Thing 7 of 23 things

I got hung up on Webinar/OPAL part of this one because I am behind and the timing for the webinars and the OPAL programming wasn't working out for me. When I viewed this thing for the first time, over a week ago, I was in a rush and didn't read thoroughly about archived material. I also had to print out part of the reading requirement at the library that wouldn't show on my home computer. Tonight I started to panic and did more in depth searching through the possiblities to fulfill the requirements and I ended up listening in on an archived Author interview of Dana Stabenow, who is liked by many of my patrons. It was very cool to have the streaming audio, text chat, presentation slides and webpages magically appear before me. From reading the catalog of webinar and OPAL options I can see that it is an advantageous way to learn, especially since my location is, what you might say, isolated.

We use email at our library to communicate between branches and to contact patrons who have given us an email address. I learned a great deal from the productivity hints on emails. I am now instant messaging on Google as many people who I can get to use it - 2. Wow. The number will increase. I wish the helpdesk at our headquarters did IMing. Most of the other communication tools mentioned are new to me, but I look forward to getting the opportunity to trying some of them out. I have no doubt if I don't learn to use them, I will not be able to do my job as effectively.

Thing 5 of 23 things

I used BigHugeLabs to create my photo mosaic and I'm motivated to do some more with this tool. It had a fantastic assortment of possibilities using photos. It is difficult to get the navigating down to travel between flickr, my computer, BigHugeLabs, and my blog. I learned that using tabs helps tremendously, but I still haven't got that totally ingrained, so I have wasted time along the way by getting lost or clicking out of what I needed, inadvertently.

The possibilities are numerous for using this thing in the library; promotion materials and the library blog, collaborating with other libraries would be the first to come to mind.

I'm quite comfortable with having photos online. One tends to expand their comfort level when it saves a lot of time and provides security for storing photos. I am concerned about getting signed permission for photos of young library patrons. I don't know how successful it will be, but regardless, I am sure I can make better use of photos after learning this thing.