The End

It's been an educational journey for sure. Many of the sites and tools listed in Discover I had already used, or least heard of, but I'd never thought of them in library context.

Of course, just leaning about these places may help us guide patrons who are looking for a better way to read their favorite websites, find music and videos, or just figure out what this whole Myspace kerfuffle is about.

I'd like to see patrons using the library catalog like a wiki to add summaries, reviews and suggestions for similar authors. It would have to be monitored of course, but even Myspace users have the ability to check comments before they appear.

The first thing I would change about this program are the mashups and image generators. A few of them are fun, but they really don't involve much input or any useful exchange of information. More toys than tools, and not really useful here.

I'd say my favorite activities involved the music sites and Flickr. I also liked the ability to share and network with Google Docs and wikis. It's exciting to see how people collaborate when they want to work together.

I discovered many tools that I'll use for myself and help patrons with, but I don't have the technical skills for library integration. I'll leave that up to Computer Services, whose people can use Web 2.0 to automatically bring library feeds to the public.

Thank you to everyone who was involved in developing and bringing this project to libary employees. We learned a lot, had some fun, and maybe earned a little vacation time too.