Week 10 Summary

This has been a challening and enlightening project for me. Overall, the things we learned from this should be helpful if a customer ever wants to know about them. I am one of the technically challenged at HCPL. It has been a huge learning curve for me and I would not have made it without the support of my fellow staff members who were patient with me.

Although most of our customers 40 years old and younger are very comfortable with computers, ipods, mp3 players etc. there is still a very large portion of our society that do not own a computer and are not willing to learn to use them until forced to do so to fill out a job application or sign up for Medicade D. These are the customers that we need to find a way to help. The free computer classes are wonderful but need to continue to advertise them and encourage computer shy customers to sign up. Classes on how to use our public catalog and databases are also very important steps in helping people get over their fear of computers.

Freeman has done some demonstrations over the past year on use of websites and databases and will have at least one more program with a special speaker from the National Network of LIbraries of Medicine to show us medical websites for consumers.

Hopefully we can use what we have learned to help our customers overcome their fear of computers or lack of desire to learn new technology.


Here are a few of my thoughts on the specific projects:

Sitting up a blog was a good experience for me, allowing me to experience and understand what my family has already done. I have plans to work on my photo albums and make a put together a family video with some of them to share with family in other states.

The RSS & Newsreaders are my favorite. It brought many of my informational sites together so I can see them quickly and easily.

Playweek was the easiest for me. Librarything is a work in progress and one I plan on sharing with friends. Library Elf would be useful if I had to keep track of cards other than my own. I find all the e-mail annoying so will probably let it go in the future.

Tagging & Technorati was intresting but not as much fun as Librarything. The tagging does make it easy for people to make their information easily available to everyone.

Wikis are interesting and there are so many ways to use them that every group should be able to find something to fit their need.

Social Networking and Avitars is great for those who like it but I prefer my conversations and discussions on a personal level where I choose who is listening and who isn't. I know it can be done but too often, words, thoughts and conversations put into e-mails or posted on websites end up in places you would never have thought they would go. It was good to learn how to do the avitars but it is really not my idea of fun.

As we meet the future I will try to remain flexable enough to learn the next generation of technology.