So, this is it. Finally I will finish Library 2.0. All in all, I think it has been a pretty good program. Some of the best lessons, in my opinion were YouTube, Map your Travels, Flickr, LibraryThing, so pretty much all of the "fun" lessons. I enjoyed the program because it introduced me to all sorts of things out on the internet that I would probably never have known about but I'm not really sure how to apply some of them to a library setting. There are a few of the sources that I think the library could use to provide some cool features, especially on the SLCPL website. Some of the easy ideas are utilizing Flickr and YouTube/Online Video to allow us to record programs like storytimes or maybe even some of the computer training courses and allow patrons to watch them online. The SLCPL MySpace also could become a great resource to connect with teens and promote teen programming. I don't know if this is possible but I think it would be cool if we could somehow use LibraryThing to make booklists on the website. How cool would it be if you could add Staff Lists to the website and have them link to LibraryThing? Patrons could see what ratings staff gave certain books and even see a short review. Well, I think it would be cool.

Emily Explores Mash-Ups and Image Generators

I'm not exactly why i initially ignored these lessons because they were actually semi-amusing, possibly even the most important lessons in the whole library 2.0 experience. Why, you are probably asking, are these the most important lesson? Well, that is a good question. They are the most important because I finally know that my Roller Derby name is MOLLY CALAMITY! It seems fitting to me. The lessons don't seem particularly relevant when compared to the rest of the lessons but they were sort of fun which is a good thing, I guess. Meh, that's just about all I can come up with. The trading card pretty much explains itself.

Emily Explores NetLibrary

I am surprised that the collection on NetLibrary seems so small. Only 223 Children's Fiction titles and only 228 Fiction titles seems really small compared to the large collections of books on tape/CD we have available for checkout in the library. I suppose the only advantage of NetLibrary over checking out a book on CD is that I can have it on my mp3 player. Woo-Hoo. I don't usually listen to books on CD anyway so I don't think I will use NetLibrary all that often anyway. I like to take it old school and just check the book out. At least I got to create yet another account, which takes my tally of accounts up to somewhere around the thousand range probably.

Emily Explains Podcasts

This lesson was slightly confusing for me mostly because I couldn't really remember how to use Google Reader, which probably tells you just how useful this lesson was for me. I had not logged on or even thought about logging onto Google Reader since that lesson many weeks ago. After stumbling around Google Reader for a few minutes I dived into the vast ocean that is Podcastalley.com. I found a podcast that my coworker Paul had told me about("That's What She Said" - an analysis of The Office) and it seems semi-interesting so I just added that one after looking through impossibly long lists of podcasts for several minutes and deciding that podcasts don't actually mean that much to me. I suppose the usefulness of this lesson comes in the form of knowing what a podcast is, being vaguely aware of the thousands nay millions of different podcasts out there, and knowing a few resources where they can be found. I don't see myself really using podcasts in the future, but you never know. For now I'll just stick to trusty ol' music on my mp3 player.

Emily Explores YouTube

Emily Explores the Web 2.0 Awards Site

While looking at the list of Web 2.0 Award Winners I couldn't help but notice how many different awards they had and how many of those sites I had never heard of. I was shocked! I've have always considered myself somewhat up-to-date on the internet, but apparently not. Anyway, I do agree with most of the awards and sites I recognized, but mostly I was just glad that MySpace did not win in the "Social Networking" category. I will admit that the list was a bit daunting because of the sheer number of categories and it is not too easy to find one to look at when there are so many. All in all, not a super useful lesson because I am still not exactly sure what I am supposed to be looking for in the list of winners. It appears to be yet another website I could potentially waste time on.

Emily Explores Google Labs

Google constantly amazes me, but I was somewhat disappointed with the Google Labs. I am definitely a fan of Google Maps and so I expected to enjoy Google Mars but it was a huge let down. They only got one very small satellite image and decided to repeat it several times and it wasn't even a very interesting image at that. The only redeeming feature of Google Mars is that the elevation view is so colorful and therefore amusing for a few minutes. The Google experimental searches with the time line is pretty cool as well as Google Suggest and Google Trends. Overall, it was semi-entertaining and semi-useful, but not much more than that.

Emily Explains Online Application Tools

Lame is my summation of this week's lesson. Why would I type something in Google Docs and then post it to my blog when I can just type it in my blog, which is less hassle. I can see the potential usefulness if I manage to find some computer out there in the world which by some miracle doesn't have Word loaded on it. I also can see the validity of the argument that a Google Docs document is saved in my Google account and therefore on any computer with internet access, but now that I have a nifty flash drive from Library 2.0 to carry around it doesn't make that much difference to me where my documents are saved.

Reading about Web 2.0, Library 2.0, & the Future has only confirmed an idea that is floating around there. Technology is good and change is good. But we already knew that. However, that was pretty much all I got from these articles. They were sort of difficult to understand and filled with references to many things about which I have no clue. What is WorldCat? I'm hoping it is some sort of giant cat which is plotting to take over the world. I am not a fan of this lesson and as such am now going to abandon it.

Emily Explains Search Engines

This exercise was not very helpful for me, except that it confirmed what I already know. Google is the only search engine for me, I don't know why, I just have some sort of special bond with it. That said I did try Mooter, Clusty, and Exalead. Mooter got an instant "No" because it was a cluster. When I am doing a search I do not want a cluster to whittle down my search I want all of the billions of sites I should get. Clusty is just okay. It is hard to read for some reason, don't ask me why. Now, Exalead is a search engine I could potentially use. It has small pictures off to the side of the results which makes me infinitely happy, but that means you have a very limited amount of results on each page. In conclusion, I will consider using Exalead in the future, but Google is still King in my book.

Emily Explains RSS Feeds

I have heard many of my co-workers complain about the RSS Feeds lesson being really difficult, but I didn't find it too challenging. When I set up my Google Reader account it helpfully asked if I would like to add "bundles" of feeds, which were packages of about 6 different sites that I could add all at once. Thank you again Google, you always know exactly what I want(where would we be without Google? If they decided to take over the world I probably wouldn't be too upset. Who wouldn't want to live in Googlandia? Or Googlemerica? Or The United States of Google?). So once I whittled down the list of feeds, taking out a few I didn't really want, it didn't seem too hard. I was able to get the 10 feeds required for the lesson and add a few I found on my own in about 20 minutes from start to finish. The only thing I don't like about feeds is from some sites you never really know what you're going to get from it. For example, YouTube. I thought it sounded like a fun feed to have, seeing as YouTube is sometimes amusing, but all I got in my feeds were some videos that I can only assume were Polish. Not too helpful. But, even more unhelpful were the so called "search tools" Topix, Syndic8, and Technorati(or as I affectionately call it Techno-lame-i). After having had a day to consider RSS Feeds I have decided that I don't really care about them. I don't look at so many websites that it is all that useful for me and the "search engines" are terrible. So...thumbs down!

Emily Explains Flickr

Flickr is awesome! It is so unbelievably addicting, I could waste hours on this website. First I was distracted by the satellite view of the earth and spent half an hour there and then I found the main part of the website. There are so many photos, you could look all day long and still be amused. Good ol' Flickr, it will probably become a favorite website now.This picture makes me laugh every time!! Thank you to Elizabeth for taking the picture and thank you to Melanie for letting me post it and finally thank you to Paul for wearing a bonnet. In public.
I would add an explanation for this picture, but it makes perfect sense to me.

Emily Explains LibraryThing

I'm going to break from the crowd here - LibraryThing is cool, but I don't find it particularly amazing. It's a fun way to keep track of the books I have read and also to see what books my friends like, but I don't see myself becoming addicted to it. Several days passed between the creation of my account and this post and I honestly forgot I even had a LibraryThing account. That is how much it means to me. I personally would be just as well off sticking to an Excel sheet or Word document listing all the books I have read/want to read. LibraryThing does have the advantage of being on any computer I encounter during my day but with the flash drive I will soon be getting I can easily remedy that problem. All the computers I ever use have Word loaded on them so I will probably just stick with a trusty ol' Word file. But who knows, it's possible after this rambling post I will become hopelessly addicted to LibraryThing. Maybe I'm just in a contrary mood right now.

Emily Explains Tagging and Technorati

Tagging and Technorati are not at all useful in my opinion. I suppose it's probably because I don't visit so many websites that I need another one to keep track of them for me nor do I need to search through someone else's blog. I can't even keep track of my own blog, heaven forbid I could keep track of someone else's! Sooo...that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Emily Explains Myspace

Not much too explain really. It's space that is mine. It's sort of fun, but overall I don't think I will keep it once 2.0 is over. It was really easy to set up and figure out how to use. However, all of my "friends" are people I see everyday so I don't really have anything to say to them on Myspace that I wouldn't just rather say in person. Adding photos and being able to see other peoples' photos is semi-amusing though. So, on the whole I don't see the big craze over Myspace, but to each his own.

Emily Explains Wikis

Ah, wikis. I enjoy the idea of wikis. It gives me joy that I could be so lucky as to add irrelevant information to topics of great importance and lead the general public astray. There seems to be a fair amount of controversy/general discontent surrounding wikipedia and wikis in general. Get over it! Does everyone really believe every word they read on the internet? Really? Think for example when you have read something on the internet such as "Dinosaurs have come back and are invading Kansas." Did you believe it? If you did, you were certainly wrong, but it would be awesome nonetheless. Perhaps not as much for Kansas but you can't win 'em all. The idea of a website made up of little pieces added by hundreds, nay thousands of people is pretty cool, as long as we remember that we are not always right all the time and do not depend on it for anything other than general questions. I think it is pretty cool that cities/towns would have a public wiki because it seems like such an effective way of posting many events that the general public would otherwise not know about. The same principle applies to the book review wikis. It's like a huge book group where you never have to decide on one book to read or choose a location in which to discuss said book. On that happy note I shall now end this totally irrelevant and generally unhelpful post and move on to tackle the beast that is Myspace.

And now for the maps...



create your own personalized map of the USA
or check out ourCalifornia travel guide



create your own visited country map
or check our Venice travel guide

Emily Explains

My name is Emily. So far so good. At this point in time library 2.0 has been fairly enjoyable and I have actually learned quite a lot. Who knew Gmail had so much to offer? Well, I didn't and am quite impressed. Blogging on the other hand is very odd for me. Bear with me, for this my fist time blogging and I'm sure it will sometimes become quite confusing and just sound like me rambling(like now). I find that I am now looking forward to the coming weeks and the new technological experiences coming with them.

The title of my blog somewhat suggests that I might be explaining something in each installment, but unfortunately today I have nothing to explain. However, as time goes on I think I would like to expand this and have a new and exciting installment each week, sort of like a really bad sitcom. Hopefully I will be able to examine and analyze exciting topics such as dinosaurs, pirates, and possibly urban liberalism in imperial Germany. You get the picture. Maybe we can even take a few side trips through the realms of fantasy and the sands of time. The world is my oyster and it looks as if library 2.0 will be interesting, helpful, and most of all fun.