Week Three: Online Meetings

Two coworkers joined me in listening to the Kansas Tax Webinar archive which was presented by Andy Coultis and Carl York, and moderated by Laura DeBaun. The information was useful, however it was a bit overwhelming. I'm not sure how the presenters could have prepared differently, but as librarians we have always been told we are not to give tax advice. Much of the information seemed to be trying to teach us how to do the tax returns for patrons - which we will not be doing. I do feel somewhat more prepared for the potential onslaught of patrons coming to doing their taxes at the library - though I am not sure I'm mentally prepared for the many who will take out their frustration at the state on our staff.

I am a big fan of online meetings. I have tried to share about skype.com with friends, family, patrons, etc. for years. I was involved in a team coordinating transportation for a mass gathering of youth this past summer in New Orleans (36,000ish people all together) to get from 3 sites to community service sites all over the city. We did several of our team meetings using skype - and most of the time it worked very well.

I think this kind of technology is wonderful and will be used more and more in the future. For the small libraries out in this part of the state it makes attending functions much easier - no mileage, time away from home/work, etc. To be able to sit at a computer to attend a training session, CE event, etc. is going to make it possible for many more library staff to participate in growing their knowledge. Especially in these economic times - any way we can save money is a great help. As the Internet gets faster and online meetings have better video quality - I think that more and more events will be conducted via the Internet rather than in person. How wonderful it will be to reach more and more people - with less cost! Of course technology is always changing and who knows what might be available in the next ten years that is even better than what we can do and imagine now!

Week Two: Online Communities

I chose to explore facebook. I actually started using facebook this past summer - it took a long time for me to get on board (it just seemed like one more things I would have to "do" or "keep up with"). While I don't post that often, I do enjoy reading most of my "friends" posts. It is fun to see pictures and catch up with folks I haven't talked to in years. I think what I like most is reconnecting with old friends. For many years if a friend changed email or moved and didn't share their new addresses it could be impossible to track them down (especially when everyone has gone to cell phones - meaning unlisted phone numbers).

I think I will continue to use facebook in a limited way. Not as a way of networking with the greatest number of people I can (why does my sister-in-law's mother's brother want to be my friend?), but rather as a way to really connect and reconnect with good friends from my past and present (and future). I am a pretty private person and so far plan to use it is as a great way to quickly share pictures and information with many close friends without having to dig through my email contact list to send something. It seems to be a lot less time consuming way to spread information.

Which leads right to how I think our library could use facebook. With the number of people who are facebook users, it seems logical that if our library had a facebook page that people could join it would be one of the quickest ways to get information out to our library patrons. If we are closed for weather, what movie we will be showing this weekend, latest program we are offering, etc. The beauty is the post would simply appear in their feed and they would have the info - no need to come to our site (of course they would want to visit our website anyway :) ) to get the latest news. Any way to get current information out to our community is worth taking advantage of! I am sure there are many more advantages that I have just not thought of yet - if we try setting up a library facebook account it will be fun to see what happens.