week 6
When my children have profiles on MySpace and Facebook, why in the world would I want to? Sorry. That's a definite place I won't go.
Spent a bit of time with LinkedIn however, putting in names of people I know is assorted professions to see if they're listed. Had interesting results to those searches but didn't turn up anyon I know. I didn't join Linked In, though I rather wanted to, because of their user agreement--I tend to dig in my heels when I'm told I'm giving up my rights by agreeing to such and such. I find little equality in situations in which one player holds all the cards for the entire game. =(
Explored popular social networks on Ning--what diversity! I was surprised to see how many social networks there are for people who speak a language other than English. If I were fluent in another language I would have explored some of the more intriguing looking sites.


week 7
Went to Gmail "Chat" section and did look around. Quite honestly, I don't want to IM--it's akin to why I don't leave my cell phone turned on all the time. With six children, even though they're all grown up now, I still appreciate the value of NOT being always accessible, always on call!
However, I think it's a great tool for reference work, a wonderful thing for a library to extend to students. It's also a great way for reference librarians to get back to students who've asked a question or needed a reference which the librarian needs time to answer or find.

week 8
I had a lot of fun checking out the various online tools and applications. Vistied almost all the sites listed and played around for a while in each. I'm not sure I'd ever use any of them but it's nice to know they're available. Not at all sure I'd make Lifehacker part of my regular sites-to-be-visited but "Repurposing Your Nintendo as a Lunchbox" was creative and amusing--it brings greenness and recycling to a whole new level!

week 5
Set up a del.icio.us account and found some interesting counted cross-stitch sites. Just for fun, I checked to see if I could find instructions for lining curtains. I did! in very short order! When I had looked via Google about a month ago it took me much longer to find useful information. With del.icio.us I got to the same place in about a quarter of the time.