Reflection

This experience had a few surprises for me, I came away liking and using 2 technologies on a regular basis. Facebook has become a fixture in my daily life; it keeps me in touch with old friends, co-workers, children’s friends, and new friends. Interestingly the word friend is a constant with this technology. I have always had trouble keeping in touch with friends, who can remember to email or telephone on a regular basis so Facebook has been a welcome technology

I would recommend other librarians give Facebook a try. Many librarians are introverts and I am suspicious that social networking is a problem for many of them. Facebook is an easy to do what does not come easy, which is the point of all technology, making the users life easier and more fulfilling.

The second technology I began to use regularly is YouTube; I check it on a regular basis for videos to send to my friends. I haven’t posted a video but I like finding them and watching them; I could imagine using it to document library programs.

Several of the technologies I liked but I haven’t been able to apply them to my daily life. Pandora and our video technology were and are still interesting to me but I tend to forget about them in the rush of daily. I liked playing with DoppelMe; I have a few personas that I can use on Facebook depending on my mood. One of my avatars looks exactly like me and many people of commented on the likeness. I am not sure that I looking like a computer image.

I would like to see the library system to do this type of project every 2 years or so, it will keep the staff in entire system on the lookout for new technology and will make all of use each new technology, if even for a little while. We must make sure that we keep up with our customers/patrons, also if we don’t understand and use new technology how will IT know what new technology, system-wide. Everything keeps changing and unlike some I think that it is up to us to change and not the patron. They don’t need to wait for us to get on the bus or debate whether we should even get on the bus. If they are there, then we should be too.

Gaming

Gaming is the biggest time waster in my life at this moment. I tend to choose solitary games, like solitare, but I am being courted by fellow facebook fanatics to join in the fun. So far I have been invited to play packrat, and scrabble, but I am afraid that once I give in to this temptation it will be like my solitary Suduko, JigZone, FreeCell gaming I will be lost forever in a gaming universe, not speaking to others just playing games. Kind of like an eternal childhood. Do I think that there for online gaming at the library, of course? Some can be social, others could be instructive like databases scavenger hunts. There could also be social gaming events for the staff at the library, giving us a chance to enjoy the technology that our patrons enjoy. I have tried RockBand but I am not very good. I think my problem with much of the gaming, is that I never started with Playstation and games like the Sims, Civilization, and NFL computer games. I guess there should be Gaming 101 classes for those of us who need the basics, kind of like places to practice mousing instead there should be gaming practice sites. I think I should check this out there may already be such a thing on the Internet...