#19 Cool Tools (Wasn't that the name of a class?)

Lots of cool tools out there but wow can people waste time. I wonder if this means that our brains will be sharper and we will have fewer "senior" moments. They do say game playing is a defense against dementia! Guess the Google is impossible! I do however see some great value in Yahoo's Upcoming as a way to track events of interest in your area or in another destination.

Google Docs

Us Scottsdale folks don't need to be sold on this one since we have been using it for about 2 years for our Today in the Call Center. This was suggested and implemented by Kate Herman and Krista Bolan and many of us have added information to it over time. It is an invaluable way to get a quick notice about something out to the desktops of all PCs used during call center hours system wide. We hear that this is soon to be expanded to include all service desks and to be renamed Today in the Library. It's a great tool for finding out if the new bus passes are in or if a class has been cancelled.

So this is Oregon!

I guess it is not surprising that my husband Paul and I love Oregon. It is the complete opposite of Phoenix--water, coolness, rain, lush greenery, etc. We started visiting when my son attended the Benedictine seminary outside of Salem and have been back many, many times. This picture is of Cannon Beach, one of our favorite coastal destinations. I posted this in the Favorite Vacation Spots part of the Library Wiki.

Wiki * Wiki * Wiki

Well, we have been using Wikis for a long time, since many of us know that Wikipedia is a useful and "on point" resource for lots of general information. Often when we figure to start looking for something in Google, one of the first hits is the Wikipedia article on the topic. Wikis have a lot of great applications for building a center of shared knowledge and I do think that over time a wiki inherently becomes authoritative. Even with the open quality of the editing and the ability to add, subtract and comment, what will rise to the top through time and testing will be the most accurate materials. I often use a Best Practices wiki when viewing top library web sites for ideas to "steal" for our library pages:
http://www.libsuccess.org/index.php?title=Website_Design.

Also, thanks to Linsdsay Donovan for updating the entry in Wikipedia for the Scottsdale libraries and sharing that with all of us. Nice to know we can be found there.

What? Me closed??

Library 2.0 is not a closed concept.

This is probably the most telling brief comment on the various postings about Library 2.0 and what it is. This from one of the OCLC segments which are very thoughful and thought-provoking. If we as library staff can remember to keep an open mind, an open posture, and an commitment to open communication both internally and with our patrons, we will continue to be vital to our community. So as our recent customer service training reminded us about open vs. closed questions during patron interactions, we can remember than a culture of openness is critical to our success and to maintaining our role as a player in the 2.0 world.

Don't tag my face!

Numbers 12, 13 & 14:

I signed up for an account on FaceBook and spent some time looking at my daughter's and son's friends. Saw some great wedding pictures from one of Matt's high school friends. Sure can see how easy it would be to waste A LOT of time doing this! Also searched libraries and "public Library" and saw some other pages from libraries as well as many coworkers: smiling faces of both Brad and Aimee for instance .....

Del.icio.us is certainly fun and I can see its use for students who are surfing the Net a lot and need to capture stuff quickly with their own organizational structure. The little video was a good explanation of its potential.

Did a quick search on Technorati for reference IM services and found some interesting stuff including a video of a librarian from Arlington Heights IL. Good place to search for current happenings in the library world since lots of librarians are out there blogging. I like that it shows how recent the posts are. I didn't see the explanation of authority, though. How do you get that??