A few less hairs... but here's Thingy 23

For some reason the two last thingy's were the hardest hurdle for me. Overall I enjoyed doing the 23 things programme, but you definitely need to be kept motivated on the journey. If I was left to my own devices I don't think I would have finished all the 23 things, but going to the lunchtime talks and even the journals club yesterday motivated me to finish, sometimes you just need a bit guilt! I definitely see a place for blogs, wikis, rss feeds in the library. Also tagging, though not technorati which I hated! I can see a place for it, even in my own line of work looking at the tags that students use would help me with coming up with terminology for links on the library website. Some of the 23 things are just for personal use I think and definitely for a certain type of personality, I of the hermit nature they probably don't suit. I would definitely be more that willing to participate in another online programme. Thanks Lindsay Karen and Helena

Thingy 22!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is me trying to make a zoho document public 23 Things, Annabelmc's experience found it a bit difficult to get the link into the blog, ending up having to edit the html slightly from what I got in zoho. That is probably my only criticism of zoho writer. I have used google docs before so decided to give zoho writer a shot. Both products are very good for document sharing and editing and from looking at zoho writer briefly it seems to offer alot of extra features, google docs probably does as well now. Zoho writer is in beta and you are allowed store as many documents as you want but this may change when it is out of testing so this is something to consider.

We use sharepoint in the library at the moment to share documents and the only advantage of it over the other two is that it is secure and ITD look after the backup. However this is in my option the only advantage of sharepoint, as I find it awkward to use and not at all user friendly. The other two free products are much nicer to use and I would be a far happier annabel if I could use them instead of sharepoint sometimes, but thems the drawbacks in life I suppose!

Just realised I forgot about Google Maps, so had to go back in and edit the post, what's happening to me! As a product Google Maps are great, though to be honest I hardly ever use them, me and maps don't go hand in hand. However I did one day spend ages trying to find my own house in annacotty, self obsessed or what! There are probably loads of other features on Google maps and if you are a map person you would probably love them.

Thingy 21

I am not a gamer and I can imagine if I ever tried to play a serious online game I would be useless, my hand eye coordination is pretty bad in real life to say the least. I tried to send a penguin to space online once, but he ended up belly flopping into the water, hopefully he was happier there!. Gaming is a very interesting topic and I found the lunchtime talk great. I can see how a whole generation of people who are gamers in their social lives will learn certain skills that I certainly don't have. However I don't believe at the moment there is any place for gaming in libraries, again I think it is crossing the boundary between education and social life. Also to design a really good educational game you would need to bring in some one who really knew what they were doing. I can imagine students don't really want to play a game to learn something, it would be better if the learning was something they didn't realise they were learning like the hand eye coordination, I am sure that could be expressed in far fancier language but hopefully you get my drift!

Thingy 20

Twitter not for me I'm afraid. My life is too boring to constantly update people on what I am doing, something like Twitter would just make me depressed as I would start to feel I should be doing more with my life. I registered, sent one message to Sinead, who is sitting beside me, logged off, never to return to Twitter again! I would rather leave people with the illusion that I lead a very exotic lifestyle

Nearing the end of the road, thingy 19

You can't run. skip or jump these days, without someone being able to throw a message at you in some sort of format before we know it we will be getting personalised messages over the radio and TV. In saying that, I was going to set up an instant messaging service for the library, using meebo. I had the code for the little box and all. However the problem is time, if you are going to offer an instant messaging service in the library, someone would have to be instantly sitting there to answer the message, while you could limit the instant messaging hours, it would be hard for anyone to sacrifice the time. Instant messaging is handy in a social context, only realised recently they offer a type of instant messaging service on facebook if two friends are on line at the same time. Then again you could always text, phone, or email the person, I suppose the advantage of instant messaging is that is what it is, instant!

Thingy 18

I have had a facebook account for a while now, I had never used it for work just for social stuff. I don't really see a place for social networking sites and academic libraries, I could see library staff setting up a social network amongst themselves but not with users. To me it is a bit like the library wanted to have a presence in a pub, when students are doing social things, I doubt they ever think of the library. However I am not really a social network type of person, I lost interest in facebook fairly quickly even as a social place, so maybe it is just me. The one thing I really dislike about facebook are all the applications, you seem to have to download an application for everything. Someone recommended Ning as a good network for work colleagues and that doesn't seem to have as many applications.

Number 17 thingy

I am excited about downloading my first audio book, except you seem to have to pay for them all. When I am not feeling so tight, I am definitely going to download one. I heard a lady from South Dublin libraries speak at a library seminar about the audio books that they had introduced into their public libraries, I have to say she was a brilliant speaker and was really enthusiastic about the whole process, so looking forward to day UL gets a few.

I'd have a fair bit of involvement in the electronic books that we get here in the library, generally in terms of access problems. Electronic books are handy for academic study but I don't think I would enjoy reading my own books online. Also ebooks don't look so nice, I always dreamt of having loads of lovely book shelves in my house, doesn't matter if I never read any of the books, they look good! Superficial or what!