Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Week 8, Post #18 Social Networks
I looked at most of the social networking links provided. They weren't very helpful since you had to login to most of them to get very far. This looks like one big time sponge! I tried out Yahoo 360 since I already have a Yahoo account. I spent a lot of time trying to get my RSS feeds on my page, and posting a picture and favorite hobbies on my page. I even sent my daughter an invitation to be my friend on the site. We'll see if she responds. She has even less time than I do to mess around on the computer. Just let me e-mail my family and friends and I'm happy.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Week 7 Post #17 Technology
I think that technology has been tremendously helpful to the library world and our customers. I just never planned on spending so much time as a repairman and trouble shooter on computers, copiers, fax machines and printers. Not to mention having to teach people how to get on the Internet, open or save a file, send things to the printer, or how to just plain turn things on.
I graduated with my MLS in 1994 and so came in about the time the libraries were making the big change to automation and online catalogs. The small library branch in Ohio where I started still had a card catalog, but they were no longer keeping it current, and things just kept changing all the time the Dayton&Montgomery County Public Library - now called the Dayton Metro Library.
Whatever, we know technology is here to stay and the pace of change is ever increasing. So buckle up.
I graduated with my MLS in 1994 and so came in about the time the libraries were making the big change to automation and online catalogs. The small library branch in Ohio where I started still had a card catalog, but they were no longer keeping it current, and things just kept changing all the time the Dayton&Montgomery County Public Library - now called the Dayton Metro Library.
Whatever, we know technology is here to stay and the pace of change is ever increasing. So buckle up.
Week 7 Post #16 Wikis
Information from the various resouces:
A Wiki is a quick-to-build, easy-to-edit website on which all information can be edited, changed, or rewritten by the users or members of the site. It is an incredibly useful tool for collaborative writing, pooling knowledge or exchanging ideas, especially on a subject that changes or needs updating frequently. It comes from the Hawaiian phrase "wiki wiki" which means something fast. The advantage and the weakness are the same: anyone can edit it. A wiki is a good way of gathering facts quickly and pooling expertise from a large number of people.
"A wiki can become a repository for the collective knowledge of the library community; a place where anyone can share their success stories, advice, and useful materials. I created the Library Success Wiki http://www.libsuccess.org/ to be a one-stop-shop for great ideas for librarians. If a librarian has done something at their library that they consider a success, they can write about it in the wiki." Meredith Farkas.
Libraries and Librarians can use wikis in several ways, some of which include: subject guides, annotated catalogs, ALA conference info, policy manuals, and as a resource pool. Of course there are many more ways to use wikis, it is only limited by our imaginations.
I enjoyed looking at the different wikis. The one I will probably find most useful is the Book Lovers Wiki. I can use it for reader's advisory and to help with book club selections.
I added my blog to the iHcpl wiki and several movies to the movie favoirites:
I have several favorites too, one is (like Margaret) The Princess Bride and another is Christmas in Connecticut with Barbara Stanwyck. I really like the Mummy movies with Brendan Frasier.
A Wiki is a quick-to-build, easy-to-edit website on which all information can be edited, changed, or rewritten by the users or members of the site. It is an incredibly useful tool for collaborative writing, pooling knowledge or exchanging ideas, especially on a subject that changes or needs updating frequently. It comes from the Hawaiian phrase "wiki wiki" which means something fast. The advantage and the weakness are the same: anyone can edit it. A wiki is a good way of gathering facts quickly and pooling expertise from a large number of people.
"A wiki can become a repository for the collective knowledge of the library community; a place where anyone can share their success stories, advice, and useful materials. I created the Library Success Wiki http://www.libsuccess.org/ to be a one-stop-shop for great ideas for librarians. If a librarian has done something at their library that they consider a success, they can write about it in the wiki." Meredith Farkas.
Libraries and Librarians can use wikis in several ways, some of which include: subject guides, annotated catalogs, ALA conference info, policy manuals, and as a resource pool. Of course there are many more ways to use wikis, it is only limited by our imaginations.
I enjoyed looking at the different wikis. The one I will probably find most useful is the Book Lovers Wiki. I can use it for reader's advisory and to help with book club selections.
I added my blog to the iHcpl wiki and several movies to the movie favoirites:
I have several favorites too, one is (like Margaret) The Princess Bride and another is Christmas in Connecticut with Barbara Stanwyck. I really like the Mummy movies with Brendan Frasier.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Week 6 #15 Library 2.0
About 2.0
February 26, 2007
In the spirit of the academic librarian 2.0 - Alejandro Chiner Arias
"There seems to be an implication that librarians should avoid being over-cautious, or perfectionists, and that they should be more willing to make mistakes. I suppose she means to take risks and manage those risks.
The universal truth that any trainee librarian soon learns is that one cannot keep everybody happy all the time. To please one impatient user by imperfectly releasing a resource, often cannot be done without causing mayhem and disadvantaging other users."
Above is an opinion on being in beta at all times.
I think there is much to be said for Library 2.0, but let's not change for change's sake. Are we really improving service to all of our patrons, or benefiting one set at the expense of another?
There are some road blocks on the way to Lib 2.0, which one of the authors called icebergs. These include "Just in case" collection; reliance on user education; and a "come to us" model. There is no point in having a large "just in case" collection with so much information available online now, but we still need collection development, it just may look different. As far as user education goes, if a service can't be used without training, then it is the service that needs to be fixed, not the patrons. We need to be more in the space where our users are. They won't want to come to us much longer. We are trying this with chat and IM. The libraries may need to push out information to users in the future.
From Wikipedia:
The Librarian 2.0 listens to staff and users when planning, talks about successes and failures, allows staff time to play and learn, and dream of the best library services. The key principles of Lib 2.0 are innovation, people, community building and participation through social computing. It is not a closed concept, it is beta forever.
Some librarian bloggers have argued that the key principles are not new and have been part of the services suggested by library reformers since the 19th century. Others would like more concrete examples on how to implement Lib 2.0. Walt Crawford indicates that it incorrectly places libraries as the appropriate source for all users to gather all information. The proponents of Library 2.0 argue that while individual pieces of Lib 2.0 may not be entirely new, the convergence of these service goals and ideas with many Web 2.0 technologies has led to a new generation of library service.
One thing I would like to see happen with 2.0 is in library architecture. Since we have so many more people on computers and phones rather than studying quietly, buildings need to be designed for quiet areas where the noise from the computer areas and circulation doesn't penetrate. I think the most complaints we get around the amount of noise in the building. Some people are amazed that libraries aren't quiet anymore like they used to be. Maybe this will call for more computer lab type rooms or more individual study rooms for groups of different sizes. This may not be considered 2.0 because in isn't technology driven, but it is important to me, and to the comfort of the customers who visit the library.
Yesterday I came across an article about the World Digital Library. It will be the ultimate, multicultural tool for researching and retrieving information about knowledge and creativity from any era or place. The WDL (http://www.worlddigitallibrary.org/) will provide free access to original documents, films, maps, photographs, manuscripts, musical scores and recordings, architechural drawings, and other primary resources through a variety of search methods. This sounds like Library/Web 2.0 to the max!
February 26, 2007
In the spirit of the academic librarian 2.0 - Alejandro Chiner Arias
"There seems to be an implication that librarians should avoid being over-cautious, or perfectionists, and that they should be more willing to make mistakes. I suppose she means to take risks and manage those risks.
The universal truth that any trainee librarian soon learns is that one cannot keep everybody happy all the time. To please one impatient user by imperfectly releasing a resource, often cannot be done without causing mayhem and disadvantaging other users."
Above is an opinion on being in beta at all times.
I think there is much to be said for Library 2.0, but let's not change for change's sake. Are we really improving service to all of our patrons, or benefiting one set at the expense of another?
There are some road blocks on the way to Lib 2.0, which one of the authors called icebergs. These include "Just in case" collection; reliance on user education; and a "come to us" model. There is no point in having a large "just in case" collection with so much information available online now, but we still need collection development, it just may look different. As far as user education goes, if a service can't be used without training, then it is the service that needs to be fixed, not the patrons. We need to be more in the space where our users are. They won't want to come to us much longer. We are trying this with chat and IM. The libraries may need to push out information to users in the future.
From Wikipedia:
The Librarian 2.0 listens to staff and users when planning, talks about successes and failures, allows staff time to play and learn, and dream of the best library services. The key principles of Lib 2.0 are innovation, people, community building and participation through social computing. It is not a closed concept, it is beta forever.
Some librarian bloggers have argued that the key principles are not new and have been part of the services suggested by library reformers since the 19th century. Others would like more concrete examples on how to implement Lib 2.0. Walt Crawford indicates that it incorrectly places libraries as the appropriate source for all users to gather all information. The proponents of Library 2.0 argue that while individual pieces of Lib 2.0 may not be entirely new, the convergence of these service goals and ideas with many Web 2.0 technologies has led to a new generation of library service.
One thing I would like to see happen with 2.0 is in library architecture. Since we have so many more people on computers and phones rather than studying quietly, buildings need to be designed for quiet areas where the noise from the computer areas and circulation doesn't penetrate. I think the most complaints we get around the amount of noise in the building. Some people are amazed that libraries aren't quiet anymore like they used to be. Maybe this will call for more computer lab type rooms or more individual study rooms for groups of different sizes. This may not be considered 2.0 because in isn't technology driven, but it is important to me, and to the comfort of the customers who visit the library.
Yesterday I came across an article about the World Digital Library. It will be the ultimate, multicultural tool for researching and retrieving information about knowledge and creativity from any era or place. The WDL (http://www.worlddigitallibrary.org/) will provide free access to original documents, films, maps, photographs, manuscripts, musical scores and recordings, architechural drawings, and other primary resources through a variety of search methods. This sounds like Library/Web 2.0 to the max!
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Week 6 Post #14 - Technorati
Today I spent a some time on Technorati.
1). I searched for "Learning 2.0 in Blog posts section and got over 6,000 hits. The terms didn't stay together, even with "". Even using exact phrase - I got 554 hits. Using a tags search for Learning 2.0 the results list was more manageable, only 127, and searching the directory only brought 59 more focused hits - blogs about Learning 2.0.
2) I explored the "popular" blogs and found that most of them were technical. Under the "top searches" I clicked on Colbert and found many comments on Steven Colbert's big announcement last night on The Daily Show (and continued on Steven's show) - both of which I happened to watch. I watched a video called "Vision of Students Today" that I found under the video heading.
I had some technical problems with Technorati - it often timed out or was too slow going from one page to the next. It was frustrating.
1). I searched for "Learning 2.0 in Blog posts section and got over 6,000 hits. The terms didn't stay together, even with "". Even using exact phrase - I got 554 hits. Using a tags search for Learning 2.0 the results list was more manageable, only 127, and searching the directory only brought 59 more focused hits - blogs about Learning 2.0.
2) I explored the "popular" blogs and found that most of them were technical. Under the "top searches" I clicked on Colbert and found many comments on Steven Colbert's big announcement last night on The Daily Show (and continued on Steven's show) - both of which I happened to watch. I watched a video called "Vision of Students Today" that I found under the video heading.
I had some technical problems with Technorati - it often timed out or was too slow going from one page to the next. It was frustrating.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Week 6, Post #13 Del.icio.us
Since I have had a Del.icio.us account for about two years and have added sites to the HCPL Del.icio.us account, this is a something I am familiar with. I did go ahead and add a few more URLs to my site and tag them and I looked around at other bookmarks and the comments that go with them.
It is interesting to see how many other users have tagged similar sites, and it is easy to see how this could be useful when doing reference - if I remember to use it. Right now I primarily use it as place to store bookmarks so I won't lose them if the hard drive crashes. And so I can access them from anywhere.
The 8 minute video about Del.icio.us was fuzzy and many people had trouble getting it to run past the first 30 seconds. Fortunately it ran fine for me. Too bad it wasn't in focus.
Are there bonus points for already having a Del.icio.us account?
It is interesting to see how many other users have tagged similar sites, and it is easy to see how this could be useful when doing reference - if I remember to use it. Right now I primarily use it as place to store bookmarks so I won't lose them if the hard drive crashes. And so I can access them from anywhere.
The 8 minute video about Del.icio.us was fuzzy and many people had trouble getting it to run past the first 30 seconds. Fortunately it ran fine for me. Too bad it wasn't in focus.
Are there bonus points for already having a Del.icio.us account?
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Week 5, Post #12
I created a Library Elf account today. I will delete as soon as this project is over. I don't feel it is a necessary service and I didn't like putting my library card and PIN out there. I check my account almost every day and I know when I have books overdue. It may be helpful for families with multiple cards to get notices when their items are coming due. I am happy with the notices sent by HCPL.
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