Thing 16 - Gaming in Libraries

I've been aware of gaming in libraries since attending a seminar several years ago. As gaming has become more popular I find myself explaining to adults that it is beneficial to children to play games on the internet even though the adult may want to do "serious" research.

I did not play Puzzle Pirates but in the past, I have logged into Second Life and looked at it. I also play video games myself. I've played a simple car chase kind of game, which was fun; and I have played a game, which I don't remember the name of, where I was an amusement park owner and trying to make a going concern of my amusement park. I was never successful and never made it past level 1. I've played Wii and Nintendo DS Brain Age, both of which are useful for engaging older adults.

My personal opinion is that RCL should have more gaming opportunities available for all ages. Since my interest is quite often with older adults, I think we should make both Wii and Nintendo DS with Brain Age and Brain Age II, at the very least, available.

Thing 13 - Online Productivity

Again, turns out I've been using aspects of this Thing all along. I use iGoogle and Yahoo! mail all the time. Yahoo! mail includes a calendar and a note making portion. I use the calendar daily both for work and for my personal life. All appointments, meetings, birthdays, anniversaries are on my Yahoo! calendar and Yahoo! reminds me as often as I choose of my obligations.

I have used iGoogle for 6 or more months and find it useful only for news. Even at that, I prefer my rss feed for news. I don't like most aspects of Google's calendar but it does have a nice feature where you can add widgets for things you're interested in (I tried out notifications for movies).

I looked at other online productivity tools - tinyurl, backpack, Google docs & spreadsheets - but none appeal. I really dislike trying to recreate a search from tinyurl. Recreated searches is sometimes necessary. Others must find it difficult too, because I've noticed fewer and fewer websites that have been "tinied." Backpack looked really nice but it's too expensive. I've tried using Google docs & spreadsheets. Give me Microsoft Office products any day! Google spreadsheets is horrible! And Google docs didn't do what I needed it to do (see Thing 9).

Thing 6 - Online Image Generator

Tried it out (see me as a trading card - below). Can't think how I might use it.

Collaboration - Thing 9

Turns out, I'd already done this Thing but hadn't yet compared Zoho with Google. I don't really like either of these collaboration tools, although Zoho is slightly better than Google. About 6 months or more ago I tried using Google docs as a way around saving my documents on the library's server. I tried this at a time when we were having server problems and I was trying to get some work done. I found using Google docs so frustrating that I gave up and waited for the library's server to be repaired. With a very few exceptions, emailing attachments HAS to be preferrable to this!

Del.icio.us - Thing 11

I started out totally enthused about Del.icio.us. It sounded like a neat way not only to keep track of topics that interest me but also to find others who share those interests. I tagged a few website about community gardening then went looking for others who had also tagged those sites. This was a totally useless endeavor. Some people had over 4,000 tagged sites! Others tagged one gardening site and the rest of their tagged sites were totally off the topic of gardening! The only value I could possibly see in Del.icio.us was as a way to transfer bookmarks from home to work and vice versa. And I don't use bookmarks as a general rule, preferring instead to do a quick Google search to find sites I've already visited and need again.

Thing 27 - Twitter

Over a year ago a colleague, Donna, and I tried Twitter as a possible communication tool for the RCL reference staff. We ended up being among the group who dislikes Twitter. We found the 140 character limit annoying (no long reference question discussions). We found other aspects of it annoying or at least not valuable for reference staff. It looks like Twitter may have added some new things but the overall format remains the same.

After looking at some more articles on, especially, mashups Twitter seems like even more of an electronic time waster.

Next 23 Things - Thing 28

Turns out I've been using Thing 28 for quite some time. I've had an iGoogle account for about a year, although I rarely use it. For me, it's easier to check the parts of the web I use all the time by using either my rss feed (for news and blogs) or by simply typing in the address of the web site I wish to visit. It's too easy to waste time with iGoogle. Actually, it's easy enough to waste time with an rss feed.