This is the end...

So I have finally reached the end of 23 Things. As a member of the team it's been both rewarding and slightly stressful ('will people understand my instructions?', 'will they like my weeks Things?'), but it's been lovely to see how everyone has progressed in such a relatively short period of time and how enthusiastic the participants have been. And thank you to our Captain for leading and co-ordinating the whole programme.

The End by damaradealla

I started this project thinking that I was already aware of a lot of 23 things, but was surprised by how much I wasn't aware of, and the variety of 'stuff' out there. It has also given me an opportunity to test out these tools and a reason to look at them in depth rather than do my usual trick of quickly browse it, download it, get bored and ignore it...


At the end of this course, what did I find the most useful? Well for me I've found blogging particularly interesting and intend to carry on,  though probably not with this blog as I want to keep this as a record of 23 Things. This isn't because I expect people to be reading what I blog, but more because I've found it a really good way to organise my own thoughts and opinions coherently (well, sometimes...).

One other tool that I've also found surprisingly useful and now use every day is iGoogle - I'd played with it before and discarded it, but found using it along with my Google reader very easy to get used to - I am now officially a convert! I also found it really good to use Flickr (and had lots of excuses to play with it, seeing as it was 'my week'), and of course YouTube is always entertaining to trawl. And seeing as I've mentioned YouTube I think the video below is very apt for this post...plus it is a lovely song.



I've enjoyed each week of 23 Things, and have been very fortunate in the fact that I have had enough time to complete it - I really hope other people will get this opportunity at a later date. As for the other tools, I'm sure I will continue to use Twitter (both professionally and for pleasure!) and avoid Facebook like the plague. I know I will continue to use Google docs, diigo and I am sure I will find a reason to use SlideShare and the other things at a later date. In fact the only thing I am certain I won't use much in future is Firefox, simply because I've got used to Chrome now as a browser, and really recommend it.

As for Web 2.0 tools use in libraries, I think it's a  fact of life that these tools are out there and becoming increasing familiar to people,  so it makes sense for libraries to keep up with these developments - particularly when so many of them are free to use. I can only see people's usage of these tools increase, and who knows what exciting developments are waiting around the corner with Web 3.0 ? Being a fairly new member of staff I have already been impressed by how open the library at Warwick is to new ideas and technologies - long may it continue!

And as this is the last post, I will include these last two videos, the first is a lovely song by Cats Eyes performed in the Vatican, the second a rather ace recreation of a Joy Division performance. They aren't particularly relevant to 23 Things (if at all), but they are both well worth a look - enjoy!

Sliding and sharing to the finish line...

Slide Madness by (davide)

SlideShare has been a completely new experience for me. I found the majority of presentations out there of the 'death by powerpoint' variety, not great to search but maybe useful if you're looking for ideas of how samey a lot of powerpoint is. Though not directly about libraries, and more about social media in the commercial sector I found the following item below which I found visually very interesting.

I think the other issue with these presentation is that many of them are  missing the vital information that would have been provided along with them by the speaker, but could be very useful if you are revisiting a presentation you had attended or by a colleague that you would like to share with others.  So I think for SlideShare, I will be using it for ideas and a reminder rather than a search tool for the information itself.

What is Social Media?

View more presentations from Marta Kagan.

Doc-ing with Google

Dogged by JD Hancock

I've been using Google Docs for quite a while now at home, as I hate lots of email attachments clogging up my computer. For 23 Things all our pdf documents were created and shared between the team using Google docs, so proof that we practice what we preach!

I find that it is a really useful tool, and find I am using it increasingly more as I get accustomed to it, and get more frustrated with my copy of Office at home. I particularly like the fact that Office docs can be imported and amended in Google docs and find that although sometimes the formatting can be lost, the benefits of saving work in the cloud far outweighs the negative. I am definitely a fan! The only thing I haven't yet properly sorted is to organise the documents I have in my Google docs properly, though this is more the fault of me rather that the tool itself...

Thing 20 - Wikid wikis

old style wiki by teemow

I have a love/hate reaction to Wikipedia (similar to most people I think), in that it is brilliant resource for quick information but not entirely reliable. And though I have been frustrated by the wrong information I have found over the years, until now I have never thought to edit the entry to make it correct.

So this Thing has encouraged me to actually participate in Wikipedia rather than passively view it, and it has made me think about it in a different way. The fact that I could share my knowledge with others to help their searches is something that I find makes Wikipedia more interesting to me (though I still don't trust it!), and something I will definitely think of doing in the future. And for some reason I thought that the process of editing would not be open to me (that I'd have to register) and that it would be very complicated, so I was very pleasantly surprised by how easy it was! For this Thing I have edited the wikipedia entry on the fabulous artist George Shaw, and included as a link on the entry a link to a very recent interview he did with the Guardian.

I did not join the UK Library Blogs wiki as I don't feel that this blog yet would be of any interest to other people outside of this 23 Things group. However if I do keep using this blog afterwards, I may join it at a later date. I can also see the library-based wikis as being really helpful in my professional course, so I have bookmarked them for future reference.

Thing 19 - YouTube

I've used YouTube for a number of years now, mainly for social and entertainment (like everyone else probably). I think that years ago there were issues due to slow connection speeds making it difficult to view videos, but I think we are now reaching a point where watching video via the internet is becoming a very usual thing to do. In the case of libraries, I think there is a lot of potential in instruction videos etc. but I think as time progresses these videos will become more sophisticated and 'punchy' as the technology becomes more familiar. One of the simplest and yet most effective library related videos is the one below - I think animation somehow looks often more direct than a person talking.

Though at the same time I still end up returning to slightly er.. 'less professional' videos such as this. I think YouTube has helped to keep alive and bring back memories of clips and programmes long forgotten, which I find endlessly interesting to trawl. However you can lose a lot of time doing this, so beware!

 

Thing 18 - Creative Commons

Creative Commons by Giuli-O

For the duration of 23 things I have usually been illustrating my blog posts using Creative Commons licensed images I have found through Flickr. It's a great way of enhancing any blog, and I'm always surprised at the variety and quality of the images available. Inspired by this I have given some of my own photographs in my Flickr photostream a CC license, and actually start to practice what I preach!

I do think its a great tool to show how sharing information (in this case images) can be hugely beneficial and encourage others to share too. It also shows the strength of a site such as Flickr, in creating a platform where these images can be easily found and shared - and as Flickr is such a huge site, shows how that sharing can be international as well as local. For example the image I am using to illustrate this post is from Italy - how would I have been able to easily find this image and know for certain that I could publish it before Flickr and CC came along?!

Flickr

Dale Chihuly sculpture at V&A

I've written the instruction for this weeks things, mainly because it gave me a good excuse to spend time properly looking at Flickr and seeing what it could do.

I've had a Flickr account for a few years now - but haven't used it for much, mainly because I didn't have a digital camera of my own. However due to a rather timely birthday present I now have no excuse, and I must say I'm finding it rather addictive... Flickr makes it relatively simple to upload photos and I particularly the way that you can upload and edit photos in bulk.

The groups feature of Flickr I hadn't used until 23 things, but this project was a good reason to investigate. It was easy to set up and a simple process to join as a member. This community aspect of Flickr is something I think really sets Flickr apart from photo galleries which stay only on your computer, and I love the idea of sharing your images with like-minded people. The image included in this post is one of those taken at the V&A with my lovely new camera and also now on my own Flickrpage.