October 25, Thing 10, the last one!

For the last decade libraries changed tremendously and they’ll continue to change. There are many articles written in professional and non-professional literature about where libraries are going and what is their future if any. One thing is clear – libraries should change and will change, adapting any new technology to the traditional library setting. The idea will stay the same, but the form might be different: from traditional book to ebook; from fliers to electronic newsletter; from regular video’s/DVDs to downloadable videos, etc.
I am actively use and submit information for SkokieNet, SkokieTalk, Flickr, I actively use SPL toolbar which I like a lot. For the last several days I played with the downloadable digital collection, and I successfully downloaded several audio books. The Netlibrary books are much easy to download, but North Suburban Digital Consortium gives much more possibilities, even if you need to download some software.
Finally I can transport my audio books to my Palm.
It’ll be nice to merge the Skokie Net and Skokie Talk to one big blog, or perhaps create one big library blog with different sections, where each librarian might have a portion to be responsible for. I get used to our library web site, but I know it'll be changed relatively soon because it is a non stop process. I might have more ideas in the future.

October 23, Thing 8, Wikis

Wikis is one of the reference tools we use at the library. Some times Wikipedia has more information than many other sources. I like Wikipedia and the concept behind it, I like wiki and the methodology of the open open source. I assume for many people who came from "old" academical world, Wikipedia is not a reliable source of information. Several years ago, a research been done by the Nature magazine, where they compared results in Britannica and Wikipedia. When they summarised everything, it was quite clear that Wikipedia is about as good a source of accurate information as Britannica. As librarians, we almost always use several sources for information, that's why I think W. is a great reference tool. The idea of "radical trust" is even more applicable for the library community. Establish Wikis for the library, we'll be able to have close contacts with our patron and colleagues; we'll be able to put out information in a timely manner, avoid going through the lairs of censorship. As we all know libraries should change, and using wikis is one of thous very positive changes where "radical trust" between librarians and patrons could occur. I can picture Reference Wikis, Business Wikis, Teen Wikis, etc, as a part of our library web site.
I contributed to 10 Things wiki, and to the Librarians Resources and Library Success.

October 17, Thing 9

Every now and then I use Google Documents. The first thing I did, I moved some of my important documents to Google, and for me it is very handy, I can retrieve them literally from anywhere in the world. We can't compare Google Documents with Microsoft products, because the key feature for Google is sharing and editing, and this is what makes them unique so far. The sharing, editing and publishing options are great. I can picture kids or college students working together (two heads are better than one) on different projects. Of course we can't expect many formatting options from Google, but I am sure this program will serve many people. As for the SMS products from Google, I've checked the demo, but do not have this options on my phone to try. I am still pretty happy with traditional SMS exchange.

October 12, thing 7. Podcasting

Podcasting is a great thing, and it has a lot of potential for the library community as well as for the whole internet community. It wasn't difficult to add podcasts to the Google Reader, although I spend more time looking through different podcasts from the 10 team list. Thank you very much, I found many interesting podcasts for my own and professional interests. I liked the list of podcasts from the National Library of Medicine on many current issues, I liked teen podcats from libraries like Boulder PL, Warthington libraries, etc. Santa Cruz Library put together a "Synergy Lecture Series"- a great educational resource. But most of all I liked the ESL podcasts through the Learn out Loud. These are highly educational podcasts for those learning english as a second language. The host speaks slowly, he uses both formal and informal language, and explains the the nuance of each new word or phrase. I also liked the topics chosen.
These ESL podcasts could be a good addition to our online resources. In SkokieTalk blog we are using podcats for quite a while.

October 9, thing 6

My experience with Social Bookmarking was very positive. I new about del.icio.us but I never used it before. It was very easy to add websites to the list, but using the browsers buttons it is much more easier and faster. I found an interesting site on essentials of blogging and send it "for:skokieten" tag. The most useful tags for the Library might be: library, libraries, reference, programming, blogging, libraries 2.o, books, databases, research, etc.

October 6, Thing 5. Flickr

I am using another program for my pictures called fotki.com. Fotki is one of the leaders of photo sharing service & offer almost the same as Flickr features. After I started playing with Flickr for the project, I looked closely for some extended features in fotki.com, and found many similarities. I had a very positive experience with Flicker, and the Newbie's Guide to flickr was very helpful. Also, I am using another program from Google - Picasa 2, nice thing where you can e-mail pictures directly from the site.

Internationals

Internationals
Originally uploaded by theskokieten

The "Internationals" folk group performed many times @ Skokie Public Library. Their leader- Genadij Sergeenko