Thing TWO

My goodness, so much is out there that I wasn't aware of. I spent a good part of the day reading about Library 2.0, and although much of it goes right over my head, I hope it won't be over my head for long. The more I learn the more I find out I've got lots to learn. I had never even heard of most of the web tools mentioned by Stephen Abram. Sure, I've heard of MySpace, Facebook and IMing, but I've never really delved into them. Weebo, Skype, and all the other sites mentioned in the video are new to me. Where to find the time to find out more about these things? I suppose I'll have to play a little less Text Twist and Word Racer for the next couple weeks (ha).

Why am I participating in 23 Things On a Stick? You might think that working at a library in a community of less than 700 would mean that these things aren't relevant to me. The two YA's that were in the library yesterday while my director and I were discussing our involvement with the 23 things said they didn't know what blogs are. Hey, let's learn about something before our patrons do! If we know about it first, then when they come with us with questions about these tools, we'll have some personal experience with them and will be better equipped to answer their questions.

And the question, "How has the Internet and the vast resource it can be affected your use of time at work and/or at home?" has me a bit stumped. I no longer have to run to the card catalog when I want to know if we have a book in our collection (small library, we only got rid of it about 5 1/2 years ago.) I regularly use MyFamily to keep up with family and friends. I don't need to phone around to find things out, I use the internet. Hard to believe that for me computers entered my life in 2nd grade (remember programming the turtle to move around the screen?) Any questions you may have, you can find an answer to online (although they may not all be good answers.) How has all this affected my use of time? Good question. Do I have more time than I would if the internet were not such an intrinsic part of my daily life? Perhaps not. I wouldn't have as many choices or as much information available to me as I do now though.

Lots more to learn. What will this mean for our small town library? I don't really know yet. Hopefully we'll be able to come up with some ideas to help our community think of the library as the first line when they have questions, instead of the last line. Hopefully we can spark some dialogue with our patrons and find ways of enticing non-library-users into our fold.