Picnik

I am having so much fun with Picnik. I like the idea that I can do so many customized things to photos in an easy place. I am used to making movies from photos, etc. so there a few things that I miss from that, but overall I love it.

I can definitely see using this for flyers, etc. What a great assignment!

Google Docs

I have known about Google Docs for a long time but never really put it to use until YA used it for SAIL. It is wonderful how they use it. It is a central place where all the coordinators can share their ideas and experiences. They can even look at past years. It is right there easily accessible. No one has to dig it out of a file cabinet and make copies and send it. It has turned out to be a great tool for running the program and a great tracking and idea generator.

Twitter

I did create an account for this challenge. I have been following Twitter for a long time. I do not do Twittering myself but find it interesting that so many do. I love that this social networking tool can be such a great tool for job searching. The Challenge blog makes a great point that responding to a Twitter job search can be a sign that a job seeker is keeping up with new trends in technology.

Facebook

Several of my friends and family are on Facebook. I have created an account but do not update it. I believe my reasons are all too common...mainly, I am too busy. I work, have a family to keep up and running and all the extra time-consumers of life. I am on the computer most of the day and when I go home updating Facebook would be a low priority.

Maybe, as more of those I know are on I will try to find the time. It is even hard for me to monitor my personal email account. Sorry, but this is my current life. I am thankful that I do have so many things calling for my time though.

Netlibrary

Netlibrary is a great supplement to OCL's in-house collection. There are many books that can add to a customer's search. For instance, when we do a search for "resume" or "interview" many resources come up that are fully searchable. From what I have read, the full text books can be printed but only one page at a time. Although it would be convenient to print a full chapter at a time, it is still great to be able to print a page. This especially true with something like the example of resumes.

I do find that it takes a while for each page to load and I guess I'm just spoiled now with having high speed access to most webpages. I have known about Netlibrary for several years, but having revisited it for this exercise, it has now been refreshed in my mind and I'll continue to do more exploring so I can recommend it to customers. It can be especially helpful to those in branches with a more limited nonfiction section.

WorldCat

WorldCat is a wonderful tool to link libraries together. I have used it to complete an ILL request by finding what other libraries might have an item we do not have in our collection. I have only heard one complaint from a customer and that was because the gentleman loved being able to see inventories for libraries around the world, but he was frustrated because he wanted to just order the items and have them sent directly to his home. Still, he agreed this is a fantastic site.

Love that "Library Thing"

I have used Library Thing for a few years but not for personal use. What do I use it for? I am able to take the Automatically Yours each month and set them up in Library Thing or I have used it for new books that have arrived. I put them in Library Thing to arrange the titles with authors and book covers so I can add reviews which I do by copy/paste into a Word document. Then I add reviews.



Some of the short comings include that reviews (if they have them) can only be viewed by clicking on each title and opening a new window. Time consuming for my purpose.



As a social network of reading others reviews/opinions of books it is set up fairly well.

The link to my catalog is http://www.librarything.com/catalog/Berkeleyteens.