... have to do my final blog post - BOO HOO!!!

Oh No!  Not finished already - I was just getting used to learning all this new hi-tech stuff!  It has been great fun knowing MORE than my teenager and FLAUNTING IT, BABY!  Ha!  Why not?  This has been a one-of-a-kind opportunity to catch up with the rest of the techno-savvy world.  How else could you discover all these sites in one hit instead of just maybe discovering one or two by accident whilst surfing the net?  What's not to like?!!  I now feel fairly confident in being able to not only access and use these services but also to explain their uses to others.
Whilst I must admit the initial horror of having to squeeze in yet ANOTHER thing in my working day, the decision to take the work home and do it in my own time seems to have been one taken by most of the others doing this course at our library.  I'm quite sure I would still be working on Week 1 of the course if I was trying to do it at work, seriously.  I guess though that this is a reflection on the work loads (and commitment!) of staff at the Mandurah library as opposed to any reflection on the course itself. 
I would have to say that I found all parts of the course useful, only being fully savvy with Youtube and Facebook at commencement.  I learned all about the different sites covered by the course in great detail, really liked the Lee Lefever vids (great choice) and the links provided were all current and relevant.
I would encourage our library to use quite a few of the services we have discovered, for the reasons given in previous blogs, namely Podcasting, RSS feeds, Geocaching, Flick'r, Wikis and Delicious (we already use Library Thing). 
I think the only thing I wasn't overly impressed with was Twitter but that is probably more on a personal level.  I find it a bit unnecessary really despite it's huge popularity.  I still kinda believe it's a great way for celebrities (and wannabe celebrities!) to announce their daily activities to the world in general but I still don't think anyone would want to know mine, I mean, really??!!! LOL!   To add weight to this theory of mine, I did find Lloyd Cole's (!) recent tweets interesting regarding his current performance experiences whilst on the other hand, I do not believe anyone found my tweet about my impending visits to Perth libraries the least bit scintillating!
Overall though this has been an extremely worthwhile exercise:  helping myself and others to not only discover these popular services but empowering us to provide better customer service to our patrons by gaining this working knowledge of them.  Thank you!

... was amazed!! Geocaching??!! WOW!

I have never in my wildest dreams thought something like geocaching existed!  What a revelation - all around me are hidden caches to hunt down (yes I checked my postcode and there are LOTS out there! )  Unbelievable and a great idea for a fun day out with family and friends.  Although I do not have any GPS devices myself, I know that my 15 year old son does have this facility on his mobile phone which got me to thinking:  if he does, maybe quite a few other young adults do too, in which case, what a great way to promote the library and local facilities to them?
Using the local high schools for promotion of the geocaching programme, we could place caches in various spots around Mandurah which are in some way relevant to our youth, eg our Billy Dower youth centre, our skate park, aquatic centre, recreation centres and even sites which at some time during the year host youth programmes.  Inside each of the caches we could place not only a log book but also a supply of small business cards (to be taken away) containing info relevant to that particular site, eg details of the low-cost after-school gym programme for teens only, available at the recreation centres.  Perhaps after collecting all the cards, there could be a prize for the first to present them at the library?
I think this would be an exciting, healthy, social activity for our teens which would spark more knowledge and interest in their surroundings and all that is available for them in Mandurah - including the library of course!!