Thing Two - Point O

Hey,

First of all I have to agree with Stephen Abram regarding one of his favorite web tools, instant messaging, better known as "IM'ing". As someone that's kinda grown up with technology, IM'ing isn't as much of a tool for me as it is a way of life. I have a hard time thinking about what life would be like without this technology, the ability to instantly send messages to people throughout the world, it's remarkable. It's something I literally use on an almost daily basis for regular communication with friends and other people I know. As soon as my family was connected to the internet at age 14 or 15, I immediately was drawn into instant messaging. I've used just about every client at one point or another, from ICQ, Yahoo, MSN, AIM and now currently use a client called Trillian that incorporates all of those IM clients into 1, that allows me to communicate with everyone I know regardless of the client they're using. And while the change in language people use to communicate though IMs may leave something to be desired, LOL, the technology itself I believe is moving in the right direction.

Personally I'm glad to see the Library 2.0 revolution coming to fruition at my library. The quote in John Blyberg's blog

“Library 2.0 simply means making your library’s space (virtual and physical) more interactive, collaborative, and driven by community needs. Examples of where to start include blogs, gaming nights for teens, and collaborative photo sites. The basic drive is to get people back into the library by making the library relevant to what they want and need in their daily lives…to make the library a destination and not an afterthought.”

is appropriate and seems to hit the nail in the head. At our library we've been driven by our community needs, by having internet computers people could access for years now and in recent years adding word processing software among others to the computers. Actually, the first time I used a chatroom was at the public library where I now work. Upgrading from VHS to DVD's was a big thing for us, and is one of the more popular reasons people visit the library that ordinarily might not have. The recent addition of Sound Media Players which function like a stand alone mp3 player with a single audio book are gaining notice and popularity. The newest addition of downloading audio books for free directly to the patron's PC or MP3 player is sure to an interesting feature to keep an eye on as well. We've recently also started using blogs on our website to recommend staff favorites among other things. And most exciting, for myself anyway, recently developments of possibly setting up a gaming night for teens of our own, using the Nintendo Wii.