel old.

The Ning is neat in that only those who are invited can join and we feel very comfortable in our 30 something world of career and personal updates. You create a profile very much like Facebook or MySpace and you can customize the Ning to do all sorts of whiz-bang things. Members have posted videos of themselves surfing, scanned pictures from high school (YIKES!!!), added polls, comments, created message boards. Overall, I really, really like the Ning format. I'm really comfortable with the Facebook style features and it feels more conversational than a Wiki.

It has latest a latest activity newsfeed, slideshows, newest members joined...you can also make your profile page look spiffy with themes, widgets and such.

I would love to see our youth services team move to a Ning. We use a wiki now and it feels cumbersome.

Oh, if only I didn't have to feel old to join my first Ning.

Thing 18: Facebook and MySpace

I'll have to admit, I get a certain bit of happiness when someone becomes my "friend" on MySpace or Facebook. It's like a tangible proclamation that we ARE friends.

Yay! You like me!

I use Facebook the most these days; mainly to catch up with college buddies that have moved on to glamorous world destinations while I stay in quiet little St. Augustine. They post pictures of themselves with celebrities and I post pictures of my kids.

I've joined a few library related groups on Facebook (I can thank Jae for turning me on to most of the cool widgets and stuff there). Ask a Librarian is there with a direct link to the service. I think that is the best way to use Facebook.

It makes sense to develop a presence there reminding friends of your good deeds and upcoming activities. Like I said on my Twitter post, I've fallen in love with the "microblogging" feature of the status update. Wouldn't it be cool to create a presence for your library and post things like,

"SJCPLS is really looking forward to the Florida Heritage Book Festival this weekend!"

"Clifford had a wonderful time at Storytime this morning."

"Did you know the Main Library benefited from 455 volunteer hours in March. Awesome!"

"Have you hugged your Librarian today?"

See? Cute and useful!

Thing 17: Podcasts

I had fun with this one...podcasts are super neat. I explored Podcast.com for parenting and library related podcasts. I was able to find a podcast that combined my love for non-fiction and parenting. I listened to an author talk from The Feminine Mistake about why women should work. Hmmm. Interesting.

I couldn't do too much with podcasting at work since I'm on the desk most of the time (shh!! quiet around here!) but I've explored them frequently in my free time at home.

I LOVE the idea of creating your own podcasts. Like pretending you were your own radio broadcaster...but without all of the money required to rent a license and tower.

Thing 16: YouTube

No. No. No. You WILL NOT watch YouTube at the Library.

That's what my computers at work have been telling me on this "thing." Apparently streaming video is a space hog on our already crowded Internet lines so YouTube has been ixnayed from our staff computers. I waste enough time on YouTube at home so I certainly don't need to go there now...

One funny aside, while my hubby was in class last night (FSU LIS class of 2011, go team!) they were discussing the use of YouTube clips to promote information literacy instruction. They watched a painfully awful clip about evaluating website validity featuring a college student dressed up like Elvis. Seriously.

Here it is, watch it if you dare.

Viva La YouTube!

Thing 15: Rollyo

Ewww. I have to admit, Rollyo doesn’t really do it for me. I created a profile, created my own snazzy “Searchroll” and played around with it…not too impressed. Sorry Neflin 23 things but I’m not rollin’ with the Rollyo.

I created a frugal shopping Searchroll and added several of my favorite online deal sites and blogs. Tried a few searches and got very strange irrelevant hits. I tried "stroller" and "wii" certainly things that should come up with some interesting results, no?

The results were almost what I was looking for but not quite there. Perhaps I’m a novice user…perhaps I’ve got no patience today (maybe it’s the clouds) but I’m not sold on it. The ads kind of threw me too. Personally, I think the results page is little too commercial heavy for me to recommend it to patrons. Maybe it’s my sour mood, I dunno. Libraries could certainly give it a whirl but I wouldn't push it.

Here’s my profile if you want to try my Searchroll out. While you're at it, find me some great deals, ok?

Thing 14: Online Productivity Tools

Let me use this “thing” to share with you my love for calendars. When I was in 10th grade, I suddenly figured out that if I wanted to get into college I needed to get my act together. I’d been doing well in school, but I wanted to do more. And better. And faster. And easier.

My best friend was doing all sorts of snazzy extracurricular stuff, on a billion committees in clubs, going to afterschool programs, in plays and still maintaining an A average. How did she do it? She had a Daytimer.

I’ve been a Daytimer advocate ever since – I have a current one on my shelf now as a matter of fact. I rarely use it, though, because I’ve transitioned to my Palm-enabled cellphone. Now, I have all my contacts, information and calendars on my phone whenever I need it. And, it buzzes me when I have an appointment coming up – my old Daytimer never did that! It doesn't have that loved, pencil-scratched in feel that my Daytimer had, though. There's something that grabs me when I have that visual representation of my life on paper. My busy life feels real once it's been noted, reviewed and checked off.

I had great fun looking through the online calendars and other productivity tools. I’m most intrigued about calendars so after I created an IGoogle page (pretty!) I searched through the recommended calendars in the “Web’s Best Calendars” article. I can’t wait to try out Scrybe, I put myself on the list for that one. (if you have an invite could you send me one?) My husband uses Yahoo calendar for his DJ business. It’s easy and it’s nice because we can both log in at any time and see what’s up.

Libraries can use these calendars in many ways. We are going to be ditching our meeting room reservation books soon for a shared Outlook calendar. I can’t wait to do this – it has so many features that will make scheduling and tracking our reservations easier and more efficient. It also has protections that let you choose who has permission to change or edit entries. This requires some consulting with our MIS department so any library could use one of these online calendars instead to achieve the same result. I see how libraries could switch to these calendars for equipment reservations and project management, too. Let's get organized People!

Thing 13: LibraryThing

Oh my goodness, in another life I’d love, love, LOVE LibraryThing. Gosh, I wish I had the free time these days to explore and have fun with this…what a neat site for book lovers! I’ll be honest, I have so little free time and I just can’t dive in to this full steam right away. It’s like another world for bibliophiles…social networking where books are the focus! I love the shared reviews, the way you can find others who share your reading interests, the groups devoted to genres. I almost joined the non-fiction reader’s club but thought better of it. Just what I need, another website to log in to every day...I just can't do it.

I created a profile and added some books to my library bookshelf.

I'm intrigued by how Libraries are using LibraryThing...neat!

Thing 12: Wikis

Wiki! Wiki! Wiki! As easy as a peanut butter sandwich.

I’m kind of on the fence about Wikis. I think they are cool tools, especially when they are used frequently. They are a super alternative to wading through gobs and gobs of emails and letting the conversation get recorded on one page for all to see. I’ve edited the NEFLIN 23 things Wiki and added my own thoughts there.

We use a Wiki for our youth services team here at St. Johns County. It is a great way to post all sorts of things (agendas, contacts, resources, brainstorming, etc.) Like NEFLIN, we use free PB Wiki. As far as being on the fence, we just don't use it often enough for my taste for the Wiki to become as productive a tool as it can be. I think we need to tinker with the formula a bit to better tailor it to our team.