More Things- Nbr 47 Evaluation -Final Post

Consider my daily activities on More Things finished.

My season at Split Rock began on Tuesday, May 19, so I enforced my own original deadline for the More Things Program. Besides working three days a week as a historic site interpreter, this coming Friday I resume last summer's activity as a barrista at a Little Marais coffee shop, gift shop B&B. In short, summer on the North Shore has everyone occupied.

I registered on Minnesota Web Junction this morning, and completed a profile. Obviously intended for professional library staff, it does have enough flexibility to allow me to fill in the blanks. Some items were a bit odd, such as the extremely small size profile photo, not easily done in Photoshop Elements. The profile entry balked at my attempts to fill in professional interests. The category selection button stalled my pc, even with true high speed broadband.

What I suggested in my evaluation is to expand on the Web Junction as a core feature of a next More Things program. Invite participants, such as myself, from a wide range of like-minded professional and volunteer interests. Focus on the library as a center for community development, as has been done with electronic classroom. I can see the Things program itself as a community ed offering by paid library professionals or volunteers.

Besides exploring all the tools, the best result of the program for me was improvement in blog writing skills. That should be a core feature of a next program. Create new attractive blogs. Practice writing. Get more followers. Respond to posts.

Some early favorites from the More Things tasks have already faded from my daily use. I will reduce substantially the number of "people" I follow on Twitter. Some of the commercial tweets were fun for awhile, but became annoying. The contacts I've made with More Things participants are close to being authentic friends that I will continue to follow.

Most important to me on Twitter has been Congressman Oberstar, who obviously has someone on staff tweeting for him. It's a great way for him to initiate a request for input or support. His website now includes a secure email address for constituents, validated to the 9-digit zip code address. He responds to those emails.

G.ho.st Cloud Computing has gone untouched on my menu bar for weeks. I've lost interest in Blip.fm as a music source and social network.

I never touched the subject of creating my own podcasts or YouTube clips. I will. My son-in-law spurred my interest in the Microsoft Zune as device to carry a complete library of my digital collections.

I looked at the details of the new Amazon Kindle DX, and decided that is not the way I will read books. Bricks and mortar libraries are safe. As are publishers of the look, feel, and smell of a real book, when I decide to buy one. Online book clubs with blogs can work hand-in-hand with the traditional, live social network found at the library.

A professional librarian can't be beat as a resource, who not only knows the electronic reference materials, but where to get supportive human resources from the community, online and offline.