#23 Is This Really End? Or Just the Beginning....

For me the QL L2.0 program is truly eye-opening. It is a wake-up call to find out how far away I am from the virtual world now. I was active for a few years over ten years ago, but since then I stopped exploring and climbing. Of the 231/2 Things I learned a lot new from each of them.

First of all, the tool for our program, blogging of the blogger.com, is so powerful and easy to use, and its user-friendly dashboard is much better than the control panels of some website hosting companies and the blogging pages are free. That said, I found that blogging can be vulnerable to hackers/mischievous behaviors or damages accidentally done by the blog hosting company workers. This happened to my blog. The pictures on the "Rockefeller Estate Slideshow" were all randomly taken by the the slide widget of the template from the photos in the Rockefeller Estate set" of my flickr.com account. These pictures were taken by myself during a visit to the estate this summer. However, since about ten days ago I found an extra one added to them, the picture of a green man with scarf. When sherwood living library page is loaded, the green man picture is the first slide. This is not a major damage to my blog pages, but the particular green-color human figure gives me a horrible chilly feeling (Remember Halloween ghosts' faces all painted green?). Does anyone know whose picture it could be?

If it was a paid website, a complaint can be filed to the hosting company, and they can correct it. But it is not possible for blogging because in the Terms of Services Google says, "Google disclaims all responsibility and liability for the availability, timeliness, security or reliability of the Service or any other client software." Therefore we cannot do anything about it other than deleting the slideshow. Has anyone else experienced any security problems?

In spite of the accident I still love blogging, the convenience to upload articles and pictures is super, no FTP tools are necessary. For amateur Internet users like me, blogging is more than enough, and I do not believe serious hackers are interested in my blog pages.

I tried each of the tools in the QL L2.0 program, my favorites are wikipedia and its sister projects such as wikibooks, wikiquotes and others; and its outsider applications such as library application libsuccess.org, wikihow.com, wiki.answers.com and many others; some of the outsider applications are nonprofit, some commercial. The folksonomies concept and practice, the wiki ways of collaboration in gathering knowledge are amazingly successful; and millions of people are using it and learning from them. Other tools and exercises I found very useful for our library and daily life convenience are RSS feeds, LibraryThing, flickr, online videos, and online office tools.

The QL L2.0 Team has done everything possible to assist us finishing each Thing, I found all the tips are very timely posted and useful. The Team leader and members are the heroes of the project and we, the participants, benefited so much from their hard work behind the scene. I believe this investment decision made by the top management of our library system is wise and rewarding to the whole system operation. I am now feeling better equipped and armed with new tech ideas and practice/experience when sitting at the Reference Desk (not changed to the "Information Desk", we are not yet a CSM yet in Hb). I hope the QL L2.0 Team will be a permanent one (not to dissolve after this program) to give guidance on new technology applications. The Team's job is different from the ITS office in that ITS mainly install and maintain hardware and software; their Help Desk is a questions-and-anwere office; while the QL L Team is to aggressively promote library applications that arise from Web 2.0 or Library 2.0 development. I will certainly participate in any similar programs coming in the future.

#22 Audiobooks

It is a good choice to include audiobooks in the QL L2.0 program. The circulations of e-Media items (e-books, e-music and e-videos, and e-audiaobooks) are a link to be strenthened in my library. We will do more promotion on this new media so that more customers will know how they work and what are the benefits to use them. I myself did not check out an audio book till today. As a matter of fact ebooks in Adobe format and audio books played back by Windows Media Player and Creative Mediasource, or the recommended OverDrive Media Console are all very ideal substitutes for print books if the requested titles are not available in the printed format or if you prefer listening while commuting to work or during vacation trips. To have a field experience I checked out two audiao items, one audio book, James Patterson's Cross (Wow! Bbest sellers in audio format so quick!), and one music, J.S. Bach's Brandenburg Concertos vol.2. The sound quality in Windows Media Player, the Creative Mediasource, or in the OverDrive Media Console, is excellent. Each of the three players can work independently, the OverDrive Media console does not need Windows Media Player to work. Reading eBooks with Adobe Reader is even easier than playing audio items. I am thinking of ways to promote them in my library. Probably to get help from the Customer Service Specialist in this project will be a good idea. She conducts computer classes. I'll discuss with her the possibility to add how to use e-Media in her classes.

#21 Podcasts, Smodcasts!

As a librarian you must know "everything" in the world if you are ever scheduled sitting at th Information Desk (Reference Desk in the old way)! That's how I got to know some basics on MP3, iPod and Podcast, but I did not use them. I thought they were for the younger generations. For the QL L2.0 program I have to learn more about them. Now I know they are useful not only for entertainment, they carry all kinds of information and can be used by everybody. It is especially true of Podcast, by which your voice and thoughts can be podcasted and heard all over the world through this Internet radio. I did some search on interesting library-related Podcast programs, and found that the Thomas Ford Memorial Library Teen Reviews is a good one. The reviewers are teens, the monitor is an adult who asks one or two questions. When you hear a Teen's young voice, you feel thrilled and feel convinced that Teens like the books they are talking about indeed. I subscribed this one and "this Week in Tech - MP3 Edition", also "Stuff Sheets.com Mathematics Pod and Anicast" in my Bloglines account. On my blog I subscribed , "President's Weekly Radio Address" as well as "this Week in Tech - MP3 Edition". At mypodcast.com the company lets you record and host your own podcast programs for free. I tried it, it's named "sherwood podcast", and right now I have recorded two very short pieces on health topics. Its RSS feed is added to my Bloglines account. Am I podcasting!? That's true, but podcasting to myself and a few who visit my blog only. Anyway this is a trial. The recording part of podcasting like conventional radio requires special equipment for sound quality (I don't have them, I did it with my home pc with an external mic). Professional podcasting in our library system can only be accomplished by the ITS Office; it' beyond the capability and necessity of community libraries, nor any individual librarians. And the library is not a world news agency. As far as we can see the use of podcast in a library system is limited. But we, librarians, have to know how it works as a new media of the Internet.

#20 I Tube, YouTube (part 2)

The best thing about YouTube.com is that it opens up a new way for ordinary people to talk to the world. At Youtube everyone can upload video clips, can watch and make comments on other people's videos. It is so powerful that watching TV programs or movies at Youtube is as easy and smooth as watching still images on the Internet in the near past. I like its convenience in finding videos. The homepage displays videos kinds in great and varied details. For instance, under "Browse" there are Most Recent; Most Viewed ; Top Rated; Most Discussed; Top Favorites; Most Linked; Recently Featured; Most Responded and Watch on Mobile. To use a big word about YouTube, it has empowered its audience with another means to exercise their right in the First Amendment, Freedom of Expression - Speech and Press.

YouTube's entertaining fuction is great, too. (That's why it becomes popular so fast!) You can find very interesting homemade videos and free movies easily over there. The first video clip I posted on my blog was an entertaining one on gym exercise, Treadmill Dance. Posting this video was to have some festival air for Thanksgiving blog visitors. The second video clip I posted was on politics, part of the CNN*YouTube Republican Debate, in which Giuliani was asked why he, as a Yankee fan, rooted for Sox in the post season. This was a light and relaxing interlude of the debate.

Our library can make use of this popular means of communication on the homepage. For instance we can add a video feature on it, which might be named "A Tube A Day", presenting historical clips on national holidays such as on Independence Day, Martin L. King's day, Memorial Day; there will be plenty of clips to choose from on such topics. On regular days the themes can be varied, such as educational ones on health, children, young adults, cooking, gardening, arts & crafts, sports, etc.; or simply ones that are nice and entertaining.