THING #2- Web 2.Oh, noooooo

So I come from the "old school" of librarianship, VERY old school. I can actually remember putting cards in the card catalog on Friday mornings. There was NO internet when I went to library school, and YES! it was still called "library school" back then. So I can say with all honesty and great pride that EVERYTHING for me has always been "WEB 2.0" and probably will be for me until I finally decide to retire. Unfortunately, I am still too young and too broke. HAHA! ;-)

I can remember being on the team of people who did the first data entry of short records for conversion to our first computer system on UTLAS/CLSI. I can remember when we were an all Macintosh library. Hmmm... perhaps that wasn't such a bad thing? I can remember when the entire library system converted from Macs to PCs, and how we all had to get training again. Every time we get a new database or upgrade to an existing program, it's more training and instruction and sometimes it comes at you like a bullet train.

I remember first hearing about Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 a few years ago at one of the library conferences I attended, and I actually got to hear Stephen Abram speak. What a phenomenal speaker he was too! I also remember taking on a phrase that seemed to be a mantra of sorts for the new century-- "BETA FOREVER" as technology moved faster and faster, and my brain moved slower and slower.

I know how much just having the "catalog" online has helped my job, and I don't even want to go into my shopping habits or my travel planning... ;-)

But, I see that even having e-mail services and Ask-A-Librarian chat statewide has helped to promote our services to a much broader audience. Six degrees of separation even applies to materials resources when I can now easily just get online to my Ask-A-Librarian compadres to see if they have something for one of my patrons or go to the online version of WorldCat or OCLC. to see an item is available for an interlibrary loan.

These are some things I am currently using, and I haven't even moved on to things #3-#23. The possibilities are endless, I'm sure...

P.S. Isn't it cool to have a "tech-savvy" Prez.
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