Project Play Semester 2

I believe I'm a curious person. I know that I'm someone who thinks and wonders a great deal on the way to finding something out, rather than seeking to be told what the result should be. I've always been more hands-on, willing to find out what happens if I press this key or take this step. And, of course, some of what I try isn't going to work. But even that can be a valuable learning experience, both by ruling out what won't work and building tools that help me in dealing with future problems. It goes further than technological matters. My father helping me with household projects taught me to think in terms of improvising a solution. We'd be happy when something worked, not worry about whether it was the "correct" way to do it.

We covered a great deal in the two semesters of Project Play. Some tools I've come to use on a regular basis: Our department uses a blog to keep each other up-to-date with what's going on and we've added Meebo to our website for IM Reference. If I have a quick question for our Library System support people, I'll often IM them instead of trying to call. I use del.icio.us for links, don't get back to Bloglines as often as I would like to read the feeds I've set up, and continue to enter my books on LibraryThing. There were other tools I thought were cool, but haven't actually found a way to use them: Jott and Wikis, to name two. I visit YouTube and FunnyorDie at times, but don't expect to start making my own.

What was most valuable about ProjectPlay is that with web tools continually new and evolving, it was wonderful to have someone sort some of that out and say, "Here's what you should look at" and give us so many great examples of specific applications and sites where libraries have applied them. There's so much more to learn, and we have a great platform from which to keep doing that. We won't have more Project Play to guide us, but we need to explore links and tangents from sites we visit and keep up our reading to get tips on what we might try and find useful.

What I found amazing while thinking about this last Project Play assignment on mashups is how easy applications on the web is making it for us to do things without having to learn much about how they actually function. We can combine different functions, with someone else doing all the coding for us, getting a very sophisticated look with little effort.
To try out Map Builder, I thought I'd have to map a nearby library or another place in our town, because my department head, who's also doing Project Play, mapped ours yesterday. But someone had apparently overwritten part of his work and while the balloon was in the correct place, another library's name and address came up upon clicking on it. I corrected that so that it's back to Fond du Lac Public Library.
I've tried to think of other applications for our library, but can only think of better mapping options than we've used so far, but since mashups are such a rapidly growing field, I hope before too long we can make some creative use of them. It would be one way to make our website more vibrant and appealing.

YouTube

For libraries who have put videos on YouTube, I especially like the ones done with a bit of a sense of humor. Some of them I looked at this week were very creative; I was especially amused by Library Girl and the Betty Glover Library Workout Tape. When I started to hunt around looking for a video to imbed, I found a great variance in technical quality. This one on Library Cats, for example, interested me for its topic, but there's a frame-speed issue that's very distracting when you watch it.

To choose one for this post, I started searching "library cats", but ended up picking this one where a cat is clearly trying to pick out a book, but is too overwhelmed by the variety of choices to settle on one.

Screencasting opens up all sorts of exciting possibilities for our website. I could see creating short screencasts as other libraries have done, showing patrons how to use some of the features of our site and library. For this week's lesson, I created just a short screencast at Screencast-O-Matic, without narration, showing how we map the most common two network drives at our library: the common drive and a personal drive, but we could do some that would be a little more extensive with sound. The limitations would be that the patrons might not have the right plug-ins or versions of them to view the screencast, so we would need to have a transcript available as well.

Podcasts

Our library does podcasts of its annual 8-program Great Decisions foreign policy series and several other programs throughout the year. We record them with a digital audio recorder connected to our meeting room sound system. It's my job to edit that recording in Audacity and export as an MP3 and put it on our website. I have to admit that I was surprised that people continue to listen to these programs-- a year later, our first programs are still getting hits.

We don't do podcasts on a regular basis with an RSS feed. Libraries are doing some interesting things with that. I can see us looking at doing one in the future. But I can say what we have done so far has been a success and contributed to the community interest in these programs. If they can't make it to all the programs in person, they still have an opportunity to hear them. It's one more way that the library can be a part of their lives.

MySpace and Facebook

After reading this week's Project Play articles on the pros and cons of libraries having MySpace or Facebook pages, whether it's a great way to reach out to potential library users where they already hang out or an intrusion into their social networks, I'm left with the feeling that I still don't know what I think.

I can see where a vividly designed page that serves a useful purpose rather than a passive description of who we are could help stimulate teens' and young adults' interest in using the library. Making it useful would include a search box for the catalog, lists of the newest material, and boosting upcoming events, particularly those expected to appeal to that age group (but not exclusively, as the over 25 demographic is steadily increasing).

I'd be game to do one if we decided to have a MySpace or Facebook page, but I'd need to become much more comfortable with spending time in social networking sites, as if it's not done with passion it's not likely to interest the people we're trying to attract and get excited about the library. If we're going to be out there, we need to make it interesting and make clear at a glance that we have something to offer them.

Jott to Remember the Milk

Remember the Milk and Jott are both cool tools, but I don't know how much I'd actually use the first one. I've never been a list person; the only time I tried writing an actual grocery list, I'd misplaced it by the time got to the store. Since I have a vivid memory that locks away all sorts of facts, bits and numbers, I've had the life-long habit of relying on it. Which is not without its problems, as while my memory usually is very good, I've experienced the occasional adrenaline-spiking moment of, "Oh, shoot! I was supposed to ...". Perhaps I would be more likely to use an online tool like this, as what I don't like is bits of paper and notes around with lists of to-dos and reminders. But I'm guessing unless we share a Remember the Milk list as a collaborative project, I won't be using it.

Jott, on the other hand, I'm hoping to find reason to use. I thought it was so cool to be able to make a phone call and have it transcribed to into an e-mail. My first attempt didn't work because I have a soft voice and I was making the call where there was too much background noise. But the second two tries were clear and accurate word-for-word. If I have something I wanted to look into further at work, and haven't the time to log on to my computer or access to a PC, I could call and send a quick note to my e-mail account. And of course, Jott combines very well with Remember the Milk. I tried that out with my first call to Jott.