Web 2.0 awards

I admit it, I spent WAY too long playing on Hairmixer. This site came in 2nd place in the Web 2.0 Awards for the category "fun stuff." This site allows you to upload a picture of yourself and see what you would look like with various celebrity hairstyles. You can also see how celebrities would look if they had your hair and body. All in all, this site was totally fun. Seeing Owen Wilson's face on my body kind of weirded me out, though.

Wikis

I like the idea of public libraries using using wikis to present info. With the popularity of Wikipedia, I can imagine that a lot of customers would find this format easy to use and understand.

Here are some thoughts on various library wikis:

SJCPL's pathfinder wiki seems very comprehensive, but it might be just a little too jam-packed with info. I can imagine that it could be pretty overwhelming and confusing for first time users.

Princeton Public Library's "BookLoversWiki" is pretty cool because it encourages customers to get excited about reading and to share their thoughts with other book lovers.
Also, I like how there's a link to the catalog (SJCPL's pathfinder wiki doesn't provide this).

The "Best Practices Wiki" is great because it's well organized and not overwhelming. Bull Run Library's wiki, on the other hand, does not seem organized in the least. The different bits of info on this wiki seem to be arbitrarily listed.

Google Docs

After exploring Google Docs I have to say that I think that it's easier to use than Microsoft Word. I'm surprised that this is so, considering that I, like everyone else my age, have been using Microsoft Word since grade school and am, obviously, quite used to it.

I wish that this tool had been around when I was in college. It would have made group papers/projects so much easier. I will definitely use this Google Docs at work from now on. A colleague who works at another library branch and I will soon be working on a presentation that we are giving in the spring. Using Google Docs will allow us to work on the same document without having to e-mail each other drafts.

Also, from now on I will suggest to customers at the library that they use Google Docs instead of Word. This could prevent problems with customers creating documents in one program and not being able to open it on library computers because we don't have the program on which it was originally created.