My Name's Not George, But...

...I definitely think I fall into the camp of more curious than not. I've truly enjoyed each and every lesson this semester in Project Play - even those that most challenged my little grey cells to understand and find a library related use for (still thinking on weeks 10 & 3 from semester 2 and week 8 of semester 1). I think this image of Curious George (sing it with me: the curious little monkey) is an appropriate depiction of my reaction to new web 2.0 tools. I was a "connector" in week 1 and the fact that I'm interested in trying out and using fun web tools in my personal life probably helps boost my comfort level with and curiosity for trying out these tools with my library-colored glasses on. I like the idea suggested by the fabulous Project Play Fearless Leaders of setting aside just 15 minutes out of each day to play. This is a great way to think about and incoporate 2.0 tools into each day. In 15 minutes, I could easily:

• have a quick browse of my growing list of bloglines feeds
• do a more thorough read of an interesting post and comments
• add my latest titles to my librarything library, with tags and maybe a review
• create a survey for staff, or analyse the results of one I've already done
• look over a new tool and decided if it warrants further exploration: ex. check out yelp
• write up a post about new tools, or how I'm using the ones we've learned about
• continue trying to understand mashups and things like yahoo pipes
• add upcoming library events and schedules to my google calendar
• spend some brain time thinking about how to put some of these tools to use at my library
• spend some quality time with other staff encouraging themto try out neat tools
• spend some discussion time with my director figuring out how we can put these great tools into practice
• ...the list could go on and on...

I do wish there was a semester 3 since there is so much still to learn! Thank you, most fabulous Project Play Leaders, for providing inspiring lessons and empowering me to try out all of these tools. I hope my fellow Project Play-ers will continue to post to their blogs so I can keep up with their exploits, both on line and off!

Remember the Bones!

If my dog had her way, I would create a Remember the Milk list for all essential items. Oh wait, I have no excuse not to create one because this fab tool, like all of the other ones we've learned about in Project Play, is free & easy! Check out my list to see what Sequoia thinks I need to remember. The best feature, I think, is the ability to add in URLs for each item on your list. If you were doing online shopping or compiling a list of possible items to buy online, this would be a great way to store the links so you can quickly shop for them when you are ready to make purchases. I can definately see using a tool like Remember the Milk for this.

I admit it - I am a list maker extraordinaire. I make them at work: nonfiction, YA fiction, YA nonfiction, graphic novels, deadlines, projects, even Project Play assignments. I make them at home: travel ideas, grocery lists, recipes to try, weekend to-dos, house projects, birthdays - I could go on and on. I revise them, color code them, add post-its, and even sometimes make a sublists for my initial list. I can't stop myself from picking up small notebooks and notepads with fun designs on the covers that are destined to contain many a list. But would I really use this to-do list making tool? Can I give up the satisfaction of physically drawing a line through items on my list and slowly creating a page full of finished items? I feel like I'd be missing some of the pleasure of writing out a new list, carrying over a few items from a mostly completed list and adding in all sorts of new things. For now, I think I'll stick to my little notebooks - at least most of the time.