Thing 18- Oh the possibilities!

Youtube is a site that I have been fairly familiar with for quite some time. A lot of my friends use this site to look up music videos or funny clips/videos made by random people. I find it very cool but at the same time frightening at how vast and out there this video phenomenon is. Some of the videos on Youtube are useful and tasteful but there are a growing amount of videos that may not be so much and there is not much of a limit as to what can be posted and who can see it. I can remember when there was a controversy of a group of teenage girls who plotted to gang up and beat a "friend" of theirs while filming it- to put it on Youtube! It's just ridiculous when you look at the cyber world that way. In general though, Youtube is a nice resource and is important for us who are serving the public, and maybe more directly the younger generation of public to know of this website. I posted a random video from Youtube that has a very good point made in a funny way on my blog. Enjoy!

Thing 17

These tools are actually located on our library website to be utilized by those who have a membership with the library. They are used mainly by patrons up in the reference and youth services depts. and I have not had much experience with patrons using the ELM tools out at the West Duluth branch. Most of my knowledge and experience with ELM, besides with "thing 17" , was in high school and then in college for the research projects I completed during those times. I find that is important for the libraries as well as schools to offer these programs for free for students/patrons for the programs may be too expensive and therefore not an option for most otherwise. This tool is user-friendly and very useful for all.

Thing 16 - Why didn't I think of this?

Now that my main focus will again become my school career, I find that this tool would be amazing in helping me organize my scheduled projects and such. Unfortunately my time at the library is drawing to a close but I feel that there must be a reason for it and good things are yet to come. I really like the U of M Assignment Calculator in that you give it the date your assignment is due, what you must complete, and then the program sets out your schedule for you so that you can pace yourself. Now the hard part is to actually get yourself to follow the schedule....hmm. Procrastination tends to produce my best work... Anyhow, I think this is a great tool for students and it is good for workers to be informed and ready to assist with this.

Thing 15- Gamin!

I thought this "thing" was a nice change of pace. It was fun to go through the different games and see what people are interested in and are playing. I am not really a fan of games but this was pretty fun to take a peak through these. I would have to say the pirate game was my favorite. It actually really brought my back to when I was younger-for the pirates look just like the Lego pirates I had! I don't know that besides opening our eyes to public interest that this "thing" would be much use in my day to day work.

Thing 14

LibraryThing would be useful for the patrons to share favorites and get suggestions from others if we were to have this application on our website. It would be very interesting and useful if we were able to offer this service and would then be able to get ideas about certain books that sound really great or sound more like it's not worth the effort. I use a similar application on my Facebook page where I have the books that I am currently reading, those I've read, and the ones I would like to get around to reading. You have the same options with LibraryThing and can also take things a step further by giving the book a rating/review. Useful in library setting and also among friends.

Thing 13

I logged on to my yahoo email account and decided to experiment "thing 13" on my homepage. I wanted to see if I could jazz it up a bit, which is exactly what I did! I was able to change the background to a fierce leopard print... ha ha. Besides allowing you to personalize your page you are also able to add and delete items of interest to you. For example, I was able to add a Facebook application to my page which then gives a shortcut to that specific website. This would not be necessary for my job, but I suppose nice to utilize in my free time. The calendar I used was through MSN or my hotmail account. It would be useful for work but in my opinion would take up too much time to fill out. I would much rather shoot for the old fashioned route of just writing important dates down in my planner. It is much more accessible for me at any time I may need to look at it. Also my cell phone has the capability you to post reminders in the calender for yourself, which is also very useful. If I had a laptop this may be of great use to me. I did find both of these applications to be enjoyable to explore.

Thing 12

I really like this idea! It gives the power to the public in what they think is interesting/important. You are able to give your input/opinion as to what is something you like and what other's may like. I mainly looked over Reddit and found this site to be very user-friendly and interesting. It had all sorts of topics and genres of news. You could read an article on the current presidency and then read a funny pet story. If you feel a certain article was irrelevant then you can vote that way. These tools would be handy for a reference librarian which was referenced in the description for they provide the public with the most up to date information on many varying subjects. It is also just nice for those who prefer to be in the "know".