Method 6

YouTube is truly transformative. There is not a day that goes by that a friend or relative doesn’t send me a YouTube video of something fun to see. Have you seen this one? Great Chinese State Circus - Swan Lake http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sMc-p19FIk

In the Spring, my nephew sent out a very creative YouTube video inviting his many adoring relatives to help send him to London for a special class in his field of specialization. It worked – with cash and ticket in hand he went for his creative marketing class.

Round Rock Public Library’s "Sail Away with Books Reading Program" was so much fun to watch and so creative it made me wish for a job in a public library with wacky and fun staff. I am in a one-librarian shop so I will have to settle for enthusiastic, virtual staff members to populate my video. Both of the other two videos were equally charming and gave me some ideas.

I thought I might bypass the skins but decided to explore instead and came away with 3 that I plan to “try on”. My favs were “Diamonds”, for a glam look; “Tropicana” for a refreshing look; and “Paparazzi” to give something the red carpet treatment – maybe a new book or database to announce! Why the heck not!

The channels showcased ,The Library of Congress , The American Library Association, and The New York Public Library were new to me and I will be exploring those on Saturday.
Teachertube did not load for me so I decided to explore the Education channel at YouTube to see what is available. Bummer…my own educational institution does not have a Channel of its own…yet. A fun, informative channel was the CIA – Culinary Institute of America –Boot Camp Holiday Tips – http://www.youtube.com/user/CIANetwork#p/a/C0FAC741C4B287D1/0/2HGNEUhlbgQ
The one for Halloween Punch was clever. http://www.youtube.com/user/CIANetwork#p/a/C0FAC741C4B287D1/1/SB8xk8LHcnE

The concept of the “Participatory community” discussed by Dr. Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University in his lecture, An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube is very exciting. It is so much fun to see how concepts can take off and assume a life of their own.

Note to Santa: I want a new camera that can post video to YouTube.

Method 5

I viewed all the assignments about Flickr and really appreciate its features. Using it in the private mode with family would be more my speed. In another institution, our library web team tried to use Flickr to provide direction to visitors looking for our 2nd floor space, but had to remove it due what were considered network security issues.

I do use Snapfish for storage, photosharing and photo related products. My favorite photosite is Picasa - it features a useful photo editor and organizer. Even though I have been using Picasa since its inception, I still find it a bit hard to manage my albums.

In web browsing, I notice that UT Austin includes Flickr as a widget.

This is one cloud computing concept that I really appreciate and use. One big value that I see is that use of these photo sharing tools can help create a sense of "community" and foster the idea of the library as "place".

Method 4 - RSS Feed

The RSS feed is a marvelous invention! The ability to round up stuff and send it down the chute to my own corral is a great time saver. Combined with Google Reader these are handy features with lots of applications.
The 3 feeds that I subscribed to are:
1. NPR - All Songs Considered http://www.npr.org/rss/rss.php?id=37 Just nice to listen to something different sometimes.
2. The Krafty Librarian – a nod to my past life as a medical librarian. There is plenty of great tips and gems that help me keep up with the medical literature. These tips can also be applied more broadly to the general librarian population. http://feeds.feedburner.com/kraftylibrarian/OLay
http://www.gcast.com/user/davekees/podcast/main
3. Dave Kee’s Podcast for Students – this is a nod to my current librarian life on a campus that has a large segment of students learning English.
With an RSS feed, it is like having all my mail delivered to my home so that I do not have to go out and collect it. If my RSS feeds have stacked up and I do not get around to reading or listening to all that I have send to my Google Reader, I can just delete all the entries and start over.
Some good applications for an RSS feed include:
See works by an author.
Get new research on a topic.
Receive current journal tables of contents.
Find new articles that cite an important article.