Montana Library 2.0 round 2 (for me)

Although I didn't actually make it through all of the lessons in the last round of Montana Library 2.0, I thought I'd try again. I've continued to use many of the tools we learned about last time, and am excited to see what new things we'll get to play with this time.

Some of the tools I've continued to use:

1) Flickr - I love Flickr. It's a great community of people overflowing with creativity on just about every subject imaginable. I've joined a lot of groups and met some wonderful people who've really helped me improve my photography. I use it mostly for my personal work, but you will find some pictures of good old Mansfield Library in my photostream. I've unfortunately not been very active on Flickr since I started graduate school this spring, but Spring Break is coming!!

2) RSS feeds - Best thing ever! I use Google Reader and love it. I tried Bloglines out for the purposes of the 2.0 assignment, but even though I'm sure it has some good features, it seemed like too much effort to switch over from something that was already working so well for me. I mostly use that to follow blogs that interest me personally (I have categories for singing, writing, organization, and photography, to name a few) as well as some comics that offer RSS feeds and even some photostreams on Flickr, but I do have a couple of library blogs in my feed as well. I also use the RSS feeder in Outlook to get feeds of the new books we've added in Mansfield in subject areas that interest me.

3) YouTube - I used to only use YouTube to watch funny videos my friends sent me, but I've started to discover that it can actually be a valid research tool. In musical theater, it can be very interesting to find videos of how someone else has staged something, musically interpreted a song, or choreographed a dance. When I was working on a ballet variation for a performance, I was actually able to find video footage of the same performance we watched in class when we were learning it to remind myself of the sequence of steps. I know many libraries have used YouTube for promotional videos and things, but the most exciting thing use of YouTube I've seen by a library is Iowa State University's posting of some of their video archives. My cousin sent me a link to a video series they'd posted about a debate in the little town of Cambridge on whether or not they should keep their high school. My grandfather was actually the spokesperson for one of the options, so to see him as a relatively young man, participating in his community government was really exciting for me. My dad and my uncle also briefly appeared in the video as small children. I think that's a GREAT application of YouTube for libraries - sharing with the public these little pieces of history that people might otherwise not even know were there or be unable to travel in person to see.

4) Delicious - Love it! I can categorize links in more than one way and don't have to remember which folder I put it in. I also love the ability to leave little notes to myself (or anybody else that looks at my links, I guess) as to why I saved a certain page. I haven't used the social aspect of it as much - I mostly like it for its accessibility from any computer - but I can certainly see where that would be a useful function, especially for teachers wanting to give students a certain set of links, or for colleagues working on a project. I'm thinking about creating a list of music cataloging resources using delicious.

5) Blogs - I think blogging is really cool. Obviously I haven't really kept up with it, since this is the first post since I failed to complete the last round of Montana Library 2.0. You'll also notice if you look at my blogger profile that I have another blog that I set up, but which has no posts. Maybe I would do it more often if I would learn to be more succinct. Hmmm.

Anyway, I'm sure you can tell if you've put up with reading this far that I'm pretty excited about 2.0 tools. I'm really looking forward to this next round!