Week 3: Online Meetings

For our topic this week I chose OPAL, because they have a large section on Government Document information, which pertains to my job.
The session I viewed was:

A Brief Overview of Microfiche, Shipping Lists, and SuDoc Classification in the Federal Depository Library System presented in November 2009 by Valerie Martens Furino, Supervisory Librarian of Library Technical Services Support, U.S. Government Printing Office.

This webinar was very informative for such a brief session (25 min). It was nice seeing that some of the questions I have had were being asked by others too. The session was broken in half with 10-15 minute presentation and about 10 minute question and answer section. This would be a great session to have those who are new to Government Documents to be able to get a little more familiar with some of the basics. I am very eager to check out some of the other sessions when I have some more time available.
I would really like to see more meetings to happen like this. I have quarterly meetings that I attend and the group tries to have at least 1 OPAL/online meeting each year, but I think that it would be better for everyone(Library and Staff) to change to electronic meetings as the majority with in-person meetings limited to once a year. Especially as finances get tighter and tighter. I hope that the technology becomes more accessible to the general public, too. These could be used for agencies training people how to apply for unemployment, or how to FILE YOUR TAXES ONLINE for free.

Week 2: Online Communities (FACEBOOK)

I chose Facebook as my online community, however I am checking out some of my settings in more detail and also checking out some of the applications I haven't used but have heard about. I really like Facebook because it is so easy to keep in touch with people as well as personalizing options.

I began using Facebook at first to get in touch with H.S. friends, but it changed into more of a socializing family tool, because not everyone had one anothers emails, but you could search for people and then add them with the ability to know once they added you or got your message. As for future uses I have been beginning to use Facebook for work too. This last year I was on our Library promotion committee and helped create the Hutchinson Public Library Facebook Page as well as setting up a twitter account for the library too. We place events and displays and programs that are happening at the library, this has been working quite well but we are trying to work at getting things updated on a more regular basis, but this is hard because we don't have just a single person that has time to sit and be sure that things are entered and removed in a timely fashion. Instead we have various people from different departments that will either post themselves or give others information to post for them. Since it is fairly new we are also having to remind ourselves that we need to post here as well as posters, displays etc.
I am very eager to see what some of the other Libraries & Librarians are doing with this technology.

To check out my profile on facebook click HERE:

To check out my library's fan page click HERE:

Week one: Blogging

I am a Reference Librarian at Hutchinson Public Library and have worked here since College. I enjoy learning new things and would like to expand some of my basic knowledge. I have worked in many of the different layers of our library i.e.- Circulation, Reference, Serials, Government Documents, ILL, etc... I am also part of a team that created our Facebook page for the Library and I am hoping that I will be able to learn more to help keep that page fresh and new.
Each week, we as participants are to try and include the following prompts in our posts.
What are my feelings (good or bad) concerning the tool of the week? (i.e. blogger, facebook etc.)
Feel pretty good so far I am glad that we are starting off slow so that we can work it in to our schedules easier.

Have you had any breakthroughs? Any failures? What have you learned from them?
Thankfully my only failure is getting a late start, but am working towards getting a better schedule set up to handle things that will be arriving with the 23 things ks project.

Create Links to resources, other people's blogs, or other useful sites on the web in order to connect your posts to the wider world (even if only back to the 23 things blog)
23ksblogroll
&
23thingsks site

And most importantly we are to visit a few of the fellow participants' blogs and leave comments on their posts so we can start conversations and learn from one another.
In progress of this right now.......:)

Good luck to my fellow participants and may the force be with us........