Happy 16th Jessie!

Thing 16: YouTube

Isn't Stackers terrific! I heard about this program from "another" library. The kiddos seem to love it and the events are well attended. The library posts the top ten times each week/month. Pretty exciting and the cost is minimal.
YouTube is easy to work with...didn't encounter any problems with posting the video. A powerful way to reach a young audience in particular.

Thing 15: Rollyo

Rollyo is a helpful tool. I set up an account and then a searchroll for Native American sites. This is a popular research topic for the school kids and Lisa D. has made a list of these, but now it will be online for all to use. This is a great reference time saver. Grouping websites is awesome. I tried the challenge which was to create a search box tool on my blog. Hmmm, wonder if it works. Nope, it did not, so I am settling for a link instead.

http://rollyo.com/felixwalker/my_native_americans/

Thing 14: Online Productivity

I have decided to stick with iGoogle for most of my exploration so that everything is easily in one place; plus I am becoming more familiar with their format etc. Therefore my new start page is from igoogle. It is easy to use. I added it as a new tab on my "home page"; second only to The St. Johns Public Library site. I customized it with a header/footer of cartoon images of children playing on the beach...aahhh. There is a new countdown gadget on my blog as a constant reminder of the kickoff of our summer reading program and a visit from the Jacksonville Zoo.
Anxiously, I checked out and created an igoogle calendar. There would appear to be countless uses for this...children's programing, meeting room reservations, storytime themes per week etc. I can see using it for my husband's real estate business...we don't have a network so the calendar file sharing is ideal for scheduling his appointments when he switches from home computer to office computer to laptop. Very useful. As for to do lists..couldn't live without them and the online advantages are similar to that of the calendar. I plan on looking into the Backpack as a nice packaging option.

Thing 13: Library Thing

I can think of so many things to do with Library Thing that it is starting to stress me out! This is a very user friendly site with countless possibilities. I very easily set up an account and began to add books to my library. It was as simple as typing the ISBN # and, wallah (however you spell that), the remaining identifying information pops up. We catalog our storytime books in excel, but Library Thing is better spot. It was interesting to see the reviews from other readers and the Library Thing recommendations of other "similar" books is useful too. The tags will come in handy for themed storytime units. Adding Library Thing to my blog took two tries...this was the first time I've added a gadget. Right now I only have 5 books in my library that we use for the Just For Babies program. As time allows, I think this would be a terrific place to inventory our program books and tag them by age and theme.

Thing 12: Wiki's

Love them! Thanks to SJCPLS I was introduced to the wiki concept about a year ago when Nicole created the Youth Services Wiki. It gives us an opportunity to share information and resources without depending on a long string of emails that often get lost in the inbox. Whenever there is a "hot" topic we can add input via the wiki and spin ideas off of the posts of others. It is an awesome communication tool. I am set up to receive an email each time the wiki is updated so no time is wasted checking to see if someone has made an entry.


Per the 23 Things @ NEFLIN I explored the SJCPL wiki thinking that St. Johns county public library had a wiki I didn't know about, but alas, it was St. Joseph's county.


I give 5 stars to the many many uses of wikis!

Thing 11: Social Media

I checked out Mixx, Newsvine, Digg, and Reddit...I don't know, maybe I'm just not interested in the same topics as "people like me" (whoever they are!) Why wouldn't I just go straight to a worthy news source and cut out all the extras. Appears to be a productivity distractor, as I wandered off to see what Michael Jackson is up to now. Won't use it personally, but maybe the library could have a section on their site that incorporated the most searched book titles, subjects, and movies.