Socializing...

This session was probably the easiest one for me so far. I joined Facebook about a year ago (due to the urging of my college daughter who insisted it would help us keep in touch). I have to admit it's kept me in contact with people from the past, cousins who I no longer see, etc., and it's been somewhat "fun." It truly amazes me to see so many people on Facebook! I did take a look at some of our neighboring library pages and, in comparison, we are doing a terrific job with our posts! Nice job to those posting to our TPPL FB! The last posting from the Palos Heights Public Library was in August! I like that we are placing photos of programs/events as it spices up the look of the Facebook page (Orland Public has daily posts, but the page itself looks boring). I'm happy to see we have 92 fans at this moment--and I am one of them. I was also familiar with MySpace, having had both my daughter and son with accounts (I myself don't feel a need for one). I was not surprised to read that Facebook has overpowered MySpace since neither my son nor daughter regularly use MySpace anymore. The LinkedIn network appears interesting and I'm wondering how useful it would be for our library "business." Does anyone here subscribe to it? Overall, I enjoyed learning a little more about social networking.

Flying Shih Tzu in Flickr!

flyingshihtzu
Originally uploaded by TP Tuneup

This looks like my little puppy Lucy who flies throught he air! I was able to upload this cute little picture and learned a lot about Flickr in the process. I only know about Flickr because my son has an account for his band. I found this session a little tricky, but I eventuallly figured it out. This certainly can be useful for sharing personal photos and/or videos. I can also see it being useful for the library maybe with programming promotion or posting of program photos. I enjoyed the experience and hope to go back to Flickr to explore some more!

YouTube, MeTube??

Probably like most of us, I was familiar with YouTube since so many go around the email circuit. However, it was interesting to get into it and see how it actully works. I did create an account because I was curious what could be done with it, but I'm not sure that I would use it. It certainly was fun looking at some of the "old time" commercials--my favorite is the Good and Plenty one. For some reason I had that stuck in my head as a little girl! I didn't think about using it for a "how to" video, so I may use that feature in the future. I was surprised to see so many videos out there on "how to tie a bow!" I'm not sure how we could use this at the library, but I guess it is a huge hit in the tech world and fun for entertaining those who have the time to be entertained!

Playing in Pandora

Wow, that was fun! I really liked the idea of selecting my own radio "station" and then giving the ol' thumbs up/down. Since my son has his own band, I decided to check if his albums were listed, and they were, so I was able to create a station for his music (he'll be impressed when I tell him that!). I always just played my iPod (which I'm still learning to use) when I'm on my home computer, so this will give me another option for my listening pleasure. I like the quick mix option, too, which is the shuffle option on the iPod. The only problem I had with the program was that it froze up a couple of times and I had to log off and log back in. I shared the info with my husband and I think both of us will be using this feature at home. Thanks Tune-Up Committee!

Fun Feeds!

The RSS feed session was lots of fun! I really liked looking at how other libraries use feeds and blogs to reach patrons. The LaGrange Park Public Library's site was interesting (and I even liked their YS page as I got a little distracted while I was there). Anyway, I'm going to try to add more subscriptions to my Google Reader. I did click on add staff picks and got a whole bunch of stuff I didn't want. I then had to figure out how to unsubscribe. I'm getting into this now--thanks to the tune-up committee for getting us going! I even changed my blog page template! :)

The Blogger

Setting up my personal blog page was surprisingly pretty easy! Having used the various blog pages at TPPL did help, however. It was interesting viewing some of the sample blogs and all the "extra" features that were utilized. I would like to explore the many possibilities for blogging and I'm hoping these sessions will allow me to do just that. I'm ready to move on with my next tune up!