Crossing the Finish line again.

Another Web2.0 done. On the whole I have enjoyed it and I have certainly learnt heaps. My favourites would have to be Goodreads, Zamzar and Facebook and these are the ones that I will probably use and promote the most. It was good to explore Twitter and the MP3 downloads, and I will at least know what I am talking about if I have to help anyone with them but I doubt that I will use them personally. All in all I thought it was a good range of topics covered.

Week 6 : Facebook - playing nicely with others

Okay it's time for me to fess up - I'm a fan of Facebook, I visit it everyday. In fact when I was away recently, and had no internet access, I think I suffered FB withdrawal. Yeah sure it's not perfect and I know lots of people are concerned about it's security. However if you take precautions like making your page only available to friends, and then only accepting friend requests from people you actually know, as in you've actually met them, then you should be okay. I find it a great way to keep up with all my friends and family who are scattered around the world.

I went and looked at The New York Public Library page and found it to be very similar to ours, with lots of what's happening, reading suggestions etc. One thing that I thought was a great idea that we may be able to use was their 'AskNYPL: Chat with a Librarian' feature. Another thing that caught my eye was one particular post thanking the people of NY for writing in to get some of the proposed $37 million budget cut restored so that they can open 5 days a week instead of only 3. Unbelievable, makes us realise how lucky we are. I think that FB is a great tool to use in keeping our patrons up-to-date with whats happening at Manukau libraries and they are also able to interact with us if they wish to.

Week 5 : Music files and mp3s

I went to Amazon.com. On the plus side:
1. I like the idea of samplers that showcase several artists of a similar music genre. I thought this a great promotional tool for new and upcoming artists. As I'm usually opposed to free downloads and artists losing out, this did help ease the guilt. As a customer it's also a good way to trial new tracks.
2. Also the site was very easy to navigate.
3. Another great feature was that there were customer reviews for most offerings.
On the minus side:
1. There was very little popular music available, chances are the track you are after is not part of the free downloads.
2. Also when I tried to download one of the samplers I found it appeared the free downloads are available only to people living in the US.
So not really useful to recommend to patrons. Personally I think I will stick to downloading the old fashioned way, from the CDs. Will probably pass these sorts of queries on to the younger members of the team, although I have made a list of the sites that I can refer to if I have to.