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.

Google Docs

I was excited by the ideas of Wikis in semester one, but Google Docs would be another good way to collaborate on projects. More than a few times I've gone to open up a document on our network drive to find that someone else has it open. They might be finished and forgot to close it, but until they do, I can only access a copy. It also has the advantage that when someone has revised the document, she doesn't need to send out new copies to everyone involved.

But I like best the idea that if people are going to be working on it in different locations -- work, home, maybe on the road -- they don't need to have the "proper" software installed. They can log in to Google docs and have the editing tools right there.

I don't have a project in mind now for Google docs, but I can see it as a useful tool that we could use to work together.

Wikis

For the purposes of this week's assignment, I added North Fond du Lac's Public Library as an external link to the North Fond du Lac entry in Wikipedia, but what I'd really like to do are fix are the entries for my hometown. An early baseball player named Ginger Beaumont lived for many years in Honey Creek, a fact you would learn from his entry in Wikipedia, but the link for Honey Creek, Wisconsin takes you to a town in Sauk County. There is no entry for my Honey Creek in Walworth County, which has existed since 1836. Since it's an unincorporated community, I wouldn't be able to get the same depth of demographic information as the Sauk County page, but the Spring Prairie, Wisconsin page has an external entry to another little community within the township. I've sent for two books for more background on the history of Walworth County's Honey Creek so I can create a page for the community and return Ginger Beaumont to the Honey Creek he knew and farmed.

One use of Wikis for library staff is for cooperative projects, either staff within our own library working together or staff from multiple libraries. Instead of sending group e-mails, which may or may not be read by all, or which may not be received if someone forgets to reply to all, the work can be found and edited in one place. Everyone has the same working copy and can make their contributions as they find time. I also like the library and community sites that let users make changes, though I do like the log-in features that add some responsiblity for the changes made rather than let edits be done freely and anonymously. There's a lot that can be done with Wikis and with the software and often the hosting free, it's well worth exploring.