Final Thoughts on Project Play, Semester 2

I made it! I didn't keep up with the lessons as well as I did in Semester 1, but I did get them done. What a rewarding semester. I hope other librarians will get a chance to take these lessons. Any librarian who wants to keep up with the latest in her/his field should take them.

The Seth Godin video struck a nerve with me. He talked alot about curiosity and how some people are fearful. I see myself as being a curious person. I wanted to be involved in Project Play because I've heard so much about Library 2.0. You have to be curious in our field. Everything is geared towards technology and you must keep up with it. When I first started my job at OPL, I came forward when they were looking for someone to get involved with digitization. I look back and see what I have learned, due to my curiosity, and I'm glad I did it. I wish others would be so willing.

I would like to get myself and our library involved in podcasting and screencasting. We've had a MySpace page, but hasn't been worked on for about two years. We've been using blogs for some parts of our website. Recently, we received a LSTA grant to set up a photo/video album. We are asking individuals to submit historical & current photographs and videos to the library. We will scan them, make a CD for the individual and return their originals to them. We are posting the pictures into Photobucket. We had a program on photo/video sharing sites for the public. So our library has become involved with Library 2.0 with this project. You can view it at Picture Oshkosh

After the lesson on MySpace and Facebook, I discovered some family members had accounts on Facebook. I've set up an account and have sent messages to my niece in PA. She is a diehard Brett Favre fan! I'm hoping to get back to it and add photos to share with my family members. I'm also going to set up an account for my parents. I don't think I would have done this if it wasn't for Project Play.

Thanks to Joy, Beth, Stef and Jean for their hard work in coordinating the Project and the lessons.

Mashups

Our library has already used mashups as mentioned in the lesson - Barns of Winnebago County. Thanks to Keetra! I could never have figured it out. I still not real sure about mashups. I'd have to spend some time with the different ways of creating them to see what would work for me.

We could add locations to our Rural Schools of Winnebago County digital collection. Maybe something with a map of our building and what's available in each location. Out of all of the tools I've learned about, this would be near the bottom of the list to use.

Crazy Golden Retriever

This could be a video of my dog:

YouTube

What do I like & dislike about YouTube? I don't really go to YouTube, because I don't have the free time to spend looking at videos. Some are enjoyable and do brighten up the day. Our home connection can be slow, so it takes some time to watch some of the videos. YouTube also has videos that should even be on the site. Some videos are stupid. I wonder what the person's life is like and couldn't they be doing something more worthwhile with their time.

Libraries can benefit by YouTube in many ways. Your examples cover most of them - tours, events, services etc. But we do have to remember that there is still a group of people who don't use the Internet or computers. Maybe a kiosk at the library with some short videos running for those individuals.

Screencasts

Another great tool that would be helpful on our library's website. I could see us using it for tutorials on how to access your account, renew books, put specific items on hold ex. vol. 1 of a DVD set, and how to use some of our databases.

It's amazing how many tools are out on the Internet to make library promotion/usage easier.

Podcasts

Ok, this lesson makes podcasting look too easy. I'll have to tell our teen librarian about Gabcast. She was going to do some podcasts with her Teen Advisory Group. This would be easy for the kids to do. They could record and she could put a link on the teen page. I was always hearing that you had to edit them etc. Those are the fancy podcasts. We could start small.

Our teen podcasts may be on issues that teens deal with in their personal life - eating disorders, cutting, suicide. Our teen librarian is hoping to get an individual involved in these issues to interview and tie the podcast in with a web page with resources.

Our youth department could do some storytimes and reference department could feature new & current services.

Definitely a great way to reach out to our public.

Social Networking

Looked at Pawtucket PL, Arapahoe PL and Denver PL. All promoted their events and had the same look. I liked the friendly look to Pawtucket's page. Denver had music. Libraries would have more exposure via MySpace since Facebook is limited to account holders only. You can tell most libraries are reaching out to the teen via MySpace since their pages note Teen books, events etc. OPL has a MySpace page, but nothing has been done with it since the librarian who set it up left. As Lexia, mentioned maybe some of our teens could work on it. The part that I wonder about are the comments on the MySpace page. One of the libraries had a conversation between two friends. Nothing to do with libraries. I would prefer that libraries be the topic.