At first, the article "43 Things I might want to do this year" seemed right up my alley. I am a lifelong list-maker, but I've never really tried applying that practice to my job or goals. After reading that article, though, I wasn't so impressed. It didn't really do much to convince me how learning new online techniques would help other than to enforce a practice of life-long learning. While I agree that this is a good thing to be, I'd rather pick more tangible things to learn, like a foreign language or to pick up a skill that could help me get away from the computer I stand behind 8 hours a day at work. Plus, there's just something about sharing my goals with thousands of strangers on an online forum that just makes me uncomfortable.
The "20 Reasons why learning emerging technologies is part of every librarian's job" went much further to win me over. It helped me to grasp some tangible reasons why this krl2.0 program might actually help. I think that being better able to help our patrons who are using these technologies is probably where it's at for me. I like the point the author makes of how experimenting with new programs (like Solitaire in early Windows) help you to become familiar with operations that might turn up in other programs. Also #19 - "Crowds are fickle". This is what I feel whenever I'm faced with downloading a new operating system or with friends begging me to sign up for myspace. I just wonder, how long will this be the fad before everyone moves on to the next big thing?? But I guess now at least I can say I'm familiar with last year's big thing and just try to keep up as best I can.
[I especially liked #13 - "So we can tell the IT dept what we want" - definitely a weak point for many of us library workers, I think!!]
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