Question-week 6-Online Photo Sharing

Great opportunity to learn about online photo sharing!

I’ve never had a reason to use Flickr because I have all of my photos on a server hosted by one of my sons. Certainly Flickr is not new to me as several friends have sent me links to their photo collections and also, I’ve searched Flickr at different times looking for pictures of various places and/or objects. The value of any web-based photo collection site is in the making of photos available for the public to see and use (if you wish) So, for libraries who might like to provide increased access to their archive collections of photographs or other content items that are digitized, Flickr would be an option as long as the copyright for them is not an issue. Our library is a member of OhioLINK, so we have other options available for posting photographs from archival collection and would not have a need for Flickr. I can’t really think of any other uses of Flickr that would apply to the library where I work.

The process of adding photos to Flickr was no problem, it was even easier and quicker to add photos to my Facebook account. Also, adding Flickr to this blog was simple.

I’m so glad I am at least able to do the minimal work for this class – and am learning lots!

Question-week5-Google Docs

I’ve tried using Google docs before. I think as long as you are not doing too complicated documents, spreadsheets or presentations, that it works just fine. The best part is the ability to work very easily in collaboration with others and keep versions of what you are working on straight. The second best thing is cutting down on all those emails, each with a different version of your project!

I’m going to keep watching this idea of web based office tools progress. Right now, I don’t see Google docs replacing regular Office products which can do so much more.

I love web-based products. They make much of my work so much easier. However, until all the production tools can be used both online and offline, they aren’t going to take over. Or, until you can access the internet for free from everywhere, they aren’t going to take over.

Question-week 4-Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking tools have been around for awhile. Several years ago I was taking a course for my Educational Technology program where we were introduced to Backflip. At that time it was, to me, it was a very innovative product and I was excited about organizing my bookmarks and making them available on the web. Backflip uses folders to keep you organized which was fine for the time because that’s the way librarians try to do things. It’s a whole new world now, and I must say, I really find the tagging aspect of the newer tools to be absolutely great!  We have been using Furl in our reference department as a way to manage useful bookmarks for answering questions at the information desk. We debated between Furl and del.icio.us and I’m not sure why we chose one over the other.  Since then, del.icio.us seems to be the front runner, so we are going to switch to it.

I’m glad to have had the opportunity to rethink about social bookmarking. I think it could be useful if you are in a position where you are trying to help certain classes by providing appropriate websites. Personally, I find myself relying more on my searching skills to find sites than keeping a list of things I “might” need sometime.