Thing #22: Electronic Books

Electronic Books are becoming more popular at the Library despite being downloadable only to an MP3 player and not to the ubiquitous iPod. Haven't used my player yet buy it's the ideal motivator to learn more about the Library's electronic book offerings. I especially enjoyed reading about Project Gutenburg. It's powered by volunteers and has over 20,000 titles of the most eclectic offerings. I managed to establish an account in Overdrive and downloaded the software. I found a few titles of interest to me in electronic format in our catalog, and figured out how to put them into a Bookbag for downloading. I haven't downloaded anything yet, but will soon.

Thing #21: Podcasts

I would frequently hear the term but never knew for certain what a "podcast" was. Now, after seeing what all the fuss is about, the idea of choosing favorite podcasts to listen to while I'm on the Internet at home is very appealing. I loaded some business podcasts for my husband and added the RSS feed of the podcast of a humorous NPR program, "Wait Wait..Don't Tell Me!" for me. I imagine that having my own list of podcast feeds will be like having my own private radio station - just my programs, all the time.
Looked into some of the podcast directories (Yahoo's closing theirs down soon) and then at some of the libraries now using podcasts for storytimes and booktalks. Great avenue for libraries to reach the public.