Thing 23:YouTube

I had a good time on YouTube searching for videos. This one shows some steps involved in creating bronze sculptures. As a sculptor, I found this video short and sweet, not too technical. I have seen podcasts/videos during some of my staff training, as well as while searching websites online. These are so helpful for a visual learning like myself.

I'd like to see VBPL make podcasts and videos available to our patrons on our website. These could be informative/instructional or just to highlight some great library sponsored community events!

Thing 22: Flicker Mashups

Mashups and third part tools are so cool. I have found Google Maps in many places for a long time and had no idea these were Mashups. These are great when your searching for a business and the map pops up with the listing.
Third party tools were really fun, especially Montagr, which allows users to make beautiful mosaics out of their Flicker pics. This would be great to do with kids or teens at the library, maybe as a summer reading program workshop. The large image would be a great display in the children/teens area!

Thing 21: Flicker tools

There seem to be some great advantages for libraries using Flicker tools, like showing images on websites of new collections or remodeling changes especially when they combine new services for patrons. The public has become accustomed to having images which convey information rather than just text on a website. Flicker seems like a good way to accomplish this without many of the technical difficulties found in older applications.

I especially like Blurb because it would make a great workshop for teens who have wonderful personal images and/or poetry which they might like to combine in a book. The pricing seems very reasonable too! Imagekind might be a great way for libraries to show patron or staff artwork using high quality reproduction.

Thing 19: WEB 2.0 Awards

While browsing all the winners I found a site called Threadless T-Shirts. I really liked this idea of creating t-shirt designs and the site basically markets them for you. I have always thought of interesting "slogans" for t-shirts and wanted to go to Costco or somewhere and have them printed up. As an artist I am excited about coming up with a possible winning design! The site also allows you to link other designers websites to Threadless for purchase, so that's good networking!

Thing 20: Flicker

Flicker seems like a very cool site for people who what to publish and posts lots of photos. I really like how you can send photos from your cell phone and also create books. I am not sure how I feel about having a bunch of photos at an online website. I may get too comfortable with the site and delete the ones on my PC (to save space) and then in the future loose them all?
My family does take a lot of photos and this seems like an option for organizing and sharing them.
I have tried Photobucket recently and it is not as social, which I think I like better. Although, I will continue to explore Flicker and see if I like it. This is a photo I took at the woods across the street from my home in VA Beach.

Thing 17: Del.i what?

What is this Del.ici.ous? I am not sure, but I think it is another place to manage Internet stuff through Bookmarking. For research this could be helpful to have one spot to where all my favorite websites are organized and the tags give me extra related links. I can also see what websites other people like and save myself time hunting out the best websites for any area of interest. For instance the one of the Hotlist sites is for free software for Windows...407 people currently have it bookmarked through Del.icio.us.

Walking Woods