Thing 23: Program Summary

23 Things has been a great learning experience. Many of the Things I knew by name only. Had it not been for this structured opportunity, I wouldn't have taken the time to play with them. The links and suggested readings were helpful. I found it useful to see how other libraries and librarians are using these technologies, and hope to see Howard County Library do even more with them. As a next step, I'm interested in reading Michael Stephens' two part Library Technology Reports on Web 2.0 and Libraries. Part 1: Best Practices and Social Software; Part 2: Trends and Technologies.

I'd like to thank the creators of Maryland Libraries Learning 2.0, and Jaye Holly for the role she played in making this happen for Howard County Library staff. I would welcome the oportunity to participate in another discovery program in the future.

Thing 22: Downloadable Audiobooks

I know something about Overdrive and NetLibrary since we add MARC records for those titles to our online catalog. So, I decided to investigate Project Gutenberg which I knew by name only. I was amazed to read that "tens of thousands of volunteers" have contributed to the project. I tried searching for an older, little known title, and bingo. A girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton-Porter is a book that my mother-in-law talked about reading as a girl. I was able to find it, and the download from ibiblio took only a few seconds. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Gutenberg also includes The Sheet Music Project for which volunteers have digitized public domain sheet music for study and performance.

Thing 21: Podcasts

The word podcast has become a part of everyday vocabulary, but I hadn't subscribed to one through an RSS feed until doing this exercise. I discovered LibVibe Library News, and it only took a single click on "Subscribe" to add this to my Bloglines account. The synopsis of stories which Bloglines lists for each podcast date is helpful in determining whether you want to spend the six minutes listening.

Thing 20: YouTube

Finding Time in The Penn State Libraries is a 1 minute, 12 seconds race to locate Time Magazine, set to Flight of the Bumblebee. I can pull up Time in our AquaBrowser interface in a mere 12 seconds by searching Time, then clicking on Format > Magazine / Newspaper. OK, maybe I have an advantage over our average customer because I understand how refining is set up in AquaBrowser.

I've looked at lots of YouTube videos over the past few months, but was surprised that Yahoo was at the top of the video site list. I hadn't looked at Yahoo, Google, or the myriad of others on that list. Had no trouble placing the video on my blog, but will admit that I first visited the Help Center to discover the steps involved.

Thing 19: Web 2.0 Awards List

I selected the music category, and spent a few minutes playing with Last.fm. Earlier I stumbled upon myblogtunes and added a station with a song to my blog, but was disappointed with that site because there was no classical music. Last.fm is also from the Music Genome project, but has LOTS more content and a substantial amount of classical music. I was even able to listen to some Percy Grainger, whose arrangements have become some of my favorite band repertoire.

Thing 18: Online Productivity Tools

The KOHA scope of work document was created with Google docs, and I found it very easy to edit existing text and add my own content: http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=dctjzkv5_0ghkd4f&hl=en

I liked the simplicity of Zoho Writer, so I signed up so I can play with a test spreadsheet. I need to create one for my volunteer work with the Coast Guard Auxiliary. The challenge will be getting the other flotilla officers who report to me to use it since some of them have limited computer skills.

Thing 17: Learning 2.0 SandBox Wiki

Playing in the sandbox reinforced how easy it is to set up a wiki. Here's the link to my creation:
http://marylandlibrariessandbox.pbwiki.com/Favorite+Spots+On+The+Water

Thing 16: Wikis

I was quite impressed with the Oregon Librarian Instruction Wiki, and the great links to all the technology topics we've been trying out: http://instructionwiki.org/Library_2.0_in_15_minutes_a_day.
This quote kind of sums up the concept of wikis "stop reinventing the wheel".

A wiki might work for our implementation of KOHA since there will be many of us working on different aspects of the project.

Thing 15: Web 2.0 and the Future of Libraries

In his article, Away from the icebergs, Rick Anderson says "patrons will expect access to everything". Our implementation of the AquaBrowser catalog interface started Howard County Library down the future path with its ranking of popular titles in search results, faceted browsing, and RSS feeds. AquaBrowser improved access to our electronic resources, and spidering has provided access to a subset of Medline Plus, The Library of Congress' American Memory Collection, and the content of the Library's website.

Moving to the open-source ILS, KOHA, will take us further down the future path. The ability to implement FRBR in the display of titles from our collection, where all versions of a title will be concatenated into a single hit, will be a breakthrough. I'm especially excited about implementing social networking through KOHA. The content that will be added through customer tagging, reviews and rankings can only serve to enhance findability through our catalog.

Thing 14: Technorati

Technorati is currently having technical issues. When I tried to claim my blog, I got "Technorati is borked right now!!!" I was able to add a topic to my watchlist: KOHA. Of course I got all kind of interesting posts, but found some discussions about the open source ILS we'll be implementing. Linked to some of the Top Favorite Blogs, Top Searches, and Top Blogs. Was amazed at the high numbers of "Authorities" (blog reactions).