Shoebrarian

1. I grew up on a farm.

2. My bachelor's degree is in Photography & Cinema. Which is why I waited tables and bartended for a long time.

3. I've been sewing since I was a toddler.

4. After college a friend and I took off for England with no return tickets. We shared an apartment with an annoying Scottish guy who was tour manager for Adam Ant and the Pretenders. That had some perks.

5. I spent 8 years in 4-H (so I'm much more domestic than I look).

6. I've had a beer with the Ramones. Therefore I can die a happy woman.

7. I can't stand the Beatles.

8. I have never seen an episode of Star Trek.

9. I lived in the Stadium Dorm at OSU my freshman through junior years.

10. My favorite author is Flannery O'Connor.

I can't believe it's over! What a great experience this has been. Some of the "things" I had used before, and others were brand new to me. Google Reader has totally changed the way I read blogs (and saves me sooo much time). I'm completely addicted to Twitter...it was a lifesaver during the power outage since I was able to use it on my phone!

Things that I don't think I'll use as much are MOLDI (since I really don't listen to audiobooks) and online image generators (fun but who has the time?). Overall though, I'm glad I had the chance to play around with everything that we covered.

If we offer the program again, I think it would be a good idea to either (a)have fewer "things", (b)make it a longer program, or (c)break it up into two parts. A lot of staff became frustrated with the amount of time that was involved. Also, if staff are expected to work on this on their own time, that needs to be more clear. No one seemed to be very comfortable with that idea!

I would definitely participate in any future discovery programs like this. I love how staff are now communicating using the tools that we've learned about, and I'm become friends with staff members that I didn't know before via Twitter and their blogs.

MOLDI is a great service for our customers, but one that I probably won't use too much. I'm just not a fan of audiobooks and I don't watch movies on my computer. I will definitely give it a try when the content is available for iPods, so that I can better help customers use it.

I've been watching video podcasts for quite a while on my iPod...iTunes is a great source for finding them. One I really like is ModTV for fashion shows. I added the feeds to some to my Google Reader. Podcasts can be a fantastic tool for libraries, as well. I like how the Lansing Public Library in Illinois is using a podcast to promote their teen programming! CML could definitely do something similar.

I could spend way too much time on YouTube. Here is a video of one of my favorite songs- "Into My Arms" by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds.

I hadn't taken advantage of CML's Power Tools Page before, so I was excited to find the Tool Box! So far I've spent waaaay too much time playing with StumbleUpon. To use it you have to download a toolbar, but it only takes a minute- then I chose some categories of web sites that I'd be interested in seeing. Now when I click on the "Stumble" icon on the toolbar, it takes me to sites that it thinks I would like! Most of them have been great- like Play With Spider, Jackson Pollack, and Librarian Chick Wiki. As you look at sites you can give them the thumbs up or thumbs down, so StumbleUpon learns more about your preferences as you go. Warning- it's very addictive!

The site I chose to play with is Cocktail Builder, for obvious reasons. You can enter a list of ingedients that you have, and it comes up with drinks that you can make with them. Genius!!

Unfortunately, I doubt that it would be useful in a library setting. Well, most days, anyway.