Reflections

I learned quite a few things from participating in Sno-Isle's Web 2.0. Although I had heard of or had personal experience with some of the applications, there was always something new to learn.
The only improvement I would make on "discovery program" is to have more interaction with other staff members about their experiences. I didn't get very many comments on my blogs and it was interesting to see that I got 2 comments from random bloggers outside of Sno-Isle!
Thanks to the Web 2.0 team for an educational experience!

Gaming

Online gaming is not something that is new to me. Kids that come into libraries love to play games on the public computers! Coming from a public library in California to the Snohomish Library, there is a vast difference of how many kids play games. At the library in California, there were tons of kids playing various games from Habbo to Runescape pretty much all day. This led to a problem of computers being unavailable for research and/or adults that wanted to use them. As a result, timers were installed on these computers, but these tech savvy kids found a way to bypass that timer! The IT guys had to come up with another way to prevent the kids from bypassing that timer!
Gaming doesn't seem to be as prevalent at the Snohomish Library. It is interesting to see the difference of how young kids are using libraries in different states. It is possible that more of the kids that came to the library in California were latchkey kids because the use of computers for online gaming seemed to increase in the summer. Parents would drop their kids off at the library while they went to work, leaving these kids at the library all day.
Regardless, online gaming is a trend that seems to be popular with young kids today, and even for some adults that are kids at heart!

Google Earth

Google Earth is a pretty fascinating tool, but I'm not sure how useful it will be at the reference desk. Although they do have driving directions, it doesn't give street by street directions like GoogleMaps or Mapquest. It was neat looking up my place and my parents' places and you can even see the cars parked on that street! Neat tool by Google.

Second Life

Creating an avatar can allow us to experiment with the alternate version of oursleves -- the one we desire to be. Second Life allows us to live vicarously through our avatar. Nobody knows who we really are, so we take risks in Second Life. I have never actually experimented with Second Life, but it seems like a really neat thing. I'm not sure if I will ever live in Second Life because it seems to take up a lot of time -- something I don't have. It is great that a lot of libraries are starting to become aware of the power of technology to reach out to patrons, therefore creating a community within Second Life.