Things 9, 20, and 21

Ok, so I thought I posted these things already, but in all actuality, I just drafted them. Ooopsie! That'll learn me to pay closer attention to what I am doing! Sorry for the lack of order, but I figured it was just easier to cut and paste them and put them all together in one posting. My apologies to anyone offended by my inconsistency. =-D


THING 9- MERLIN

I created a Merlin account and a MD23-ning account. I must say that I am a cheater because when I was looking for things, I used the search boxes instead of searching for things on the page. Also, when looking for newsfeeds, I looked for ones that other people had recommended. There is soooo much information available that it was a bit overwhelming in the beginning, but the more exploring I do, the more comfortable I feel with it.


THINIG 20- YouTube
I’ve been a user of YouTube for a while now. I first became acquainted with it a few years ago when one of my friends roped me into being in a “Don’t be afraid to vote” commercial. Since, then, when I need to find video for something, I go to YouTube first. The only bad thing about YT is that anyone can put stuff on the site and there are great discrepancies in quality. The video that I chose for this exercise is http://youtube.com/watch?v=we9_CdNPuJg and it’s about fainting goats. I discovered fainting goats a few years ago and when I am having a bad day, a fainting goat video can make me smile.
One feature that I think would be helpful to add to the library catalog would be the 5 start rating thing they do. I am sure that patrons would love to be able to rate the books they check out and to see how other books are rated.


Thing 21- Podcasts

I’d never listened to a podcast before MD23, but the experience was a good one.

I added a few podcasts to my bloglines. Although I was not able to listen to them yet, they look promising. One looks like it has things for children to listen to. If it IS indeed what I think it will be, it is an awesome concept. It would allow children to listen to pre-recorded storied via internet. I chose this one because you didn’t need a special player to listen to them. I also added an RSS feed for LibVibe, which is a library news site. The few times I’ve been able to find time to listen to the podcast, I liked it because it was like a radio station of just library-related items.

For grins and giggles, I also subscribed to a few history and education podcasts via iTunes and they have proven mot interesting. I subscribed to a one that is a daily Spanish learning podcast (they didn’t have a Russian podcast, so I settled even though I speak no Spanish just to explore). Unfortunately, the podcasts in iTunes are a bit on the limited side for the subjects that I am interested in, but they are fascinating none the less.