Becca's blog

When given the option to sign up for either Twitter, Facebook or Linkedin I decided to sign up for Linkedin because I honestly can’t stand Twitter and I already have a Facebook account. I’m familiar with how social networking works but honestly I’m pretty bad at keeping up with people. I guess I’m just one of those old fashioned people that like to talk to people face to face or on the phone. My overall impression of the Linkedin is that it’s ok. I can see how useful this site would be in a library context because it has really great ways to search for jobs, companies and people who have the same job or intrests as you. It would be ok to use in libraries as a way to communicate with patrons and also as a way to get more people to come to the library and use it’s programs. I think though that if a library were to use a social networking site to make contact with people Facebook would honestly be the best way to go just because the amount of people on that site far out numbers the amount of people on Linkedin.

I really enjoyed looking searching through delicious. I searched for ‘quick healthy recipes’ and I found a lot of great ones that I can’t wait to try. Searching on delicious was easy and finding what I wanted was made even easier by the tage that other people had used on there accounts. Lifehack.org had the best recipes and the tags that were used definitely made searching easier. I actually liked the results I got from delicious better than the ones that I got when I searched on Google for the same thing. When I searched Google there were no results that I didn’t expect to be there, everything was relevent.

I chose to go with delicious as my bookmarking site and so far I like it. I like that I can book mark all of my favourite sites instead of always typing them into Google but I hated having to create a Yahoo account. For the first little while I found it difficult to navigate yahoo and these weird caution things kept on coming up. But I finally found out for to adjust my settings so everything turned out ok. I think I’m going to have to play around with delicious a little bit more but it is convient to have all of my bookmarks in one place finally.

I really enjoyed all of the Google applications much better then the notorious wiki. I like how it is all a collaborative effort and you can see people editing in real time. The Google spreadsheet and word processing application are really great and I will definitley be using them in the future when we are assigned group work. I like that they can be edited by up to 10-50 people at once making the word processor great for small groups like the ones we have in school. I found that they were easier to use than the wiki and more practical. I see me using the spreadsheet in the future for planning group get togethers and dinner parties.

I am a total freak about my books being organized so the online application I looked at was Librarything. This is by far my most favourite thing I have looked at for this class. They give you suggestions for books you may like and you can meet people online who have similar interests as you and can offer you recommendations. You can also join book clubs (YAY!) and you can search the site for books by subject, author, and title, making it easy to find out about books you are interested in. Overall, everything about these applications is great and I will definitely be exploring them more on my own.

When we learned about podcasts last week I was excited to find some of my own to subscribe to because although I had heard of the term ‘podcast’ before I never really knew what it meant. I added the Hour ‘s podcast to my Google reader and I find it a great way to stay caught up on pop culture news.  Unfortunately I can’t watch it on my Google reader but I’m definitely going to add more podcasts because I love how convenient they are and there are thousands to choose from. 

I think that podcasts would fit into a library setting easily.  Since more and more libraries are using blogs and wikis to reach out to people, integrating podcasts into the library is just the next step.  Podcasts can be used to relay information such as lectures, guest readings and general library news to patrons who like to be kept up to date on library news. 

I’ve never used a wiki  before and didn’t know what to expect.I really enjoyed using the wiki that was set up for our class, it is a really great way to share information with others quickly and efficiently (I love the restuarant wiki).  I think that using a wiki in a library setting is a great idea.  It would allow colleges to share and collaborate their ideas and allow users to give immediate feedback to the staff and the technology is easy to use, giving everyone easy access.  One of the common themes between blogs and wikis is that it allows users to see news in real time and get information immediately.  One thing I don’t like about wikis though, is that you have to wait and take turns updating and adding information. However, a definite positive of them is the fact that you can have multiple viewpoints and shared collaboration, which, if used in a workplace or school setting is very useful.

I’ve never used blogs before or RSS or even Wikis so all of this is quite new to me.  I must say though that they are all great ways of keeping informed about what is going on in the world and what my classmates are up too.  So on to Rss..

I had no idea about this technology before and the more I use it the more I love it!!!  Before the AHA! moment I hated having to go to every single website to check out what was going on in the world; now I have everything at my finger tips….It’s glorious and I’m totally addicited.

I read the article ‘What is RSS and, Why Should You Care?‘ and it was really helpful because although we went over RSSs in class I still didn’t really understand why I should care.  I’m not  very big into technology, so all of this is very new to me.  Honestly I didn’t really use it for a couple of days after the class until I read the article above and realized “What am I doing?!”  this RSS feed is great and so  incredibly helpful in keeping me up-to-date with all the news in the world.

Ok so I know that not a lot of people are going to agree with me about this but I love fall! I love it! I love the way it smells, I love the cool weather (I hate being hot) and i love the colours! Driving home back to Fort Frances in the fall on the Transcanada is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.  The scenery is amazing, with all the hills, lakes and trees *sigh*  I can’t wait to go home for Thanksgiving and go back to the province I love! (no offence Manitoba but you are much to flat and cold)