weeks 5 and 6, with a podcast post to come later.

In this post I am going to be talking about my experiences with Twitter, Facebook, ALA Connect, LibraryThing, GoodReads, and Instant Messaging.



Facebook and Twitter:

I have been on Facebook since it started and I remember when Facebook was just for college students. I mainly use Facebook for my own social life and to lurk on the lives of people that I know.



I started using Twitter heavily about a year ago and I think that Twitter is something that you definitely need to try for a week or 2 before you see if you like it. I think that Twitter can be a little confusing when you first start it. However, sometimes I find myself prefering Twitter more than Facebook. For me, Twitter is like having a more constant and frequently updated facebook newsfeed without pictures. When I was searching for library jobs Twitter was a very helpful tool because I followed library job sites. I also received articles about getting a job, writing a resume, and conducting interviews. What I like about Twitter is the imediacy of it. You get updates much faster and more frequent than on Facebook.



So, how can libraries use Facebook and Twitter effectively? I think that Facebook and Twitter are fantastic ways for the library to market itself and in some ways are like less formal newsletters. I've often seen libraries using their facebook and twitter pages to announce events, book news, and pictures from programs. Some more creative uses of Facebook and Twitter have included asking followers to stump the librarian with their reference questions (Skokie Public Library) , asking followers what they are currently reading, and providing minute updates of program highlights (NYPL).



LibraryThing and GoodReads



I became familiar with LibraryThing at library school when my children's literature class had us use librarything as a way to keep track of our current reads and post reviews. This week I became more familiar with GoodReads too. I enjoy both of these tools greatly and think that they are great tools to keep track of what you are reading and to see what other people are reading. I enjoy both sites for different reasons. I think that GoodReads is a little more user friendly and I really like the list feature. I remember one time I was looking at some of the lists and noticed that Twilight appeared in lists such as Books You Have to Read, and Books that I Hate. I think that LibraryThing is a little better to keep track of your library. I really like the tag feature of librarything. Unfortunately, although I do enjoy librarything and goodreads a lot, I am not deligent enough with my use of them to keep track of all of the books I read.

ALA Connect
This week I explored ALA Connect a little more. I have been a member for a while, but I wasn't using it. I was a little disapointed with ALA Connect and am not sure that I will be using it much. Looking at the groups, I noticed that many groups did not update periodically. I think that I will most likely use ALA Connect as a tool to network and find out the contact information of people from other libraries.

Instant Messaging

The instant messaging that I find the most convenient for myself is Google's gchat. I've never been a big user of other instant messaging services and I didn't sign up for any of the ones listed because I don't know anyone's screennames. However, I do think that Instant Messaging is a great service that all libraries should provide. I am a big fan of Meebo. However, I have never worked as a librarian answering questions on Meebo, so my opinion might change. What I like about Meebo is that its widget is easily visible and accessible to patrons. I like how the Meebo chat widget can be to the side of every page on the library's website. I have seen a few other library

Images

So, I've been having so much fun with the image generating sites. They are so addictive. I came familiar with the image generator wordle during a library program at the library where I was interning at. It was a children's program and creating word art was definitely one of the kid's favorite things to do.

Here is the image I created from Reasonably Clever.

I had a little difficulty posting the image on blogger. On

e time I didn't realize that the image uploader window is a separate window and I couldn't get the image to upload from a url.

I'm familiar with Flikr, but hadn't used it much before this. I will definitely be using it a lot more and I especially like how you can find all kinds of cool photos on Flikr. For example, here is a photo I found while browsing through Flikr:

This picture was put up by The Library of Congress and is of two police man waiting in Chicago Union Station. I think it is really cool how the Library of Congress allows people to tag their photos. It is a great way to get users involved with the photos and allows the Library of Congress to learn more about the photos (if a user knows more about the photo or recognizes someone in it).

Wiki, tabs, and plugins

Again, I am behind in my blogging and keeping up wtih my 21 things. I will try and be better! I was a little nervous creating a wiki. I had never created one before and it seemed complicated. However, once I got going with Wikispaces it was very easy! I tried out PBworks and Wikia but I didn't like their setups and when setting up a wikia account I couldn't get the wiki to work. But I really like wikispaces, I think it is very intuitive and easy to use. My wiki is called Annie's recipes and includes recipes that I really like and recipes that I am just trying out. So far, I only have a few pages, and am going to have to REALLY force myself to keep this wiki updated. I think that is one of the problems with some of these technologies, they can create so much effort to keep up. However, it is interesting I have no trouble keeping up with facebook and am addicted to it. It is technology, like blogs and wikis where I actually have to do some work (writing) that I find harder to maintain.

I have used Firefox before and am a HUGE fan of the tabbed browsing. I think opening tabs is much easier to maintain than a ton of open windows. Maybe this is just my imagination, but for me it seems like tabs versus additional open windows have less of an effect on the speed of the computer.

I haven't used a lot of plug ins. Sometimes I find them a little annoying because they clutter up my browser too much. However, I have found the delicious add on to be very helpful. In the next couple of days I am planning to try out some more add ons and will describe my experience with them. I am intrigued by the read later add on which lets you make a list of web pages that you are interested in, but want to read later.

That's all for now! Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to make myself blog about week 4's items and the add ons.

Week 2

I am a little bit behind, so this week 2 post is coming on the first day of week 3. I have had previous experience with google reader, delicious, and google alerts before. However, my use of these tools had fallen to the wayside because I didn't have enough knowledge about them to make them easier to use. For example, I had a couple feeds in my Google Reader. However, I never used it because I was too lazy to go through all of the posts. Organizing the feeds into folders has greatly helped me, and I think (and hope) that I will use Google Reader a lot more now that it is more organized. Earlier in the year I had started Delicious and found that it was extremely helpful with managing all of my bookmarks on job postings and advice. However, recently I have been using the browser Google Chrome more than Firefox. The add on for Google Chrome is not as easy to use as the Firefox one. It is very easy to Tag websites, but I haven't been able to figure out how to view my tags and bookmarks without logging into Delicious. I am still working on figuring this out.

Since I am familiar with Google Alerts I decided to try out Social Mention. It was interesting viewing the results from this kind of search. Especially interesting are the one line statuses or comments from Facebook. To obtain accurate results I had to put quotes around the library where I work at (the Aurora Public Library). I also realized that I needed to add Illinois to the search because there is more than one Aurora Public Library. I guess this post will now show up in Social Mention!

My Relationship with Technology

Usually, I am a lover of technology. I enjoy having information at my tips and it helps me a lot in my daily life and as a librarian. However, when technology fails me my love can turn to hate. Take this week, for example, my 3 month new laptop unexplicably broke. My proficiency with technology is not at a level where I can fix this problem, which can be very frustrating. However, I still love technology and realize that I rely on it soooo much. I rely on the internet for directions, weather, entertainment, email, and other things. The breaking of my laptop has been inconvenient, but I am lucky because I can use my roommates' computers. If I wasn't able to use my roommates computers' I would be relying on the Chicago Public Library for Internet. Thank goodness we have libraries that provide patrons with the opportunity to access technology! Today, so much essential information is available online and having a computer with Internet access is essential. I don't know what we would do if libraries were not there to help provide access to the computers and help with using that technology.

Hello

Hello, I created this blog for the ALSC program 21 things, which discusses Web 2.0 and how children's librarians (or any librarians) can use Web 2.0 in libraries.

Here is a little info about me:

I am a new librarian who just graduated at the end of April from the University of Michigan. I am currently living in Chicago and will be (soon, just found a job today!) working part time in a library in the Chicago area . As a note, everything in this blog reflects my own thoughts and experiences and not that of the libraries I work and intern at.

My experience with Web 2.0:

I am comfortable and familiar with Web 2.0, but I want to know more beyond the basics and especially how to link these technologies to libraries. I know how to use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, LibraryThing, Second Life (just the basics) and Flikr. So, I am very excited about this project and this blog will discuss my progress, thoughts, and adventures using Web 2.0!