Thing 23 - Reflection

What do you think about social media in libraries?

What do you wish FPL was (or wasn’t) doing? 

Have you learned anything from the program? 

If so, what?

If not, what could we do better?

I am glad to be finished with this exercise, although I definitely feel that a lot of what I learned is useful and very possibly applicable to future questions I may get. I think social media very definitely has a place in libraries, because it has a place in the life of our patrons...in order to stay relevant we need to meet the patrons on their level. I listened to some cool podcasts as one of the "things" and I thought some libraries did an excellent job at that. I don't believe FPL currently does anything like that, and it may be for a good reason, such as no one was interested in listening to them. However, it would be something interesting to explore. I learned a lot from the program, mostly by gaining an understanding of the how's and why's behind a lot of the current internet technology. I like feeling well-educated on things like wikis and rss feeds, even if I don't plan to use them personally. And I think LibraryThing is something I will definitely use in the future, at least on occasion. It's great to know all of these things are out there, because it's hard to predict if/when I may need them.

Thing 22 - Groupon

For thing 22, user's choice, I decided to first do some internet searching to see what new social media sites might have emerged in the last year, after the creation of 23 Things. I found the following sites which lists the top 5 emerging social media sites of 2010: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/5-emerging-social-media-sites-to-watch-in-2010/ . After glancing through the list, #5 caught my eye because I've heard of it before but never used it or been exactly sure what it was. I figured this was a good opportunity to check out what all the buzz is about. So I went to groupon.com and tried to do some looking around. Basically, in order to see anything you have to join, so I entered my city and my email address and it brought me to a page with todays deals. The way it works is apparently by guaranteeing a large group of people will use a company's product or service, the group is offered a discount. There were 9 discounts offered for the Dallas area today. Unfortunately, none of them appeal to me. The discounts included: golfing at a country club, a session with a photographer, a session with a make-up stylist, a discount to a restaurant, sunless tanning discount, and more. It appears that the deals are changed on a daily basis, so you have to check back in tomorrow to see what sort of discount or coupon can be obtained tomorrow. So you have to make up your mind pretty quickly as to if this is a product or service that interests you. It also appears that some of the deals have a limit to the quantity available, again making it seem necessary to login daily and decide right away if you are interested in the deal.

I admit I'm somewhat skeptical of this. I'm not a big coupon person to begin with. It's not that I don't like saving money, it just seems that if I go out of my way to get a coupon, I've lost it, forget to take it to the store with me, or it's expired by the time I use it. I also don't like being cornered into something, so deals that are "buy 3 get 1 free" sort of deals always turn me off because I don't want to be forced into buying three of that particular item. Anyway, I should probably be more diligent about coupon use, my wallet would probably appreciate it. I'm open to loggin back in to Groupon a few more times to see if there's anything that interests me. But I will probably expect to find a usable/noteworthy deal in the near future or I will probably write it off as not worth my time. I am glad to know what it's all about now, and given the hype I think it's probably earned it's position as one of the top new social media sites - at least for now.

Thing 21 - Wikis

I enjoyed watching the Common Craft video on Wikis, I felt that it was informative and a useful demonstration on the basic workings of Wikis. While I had a general idea about Wikis, like many people, I was previously mostly familar with Wikipedia. Although I knew Wikipedia was wildly unreliable, I never truly understood exactly how wikis work to put together why they are unreliable.I feel much more comfortable with the ideas behind wikis now. After learning about wikis in the video and the Thing 21 discussion, I went to the wiki for area restaurants that was created for us to practice on. Since most library employees had already completed this project, I found most of the restaurants around here to be already listed. I have only actually been to two of them so far, as I don't live in Frisco and am a pretty new employee. I went to the wiki page for one that I have been to, Icehouse Grill, and decided to update the information on that page to include a link to the website. I found the website, copied the link, then selected edit on that page in the Wiki. I then pasted the link there, and chose to save it. When I reviewed the page, the information I added was right there. I found  the experience to be very easy and user friendly, especially after the brief video tutorial. I have not used wikis before (creating or editing) but I am glad to know how it's done and may find it useful in the future. I don't have a specific example right now of how it might be used in the library (other than the Youth Services wiki that already exists) however I am glad to know how to create them, as it may be useful in instructing patrons.

Thing 20 - Podcasting

I have had no real exposure to podcasting prior to working on 23 Things. As part of this exercise, I took the opportunity to explore several podcasts, and definitely feel more well versed in what they are and what's out there and/or possible. I used the link to go to the Library Success podcasts, and found a wide variety of podcasts available. Some of the libraries have podcasts that teach something, such as how to use an electronic source. Other libraries have podcasts with story times or chapter- a-week podcasts. My personal favorite of those I reviewed was the St. Tammany Parish Library. Coincidentally, I grew up about an hour away from that library system, however this is not why I liked their podcasts the best. I was impressed with their podcasts for a number of reasons: the person who hosted the podcasts had a cheerful and engaging voice and attitude. While it may not seem like a huge deal, when something is strictly audio, voice and tone do matter. Some of the other podcasts I listened to had hosts with boring and droning voices that did not make me interested in what they were saying. Another thing that I liked about the podcasts from this library was that they were promoting their libraries, did it in an interesting way, and had a variety of information included. There was an introduction to their upcoming storytimes with recommended books for children to read. There was a clip from a teen, encouraging other teens to come to the exciting upcoming teen programs at the library, and then there was a guest speaker, who gave about a five minute talk about some local area history. Overall, I was very impressed with these podcasts and felt that other library systems could do well to do similar things. I did not subscribe to this podcast or any of the podcasts that I listened to, not because they weren't interesting, just because it's not really something that interests me. I prefer to seek out information when I want it. But I do think that podcasts can have a place in libraries, and think that many of the things that I heard could be tried by our library - such as advertising for story time and upcoming programming, as well as how-to modules on using many of our e-branch services, and even stroytime or chapter-a-week podcasts. I'd be interested to see how successful these are if tried.

Thing 19 - Hulu

I have never before watched any shows on Hulu. I had a vague idea what it was before this exercise, but no real familiarity with it. When I went to the Hulu website for this "thing" I was definitely amazed at the quantity and variety of videos available, I had no idea the collection was that vast. I looked around at what was available and eventually decided to watch part of the tv show Chuck, the same episode that I had watched the evening before. I chose to do this so that I could truly compare the experience to watching it on tv. I watched about 15 minutes of the episode. There was a commercial before it started and a 25 second commercial after about 12 minutes. While I think it is great that this is available, I don't think it is better than watch something on tv. The picture and sound quality is definitely not as good as at home (although the sound degradation could also be due to the shoddy headphones at my desk). It's very conveient that the commercials are so short, however, I don't feel that this beats recording a show on my DVR, watching it on the big screen, and skipping the commercials altogether when going backt o watch the show. I do think Hulu is great for either someone who doesn't have DVR capability or doesn't have television/cable access. I can see myself using Hulu only in two scenarios: one would be if for some reason I did not catch something on tv or DVR that I want to see, and the second would be to watch something that did not come on tv. Personally I wouldn't want to sit and watch an entire movie on my computer, unless on a plane or something of that nature. However, I do have the capability of streaming something from my iPad through a connection to my tv screen, so I guess I could essentially download something from Hulu and watch it on the big screen...I still don't foresee this being a regular occurenece for me. However, for libraries overall, I think an eventual decline in DVD circulation is likely, but not necessarily something we should expect immediately. I think we may see more people in the future download things online and watch them in libraries, however, as long as there is a large number of the population without computer/internet access in their homes, we will continue to see DVDs circulate.

Thing 18 - YouTube

For Thing 18, I learned about YouTube. Of course, I've seen YouTube videos before, but I definitely didn't know all the details about it, such as the EDU channel. I watched some of the Librarian videos on YouTube as part of this exercise. The Adventures of Super Librarian and Super Librarian were definitely funny although I liked that it had a good message underneath. A Librarian's 2.0 Manifesto was more along the lines of being thought provoking. On the Allen County Public Library Channel, I watched part of a video that appeared to be an interview with a children's author. I don't feel that video was well introduced or explained; after a couple minutes of being confused about what I was watching and what the point was, I exited that video. I can see how items like that could be useful, but I guess that is maybe one of the problems with YouTube - nothing's cataloged, and everything's just all jumbled up together. I realized at that point that the Allen County Public Library had multiple videos listed underneath to chose from, I didn't have to watch that particular one, but when you click the link to go to their YouTube, it automatically queues up the the most recent one. Libraries could definitely use items like this to their advantage: online storytimes, advertisements for programming, how to guides and much more could all be put on YouTube by a library, but then of course they would need to also promote these for them to be of value.

Thing 17 - Music Streaming & Sharing

Thing 17 is another "thing" that is not new to me. I have used Pandora and Slacker quite a bit on my iPhone. When we take road trips, my husband and I always sync our phones to our car stereo so that we can listen to one of these on the trip. Slacker was the first one we used, and I liked it because I could skip songs I didn't like, and I could also "ban" a song I didn't like so that it would never play that song again. Still, the Slacker stations weren't that different from regular radio stations besides the lack of commercials, in that you pick a station that plays a genre of music and you may like some songs and not others. When I discovered Pandora, it was a whole new world. I really like that it creates custom stations based on what music you like. I have to say I think it is very smart technology. The station I use most often is one that plays Cowboy Mouth type music. Basically it ends up being a lot of 90's rock, but I have to say I like almost all of the songs it chooses for me, so it seems very intuitive. I haven't bought a cd since I got my first iPod several years ago. And now that I've discovered music streaming to my iPhone, I can't imagine a reason why I would ever buy a cd again. I see that the library has already reduced the cd collection and it seems to be on the verge of disappearing altogether. There is just no way to beat the free, 24/7 accessibility of music streaming. I think the cd as a library material to be checked out has all but died.