MLA CE: Mashups

After looking at several, I finally settled on secretprices.com. It's a comparison shopping site - there were some really good prices on books. Several of the other mashups I tried didn't work or just weren't useful to me.

I found rollyo confusing and when I searched the librarianblogs for privacy, I didn't see anything useful come up. I read an article on the government and an EPA library, but "privacy" wasn't just jumping out at me from the things that were retrieved.

MLA CE: Podcasting

This is a video I liked.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJlkplvYdgA

I can see some uses for podcasting in the library. It could be useful for staff training as well as for patrons. The biggest problem I see is finding someone who wants to be recorded and posted on the web for all to see.

MLA CE - Online Photo Sharing

I use Shutterfly to share pictures with my family and friends. So far it has worked great. I also receive photos from family and friends in the same manner. It's much easier than downloading and opening a bunch of email attachments.

Photo sharing in the Library setting would be useful for sharing photos of exhibits, conferences, libraries, library staff, etc. However, I'm not sure I want my photo out there for anyone to see.

MLA CE: Web Office Tools

I do not see this as the future for all software products. For one thing, most companies aren't going to offer something for free indefinitely. Also, many people will be hesitant to put their documents on the web. I don't see email attachments going by the wayside any time soon.

MLA CE - Social Bookmarking

I've used delicious before and found it cumbersome. If it had controlled vocabulary, then it might be more useful to me. I don't like scrolling through so many tags. And some people don't know how to spell. I also prefer to keep my life private. For work purposes, it might be helpful, but most faculty I know wouldn't want to mess with it. The main advantage I see is being able to access it from anywhere. The social aspect of it does nothing for me.

MLA CE: Social Networking

MLA can use social networking to connect members who are interested in different subject areas or for members who work for different types of health sciences libraries.

At this point, I don't see a reason to have a Facebook or Myspace page for my library.

Yes, I think there are privacy issues involved with these pages.

I find FaceBook and MySpace to be slow, cumbersome and a time waster. For me, personally, they don't have much use.

MLA CE Week 2 - Wikis

A blog is basically one person sending information out to others. A wiki is a collaboration by many people - they can update and edit the information.

A blog would be better suited for information that will not change.

A wiki would be great for staff communication because everyone could update and add to group projects, etc.

MLA CE Week 1 - Blogs and RSS

RSS feeds could be used to communicate items to the staff. With evening and weekend employees, it's not always easy to have a staff meeting with everyone. A Library blog with an RSS feed would allow an easy way for announcements to the staff. Of course, having them subscribe to a reader and login regularly would have to be a requirement.

Feeds could also be used to promote information about the Library to the campus once the campus was educated about blogs, readers and feeds.

Patrons could use feeds in PubMed. I remember the SDI alert searches used years ago. The PubMed search feed can replace this. Librarians can promote this to their faculty and researchers. It's a service they could provide if the physicians don't want to mess with it themselves or the librarians could make friends by showing the physicians how to create the feeds themselves.