I saw it on YouTube! (Thing 20)

Dear YouTube,
Although so many people use you for really dumb things, I wanted you to know that I love you. So do a lot of libraries! I did a search just for Texas Library and came up with a ton of videos. Most of them were actually informative (ok not all were interesting but that's totally beside the point). Then, YouTube, to step it up, the search generated some really funny and entertaining videos from National Library week 2008. Now those were awesome. Not only are you so informative and put library videos out there for all to see, you also have awesome stuff like the David kid that was high after being at the dentist. Please don't ever change.

Love,
The Library Bombshell

No wonder Google rules the world! (Thing 19)

Now they have documents!!!!???? It's probably been around for quite some time and I had no idea. (So after a little bit of research, I found out it's been around since 2006! Holy cannoles!) My biggest hurdle with this was writer's block. Once that was out of the way (thank goodness for a conversation with co-worker that gave me the basis for what I wrote!), I was able to complete the rest of the tasks. I was so super stoked about the sharing feature! My first thought was group projects or tasks! That is majorly useful! Kudos to Google for having everything a person could need all in one tidy little website. I'm fairly sure that soon, Google will just go ahead and take over the world. And I'm ok with that.

Wiki what? (Thing 18)

Before doing this thing, I had limited experience with wikis. I had heard of them (thanks most in part to the most famous wiki of all, wikipedia) but never really got hands on with one. I got some experience with the wiki that is used by the library although I was still only good at losing pages. At first, when I used the one designated for this activity, I had some difficulty getting it to accept my typing but then I went to another computer that had IE7 and that took care of the problem. After that, it was much easier to make and edit the pages.

Before I added those pages, I did go to wikipedia to look around. I had never paid attention to the tabs at the top that show you the history and discussion, etc. I usually just read the content on wikipedia, then usually would start clicking on the other links which would lead to reading way more than I needed to. Good times, yes; good use of time, no way!

Ewww...a Libworm! (Thing 17)

Actually using Libworm was not an ewww situation at all. I really like the concept of this Thing. The first time I went to the page I didn't have an exact idea of what I wanted to look for so ended up staring at the home page for a few seconds (ok it was minutes but I totally didn't want to admit that I drew a blank for that long). After that, I just decided to click around and see what happened. I had better results using it when I went to the feed categories menu and then whittled it down from there. I am sure I would have had great results if there had been something specific on my mind. It was interesting reading. The broad subject headings really helped me get a start on my own search. I will definitely have to spend some more time going through things so that I can find more RSS feeds that can help me at work!

It's a Library Thing. (Thing 16)

I had no idea that Librarything.com existed and my life has been the poorer for it! Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating but I am glad I know about it now. This is going to be a Thing that I'm going to keep once this is all over. I really want to set aside a good amount of time so I can go through all the stuff on there. I've tried numerous ways to keep track of the books I've read and I do always seem to either forget some or forget to write them down (although a lot of the time I have the book so I can just look at my bookshelf). This website, in my humble opinion, is a much better way to keep track of books. I spent a little time exploring the groups and the other functions, but ran out of time. I will try to get on there at home so I can spend some time browsing around.

Do you Digg it? (Thing 15)

I definitely dig Digg. The concept of stories being submitted by people then voted on to be on the front page is pretty awesome. The most awesome aspect of Digg? You can connect it to your facebook page and when you dig a story, you can publish it on your page so that your friends can see it. Ok, so I realize that the above sentence makes me an Uber nerd but digg has some really funny stuff on it that I know the people I know would enjoy. The link to Facebook makes it easier for me to share it with people. Plus, if I'm already signed into Facebook, all I have to do is click one button and I'm logged into Digg. I had an enjoyable time going through the stories on Digg and also playing with the filters so that I would just see things that I wanted to see. I could go on and on about how much I like Digg but I think I've made that abundantly clear.

Mmmmm, Delicious (Thing 14)

The Delicious website totally gets two thumbs up from me. I am glad I signed up for an account instead of just looking through the site. Not only do I have all the library websites that I look for in one place, I've shared it with coworkers and they have added more that I didn't even know about! It has now become a useful tool for all of us here that work at the reference desk. I even have a story about it!

Once I set up the account, I sent out the info to my coworkers. One of the bookmarks I added was for the National Library Services for the Blind. One coworker in particular happened to browse through the bookmarks and noticed the aforementioned bookmark. Not even an hour later, someone called wanting information on acquiring library materials for a blind person. Thanks to the delicious account, she knew exactly where to find the info. She shot me an email and I was super stoked that it had already helped someone out.