The 23rd Thing

I'm writing this on Sunday so my mind starting flying to the 23rd Psalm instead of the 23rd thing. And as my faith is a journey, this too has been a good journey for me. I didn't come into this afraid of technology, instead was truly eager to learn more about library 2.0 and the many things encompassed in that phrase.

I think I enjoyed playing with the Flickr applications the most simply because I like photography and seeing what creative things could be done with pictures I had taken was fun and appealing. To be creative, I need alot of guiding and the applications did that. For true usefulness, I was glad to be reminded of Google Docs and other applications. Timewise, I admit after first working with Delicious and Library Thing, I haven't been back to those websites and I don't explore my RSS feeds on Google Reader much. However, the RSS feeds that come into my Outlook mail get looked at on a regular basis. I also really like having the updates on my blog dashboard of the blogs I follow. Blogging is something I hope to continue and my favorite other blogs are right there on the sidebar of my blog. Learning to develop my blog, expanding the blogposts by adding pictures and video was the goal I set at the beginning of this program. Working through the things forced me to try some of that and I found it to be easy and fun. I think I will continue my blog with personal posts and pictures and use it and Facebook for my social networking.

Tackling the question of take-aways-wow, I feel more connected to other library people through reading their blogposts, profiles, etc. It's been especially great for those who I already know and I want to meet some of these bloggers that I only know through their blog names. How about a Nebraska Learns 2.0 mixer or talk session at NLA next year?

When starting this, I thought I could breeze through the lessons but found I would stop and be so busy exploring one thing that I was reluctant to move onto the next. It was often challenging to fit it all in at work and I spend several hours a day at my computer unlike some library staff. If you were to do it in the future, I think you might want to consider a topic a month for library staff that can't do it in a week.

I would definitely do another discovery program if you offer more. I like the ability to work on it at my own pace somewhat. Just another side note: As library funding gets tighter, we need this type of programs for those of us that can't get away from the library for training. It can be tough getting C.E. credits otherwise. We really appreciate NLC staff coming around the state to provide training too.

Thank you to all that put this together and for those that participated. Now I'm going to go back and read other participants blogs that I haven't had time to read before.