Week 9. Thing 23. Program Summary.

Well, I guess I have reached the end of Library 2.0. Or perhaps just the beginning. I really feel that this has been a great experience. It has been a learning experience, a fun experience, and has put me more in touch with the many sites and functions available on the internet. I am sure I would not have subscribed to so many sites or even thought to use some of them had it not been for this program. I enjoyed doing the blogs, mashups and other fun things. I think there is an awful lot of trash out there, but within that there are some worthwhile sites.
From a personal point of view I have found a lot of information with the RSS feeds that I have now on my Bloglines account. From a work point of view I have seen how libraries might use some of the sites and how I might use them for book reviews and so on.
If anything surprised me, it was how much I enjoyed this and how much of it was fun. And that I really felt I was learning. It was also interesting to see what other librarians were talking about and how other libraries were applying 2.0. As well as seeing what other participants blog comments were.
The only comment I have about doing anything differently, would be the timing. It would have been better to have done this maybe from January to March, when we tend to be a little quieter at work. The summer is such a hectic time for us all, with the kids out of school & summer reading going on. We are all tremendously busy and it was sometimes difficult to clear one’s head to focus on this.
I would most definitely participate in any future program of this kind. I think it has been a good experience and very worthwhile.
I am excited about the prospect of getting an MP3 player so that I can download audiobooks or music.

Thanks to everyone involved in planning this program, for giving us this learning opportunity, & special thanks to Annette G. for her patience and advice.

Week 9. Thing 22. Downloadable Audiobooks.

Thing 22. Downloadable Audiobooks.
This was a fun discovery time for me. I had not previously downloaded books. I liked the Overdrive website, but am still waiting for them to send me an email to tell me I can download the book I chose. This had no holds on it so I expected to get it straight away - perhaps it takes time to get the emails. I did download a book from NetLibrary. It was a relatively straightforward procedure although it didn't download on the first attempt. I had some help from Annette there. I can really see the fun in having books on an MP3 player. If one were ill & not able to read, or just tired or have headache or something where it is easier to listen than read, it would be a big help. I can see the use of this on the beach or while on the treadmill, or in many other situations. I thought the selection of titles in the two systems was good, and I am sure they are still expanding. I did like the Project Gutenburg site and thought that it would be useful for more classic or unusual reading material. World ebook Fair was good if you get the free month subscription, but I doubt I would pay the fee.
I downloaded 44 Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith from NetLibrary, and am still waitng for the 101 Dalmatians from Overdrive (this I chose really just to practice).
As someone who runs a book discussion group, I think these sites are also useful to see what people are checking out & to get previews of titles.