And finally...number 23!!

Well, after way more than 12 weeks, I've finally reached the end! I signed up for the 23 things with a sense of dread, knowing that it would be good for me, but hating the thoughts of blogging, social networking and twitter, among other things! In a lot of cases I was pleasantly surprised. The blog was relatively easy to maintain and I enjoyed many of the tasks, even if I was always a little bit behind! I did think that some weeks it took a lot longer than an hour to get a proper handle on what we had to do - but maybe that was just me!! I also learned that I like self learning programmes - you can focus on the parts you like and skim over the other bits.

I had used some of the tools before, which gave me a great headstart, and my favourite bits were flikr, mylibrarything, delicious, podcasts and of course the youtube videos from Common Craft - thank you Lee and Sachi!! Tagging is interesting too - but I hated technorati. It was also good for me to go on facebook and twitter, even though I probably won't use either again.

I can see how libraries could benefit from using some of the Web 2.0 tools - googlereader, delicious, podcasts, youtube, ebooks, among others, have been used already - but I do think getting involved with social networking sites is a stretch too far for libraries, and in my opinion it's trying too hard.

Overall, I enjoyed the experience. I only managed to get to 1 lunchtime talk, which was a pity as they did sound very useful, and the one I got to was great, but it was hard to fit them in. Thanks to Lindsay, Helena and Karen for all your hard work!

Google Maps, Google Docs, Zoho Writer

I've fallen a bit behind with the last 2 weeks of the 23 things, so I decided I'd tackle one of them today!! I've used Google Maps before for directions but had never looked at it in as much detail as I did today! It is very useful, especially as you can see the route as well as getting the directions, so I get pictures as well as words!!

 When I first tried to load both Google Docs and Zoho Writer, it took ages and almost put me off, but I think there might have been something wrong with the internet connection. I'm now trying again and, if everything goes to plan , I'll be able to publish this Zoho entry in my blog! Now I just have to find out how