Thing 23 The End

I have to admit at the beginning of the 23 things I thought I couldn't have the time to complete this. I thought to myself how do people have the time to discover all these great tools and try to fit it in their busy schedules? After doing all these things, I still think it takes too much of our time but they are all worth it. I am very proud that I was able to complete it. I have a lot of fun generating the pictures and I am very happy to discover that there are lots of ways to be creative with the pictures. I will for sure go back to the "Things" and explore more for my personal use and for work then blog about them.

Thing 22 What Did I Learn Today?

I will make an effort to incorporate what I learned while doing the 23 things to maintain the blog. I don't think I can put in 15 minutes per day like the program recommended but I will try to log into the blog to update things once in a while. And of course learning about online tools does not stop here for me. I am the systems adminstrator for the library so I have to keep learning new thing to apply to work. As I learn new things and apply them to work, I will write about on my blog.

Thing 21

Wow I wasn't aware that there could be so many social networks out there. There is even one for 23 things on a stick which I joined. Now I am a member of that. I'm going to add the link here so that I can get back to it when I forget (http://23thingsonastick.ning.com). I guess I am a member of this online community now. After browing the social network sites, I really like gather.com. This site lets me actively participate in topics that I enjoy.

Thing 19 (Social Networks)

Facebook is nothing new to me. I first joined it while I was in college. I find it so easy to use to get connected to my friends that I regularly log into facebook every week. It has been a long way for facebook to reach to this point. When I joined, only college students were allowed to join. Now aday every body can join. They added a lot of application on their interface as well. Recently they added Poker and Blackjack. They have tournanments on these games as well. With a facebook account, you don't even need email. I rarely use personal email because I can contact my friends easily using facebook. You can join groups or networks that connect you to that group. I joined John Marshal Senior High, Minnesota State University, Barack Obama, and other friend groups. Libraries can use these Social Network sites to get connected to young adults and this can encourage them to come to libraries more often.

Thing 19 Podcasts

Because the election is coming soon in two months and I'm very concerned about the immigration issue, I listened to Minnesota Public Radio's Podcasts: "How do the candidates differ on Immigration?" to see where the candidate stands on the issue. After listening to it, I think both candidates have good plans to implement but enforcing it and passing the debate in congress is going to tough.

I checked all the podcast directories, and liked them all. All of them are as simple as typing in a keyword search and clicked to listen. Even though I like the podcasts I will not sign up to be a regular listener but I will be listening more then I do now because of this "Thing".

Thing 18 Youtube

Wow that is interesting. I dindn't know that a Central High graduate was responsible for one of the greatest site of the generation. I have been using youtube for years. Mostly for japanese aminations and to get a good laugh when I need a dose of that. Go head! I dare you to have a laugh by going to youtube and search for "japanese practical joke" and watch for one of the videos. To save time, I will just post one.

Thing 17 EML Productivity Tools

Getting these databases running are very important for the people of Minnesota especially students. I myself used these databases for research papers while in college and high school. They helped me a lot. It would be a big lost for the students of Minnesota if they don't know much about these databases. I suggest we put posters at the libraries to let them know that these EML tools do exist out there and very helpful if they learn about it. While doing Thing 17, I discovered that there are a few Ebooks that I can definitly use for at work to advance my knowlege. There are a few personal ones that I wanted to read too.

Thing 16

Too bad the University of Minesota Assignment Calculator requires that you must have a user login to use the reminder feature. If this feature were available to the public as well, I'm sure a lot of schools and libraries will be embedding on their websites. I find that it is very useful for paper projects. I wish I knew about this option while in school. The Assignment Calculator saves a lot of time planning for the paper. It is not fully detailed what you want to do but it has a very good starting points and suggestions. I find the Research Project Calculator useuful as well. I would recommend librarians tell the tutor volunteers at the library use this tool to help students at the libraries.

Thing 15

I chose Second Life because it sounds interesting. I took a tour and was amazed at how creative the developers were. I was even more surprised at the face that Linden can even be exchanged for real US dollars. Sounds like I can make some money here too. The same is very interesting and I will sign up to play this at home. As for a role in libraries, I do not think so. There is no way management can ever approve this.

Thing 14

Above are the five books that I would like to finish reading someday.



Library Things is a very good tool for libraries. We can set this up on the library's website to have patron recommend from other sources besides Amazon that we already have. There will be more choices if we add this into our library's web site.
I think this program has a lot of potential in the future. I wouldn't be surprised if most libraries have this on their website in 10 years.

Thing 13

Because I use Internet Explorer 7 I can choose multiple start pages. The first start page I chose is the library's intranet. I use this one very often to access the library's pages and other applications. The second start page that I made permanantly is MY Yahoo. I have used this start page for quite some time now because of the features that it has. With your zip code, it can monitors the weather in your area and local news. The top stories of the day also appear in the middle of the screen. When I logged into my yahoo mail, it can also monitors the incoming new mails.

COOL ONLINE TOOL:COUNT DOWN TO MY ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY WORKING AT THE LIBRARY

Created by OnePlusYou

I love this count down clock. I will be likely use this at home for personal event and as a programmer, I will incorporate this into one of the projects some day.

Thing 12

These kind of tools can be very useful for reference librarians to stay up to date. All they have to do is monitor a one of two of these social sites and they can very much get the most popular stories. As a systems administrator, I do do not see a lot of values in these tools at work. At home, however, I find it very useful. I like to stay up to date on current issues so I book marked all of these sites on my computer. Now when I have time, I can just scan through the list and get my news.