Research of a Medical Librarian

One of the interesting facets of this MLA social networking course is being forced to try these different tools that I’ve heard about in different places (such as LifeHacker or from David Rothman). When I signed up for Google Docs I wasn’t sure because I get a 1984 (”Big Brother is watching”) feeling.

The next day I was presented with a potential use for it that could be beneficial for my coworker. One task she has is to creating meeting minutes weekly for the executive group. She sends an email asking for agenda items, collates them, then sends them out to be ranked, and then creates the agenda after receiving rankings of importance of the agenda items. This requires multiple emails between people. Google Docs or a similar type program may work for her.

But I’ve had collaboration problems. I created a short presentation in preparation for the talk I’ll be giving next month. I tried to share it as per our instructions, one with the above mentioned coworker. It doesn’t seem to have worked. I tried a second time, still with no success. To increase the frustration, there appears to be problems at Google today. When I was switching between Docs and Reader, my browser froze. I ended the program and couldn’t restart it. I finally had to shut down my computer and start all over. My browser finally started working again.

Because of it, I don’t know if my second collaboration attempt succeeded. I’ll talk to the recipients later.

Right now I’m still ambivalent about using Web Office tools. I looked at Zoho and Microsoft Live. The Microsoft Live review link was to PC Magazine, so I checked the other online office tools programs as well. PC Magazine’s Editor’s Choice is for Google Docs.