Thing 10: What Do I See There

Okay, I'm terrible at directions, my eyes glaze over with number of traffic lights, bear rights vs. hard rights. I've used Google maps to supplement written directions by taking a test run of where I'm going. That way, I can note landmarks such as stores, strip malls, muncipal buildings to give me warning that I need to bear right in .07 miles.


Google maps has added the coolest thing on their home page, the journeys of Barack Obama and John McCain from their birthplaces to the White House which includes biographical information as signficant geographical locations in their lives are shown. There's also a feature that shows what states allow time off from work to vote. With so much emphasis on interactive maps during this campaign season, I found these to be creative ways to bring this practice to the individual user.



I pulled up my library on Google maps and discovered that there were comments about the playground in the park out in back of the library. The playground is not maintained by the library and there were some old criticisms. Even though we are not responsible for the maintenance of the playground, I remain proactive in reporting any problems as our patronsdassume we take care of it. Rather than shrug and reply, "It's not our job", the library staff is well trained to response to their concerns and to report any damage, trash issues, etc. The playground is major destination and we consider it a great asset as it gets folks into the library and we do outside activities there like storytimes in the summer, etc. The playground has recently been rehabbed so I've added a new photo. In addition, I've added some photos of the library itself since there was such an emphasis on the playground. I am thrilled that this was an assignment, otherwise, I might not have taken the time to evaluate the library's presence on Google Maps.