Method 3

6.Share your impressions and thoughts regarding online productivity tools and cloud computing by posting to your blog. (Please include “Method 3″ in the title of your blog post.) Some jumping off points for your blog post might be: How do you feel about these tools and concepts? Do you see great benefits for use in libraries? Overall, would you say that you are more excited or more cautious/skeptical about cloud computing?

I use Google Docs and Gmail on a frequent basis. I also use a few photo storage sites like Photobucket and Flickr. I enjoy the easy access to my files and information, although I don't think I would move all of my information to cloud based applications like Doug Johnson was attempting to do.

Many of the commenters spoke about privacy issues and that would also be a concern of mine if I were to put everything online. Plus, the technology isn't always reliable. There have been times where I needed to access my documents only to find out the system wasn't operating at that particular moment.

Cloud computing programs could work well in libraries because they can be used to share info and collaborate with others. The information would be availabe on different computers, which would make it easy to share and work together on different projects.

I like the idea of being able to use different programs with any computer and access it in any place. However, I think the drawbacks make me a little cautious. Who has access to the files and information and how is it shared with others? I think it's important to know exactly how the information will be stored and who will be able to access it. I would not put any sensitive or important information onto a Google Document at this time. I may consider it in the future, but I would need to know there are sufficient security measures in place to protect the data.