Thing #16-Wiki Wiki!

So this exercise focused on wikis and what they can do for libraries. I thought the most useful application that would work well for libraries is the complication of subject guides by librarians. Most staff have their specialities and this allows them to build content quickly and authoritatively. A reader's advisory wiki page is a great way to incorporate patrons and a great way to help them select books to read. Let's face it...although we would love to have read every book in the library (laugh out loud!) it's simply not possible and this would be a good reader's advisory help. The other application that was very useful was the one for the ALA page. I know I was certainly lost on my first experience to a big conference, so having all that knowledge from other librarians is great! I think wiki can be used as a great tool for libraries, but since it has the ability for anyone to add anything at anytime this does need some oversight!

Thing #15-Web 2.0, Library 2.0

I selected Rick Anderson's article "Away from the Icebergs" to post some thoughts about. He posted 3 ideas that libraries must move away from in order to embrace the Web 2.0 environment.

1. The just in case collection. I agree that in general getting print materials "just in case" a patron needs it, without consulting other factors, is not the way to go. I think it's even more of a challenge for librarians, especially in this economic and technological changing times, to decide how to get the information for the collection that patrons need-print or electronic. Many factors need to be taken into consideration. In some cases there is no choice as some reference materials are no longer in print. But in some cases, the print verison is up to date and is easier to use than a web based format. And some materials are not in an online version, so it is foolhardy to think everything can be gotten (for free!) on the web. Thus libraries are needed to purchase information whether it be print or electronic.
2. Reliance on user education. I agree that looking at the librarian to patron ratio there is no way to educate every single user how to do research. But that's not to say that bibliographic instruction classes are a bad idea! While I agree that making things as user friendly as possible is the best route to go, making things so user friendly that they are useless is also a bad idea!
3. The "come to us" model of library service. I agree that librarian do need to "go to" the user where they are. We do a lot of that through our catalog/databases, phone reference service, chat and e-mail refererence etc. We also send out notices electronically through e-mail. With either the Internet or phone the library can be reached. But I also think that patrons still have a need to "come to us." There is something to be said for the "live" person to person interaction helping a patron find a book, use the catalog, use a database, use a print source, perform a search, find information, etc!

Thing #14-Technorati

For the first part of the Technorati exercise I explored different searches for the term "Learning 2.0" in blog posts, blog tags, and a browsing search in the blog directory. All of these search results were different. Using blog posts I have 850 hits but the authority number (yes, there is some authority with blogs going on!) was all over the place and at times quite low. When I searched in blog tags the results narrowed to 87. More precise searching...so long as the users tagged their blogs correctly. Still the authority number seemed rather low. Searching through the blog directory, I had to browse and went from Blog Directory->Technology->Web 2.0. Here the results were very small (7) but they were obviously vetted by Technorati and all had a very high authority number.

Some other interesting browsing:

• Top 100 Blogs (by number of fans): A lot of technology and celeb gossip. Some surprising ones were PostSecret (where people reveal their dark secrets!), a modern librarian cyberpunk (blog titled "Never Give a Cheerleader a Keyboard"), and a blog on Bollywood AND Cricket!

• Top Searches: The usual news, environment, and salacious celeb gossip but also suprising were cheat codes for video games, olympics (thought it would be out of season!) and even some popular searches that are in Spanish!

• Top 100 Blogs: The usual technology and celeb gossip again. (Whoever is this TechCrunch blogger is he or she certainly is popular and has a high authority number!) There was another one called 5 Minutes for Mom with helpful hints for moms and one called Apartment Therapy for decoration ideas...even going so far as to encorporate Edward Cullen's room decor from the Twilight movie!

Thing #13-Del.icio.us

While I was mostly able to understand del.icio.us from the descrption (the video link was no longer active so I couldn't watch the tutorial), it felt a little confusing when actually exploring the PLCML del.icio.us site. Clicking on their links to the favorite web sites was fine. I was able to click on the links to the people who had added it to their links and see their comments. I could follow the link to other people's favorite links. There were also tags to help sort the PLCML site. That was all pretty easy to use and self-explanatory. What would happen though is I would follow a link, leading to either another user's links, or one user's tags, and then get confused trying to get back where I started from. I could always do a "People" search and get back to where I started from, but only if I remembered where I started from! Or would it matter? *laugh out loud!* I think the more one gets familiar with it, the easier it would become.

I can defintely see the research potential of this application. People can add their favorite research sites (and libraries can do this too!) and they could also (through the social aspect nature of the tags) find even more research sites to add to their own. And of course, there is the benefit of being able to access the favorite bookmarked sites from any Internet computer and not just one desktop. Research does not normally happen only at one computer AND neither does answering reference/information questions for patrons. This way all of the computers in a library would have access to informational sites no matter what computer the librarian was using at any given desk. The tags would help arrange the subject matter to assist in this. And of course, their is the fun/hobby aspect of this application as well. This site has a similar feel to Rollyo and RSS.

Thing # 12 - Rollyo

Here's the link to my Rollyo site:

http://rollyo.com/harrypotterfan/harry_potter_news/


It was a fun exercise and the site is very user friendly. I simply created an account and then could create my own Rollyo. I could make it private or public, depending on my preference, and give it tags so others can find it more easily. It seems similar to an RSS feed in that I could put all my favorite Harry Potter news websites in one spot and check them. But a wonderful feature is that I can search inside them. For example, I typed in Deathly Hallows and it searched all the websites I had for information on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Just as a searcher alone, you can personalize your page. And the tags I listed help link my Rollyo search engine to other similar search engines!

This is another great time saver for keeping up to date on news. A user could easily set up their favorite news websites as a Rollyo and then search for a specific news item. Or set up a Rollyo with news from their work profession. Or, like I did, just set up one for an interest. For libraries, a great application would be setting up authoritative sources for patrons on specific subject areas like art, science, buisness, etc.

Thing #11-Library Thing

The most overwhelming part of Library Thing is trying to pick the exact book that you own out all all the options returned by an Amazon search. Which is why it is best to do it with the book in front of you instead of trying to do it from memory *lol* :) But I think it is a wonderful website and user friendly for the most part. Giving tags to books is a great idea so that the more precise they are the easier it is to find similar books. I like this idea of being able to easily catalog your own books without being a cataloger and the ability to be able to connect to others with similar books tastes. Or, if your friends sign up, you can see what they are reading and it might give you ideas of good books to read. And of course make new friends who share similar tastes. With everything listed you don't have to scratch you head trying to remember book titles and authors if you have access to the Internet. I can see it being a fun way for libraries to connect patrons to the library and to each other in a reader's advisory capacity.
http://www.librarything.com/home/ReadingNook

Thing #10-Online Image Generator

I had lots of fun with this exercise and a chance to be creative with this technology:) I enjoyed using the Generator Blog because it had lots of categories to choose from. It is all very user friendly and anyone can enjoy :)

http://generatorblog.blogspot.com/

I made a birthday cake with my name and age (almost!) on it :)

I used the a text generator on that site to have my name translated into Chinese.

I even got to make my very own Ben and Jerry's ice cream-Chocolate Strawberry Swirl!

I also had fun using the various links on Big Huge Labs.

http://bighugelabs.com/