Twitter CPL 2.0

Twitter is a great way for libraries to communicate. Having looked at some CPL twitter accounts, I 've found that it is mostly used to promote library programs and library materials. For the Village Square Twitter account I try to update it every time I am at work. Often I will tweet about a program that is taking place that evening or provide a link to some interesting tidbit of info. Twitter has potential when it comes to communicating messages to our customers and followers. Hopefully we can get more and more followers and begin some facinating dialogues with them. It is a great tool for libraries!

LibraryThing CPL 2.0

Like Facebook for book lovers, LibraryThing is a great social networking site with a theme.

With LibraryThing you can keep track of the books you've read, and it's great for Readers' Advisory for work. I started using this site a short time ago, but not very much. After looking at it today I can see that it will be a very useful application, with loads of possibilities for diving into book discussions, figuring out what to read next, and for remembering what I've read previously (because lately I tend to forget what I read last week!).

I think too that I might recommend this to my book club ladies. We have been together for nearly six years now, and I think LibraryThing is something they might be interested in for all the wonderful things it holds.

Google Docs Rock! CPL 2.0

I have looked at Google Docs and I am very impressed. With these totally online, web based, documents you can create documents, presentations, spreadsheets and you can upload documents you have already created in most formats. Google Docs looks incredibly EASY and I think that is what will ultimately matter in the end. You can make a presentation similar to PowerPoint. Or use the spreadsheets which are similar to Excel.

Google Docs allow the same functionality, but are free and easy. When all this "software" is free and so easy to access, the question is obvious! Will it take over from Microsoft? It may drive the price down. I think eventually more and more people will start using Google Docs. Why not? What is there to lose?

CPL 2.0 Pictures and Movies

YouTube and Flickr...

YouTube is great for seeing something you missed... "just look it up on YouTube", is becoming a common expression, not too different from "just Google it", only instead of a website you get a video. YouTube is very user friendly. Posting a video on your Facebook or Blog is super simple, as is emailing it to someone. Awhile ago, I remember seeing on the news a thing about this lady singer named Susan Boyle who was on Britain's Got Talent. She was singing a I Dreamed a Dream by Le Miserable, which I love. I looked it up on YouTube and emailed it to some friends. Today that clip has been views a gazillion times! (actually 92,166,727 views) YouTube had a role in her instant worldwide "success".

As for Flickr, it is fairly new to me. For my own photos I use Picassa, which is a similar product that Google has, and I like it for how it organized all the photos on my computer by date. I mostly use Flickr for its Creative Commons when I'm making a display or poster. Having looked further into Flickr with this assignment, I found it very user friendly and I also discovered some new things: making cards out of your photos, for instance.

Charlie bit my finger - again !

CPL 2.0 RSS

Voltaire said, "The multitude of books is making us ignorant." I think if he were alive today he would say the multitude of RSS information is making us crazy! I think RSS has its uses for sure. From what I've see so far, if you are subsided to some pretty specific fees you will get lots of information that may be appropriate to you.... but I also think it will be easy to get overwhelmed with information and heretofore go crazy!

Google products CPL Web 2.0

Maui sunset 2007 (taken by me) Maui daytime 2007

Picassa is the perfect Google product for all your photos. Here you can find, edit and share all your digital photos. What's great about this product is how it will go into your PC and find all your photos, collect them and put them all together by date. Wow! I had way too many pictures and it was difficult to locate all of them from the different files I had them in. Secondly, with Picassa you can edit your pics, taking away all those red eyes for instance. Finally you can publish them into web albums so you can retrieve your photos from any computer in the world. And share your pictures via email or to other members of picassa.

Another Google product I recently started using is gmail. It is really great. I started it because I want to be able to manage my email from other computers and I can't retrieve my telus email once it is downloaded onto my home PC. Anyway, so far so good with gmail.