The Web According to Google #88: Wave, Buzz, and Mobile

1) Google Wave would be a great way for small groups or committees to collaborate across the county without having to drive to Admin, and Google Buzz would be a great tool for sharing new reference resources or any other resources that might be useful to various staff or librarians at branches across the system. I don't currently use anything that I can think of, but I used to work at a university where I sometimes had conferences via webcam at my desk. That was kind of cool at the time... kind of commonplace now.

2) Google Maps on my phone! I'm always getting lost... I need this. I already have my gmail account synced to my phone. As for the Google Search app, my phone came with a Bing app, so I'm good (not that I ever use it). I really don't see myself using the others too much because I hardly ever use my mobile.

The Web According to Google #87: Google Reader

1 & 2) I don't currently use a feed reader. I've tried in the past, and I just can't get into them. I think it is because I'm just generally not into surfing the web on a daily basis to begin with. I check out the book reviews weekly on two websites and that's usually about it. I tried out the Google Reader and subscribed to the NY Times Book Review feed. It looked like other readers I'd tried in the past, and honestly, I prefer the site with the pictures. So my verdict on RSS is still: meh.

The Web According to Google #86: Calendar and Documents

1) This was my first time using Google Calendar. I think I'd have to play with it some more to decide how much I'd want to use it, but I do like being able to have it send me an e-mail reminder for appointments or special dates. For right now I think I would use it more for personal use than for work, but that could change as I work with it more.

2) While I've been using Google Docs for a while, I did not know it could double as online file storage. I'm glad to have learned that! Like I posted earlier, I've created group accounts with people to team write papers, and that has worked really well, but I think Zoho works fine for that too. Sometimes formatting in Google Docs is a little wonky compared to what I'm used to in Word, but overall the transportability of it is very nice, i.e. you don't have to worry about a computer having compatible software for your document, you just have to be able to get on the internet.

The Web According to Google #85: Resistance is Futile

1) I use Google for searching and that includes web, images, video, Google Books, Google Scholar, maps, and news. The Google Books and Scholar features have come in really handy for interlibrary loan research as I have often found items for free online through these products and been able to save the expense of ILL. Obvs I use Blogger (as in right now), and I use Docs--I've used Docs since library school as a way for teams to be able to group write papers remotely. I also use Gmail for no other reason than it was trendy to get a gmail account ages ago and I don't want to have to change my email address and notify all of my friends of a change.

2)As for Google Labs, Image Swirls and City Tours looked cool and worth playing with. Something I will *definitely* use that I'd not noticed for that is not a beta is the Google Patent Search. How did I not know they had that!?!?

3)Like I mentioned above, I've been using Google Books for a while. It's a great resource to look into before requesting ILL (along with Project Gutenberg), and it's important to note that even though it's "Google *Books*," it has magazines too! The browse feature is addictive, btw. And yes, they had the book I experimented w/: Thus Spoke Zarathustra!