Thing 18 - Online Office Tools

I explored Google Docs. This will be so handy for collaborative work at the library and for committee work. I serve on both a Texas TLA committee and a national ALA committee, so of course much of our work has been done by email. Keeping up with everyone's changes is a challenge, but this would make it easy. Collaboration regardless of geography, hurray! Also, this might be a good idea for my subject database list, rather than a wiki, but I will definitely do one or the other so that all of our subject specialist librarians can edit their subject areas.
I uploaded two documents from my home computer (emailed home from the library) that I will now be able to access both places without having to email them back and forth.
I really liked the functionality of Google Docs. You are able to insert comment boxes to draw attention to changes or problem areas, and you can insert flyovers (explanatory text that will appear when you hold the cursor over a link). I think that is so cool! I also like the fact that you can create templates for a spreadsheet so you don't have to keep formatting separate pages. I found the instructions and guides very straightforward and easy to understand. There are so many advantages to using this on any shared project, and your document, spreadsheet, or presentation can actually be published as a webpage when completed. This is a wonderful collaborative tool.