Friday, September 28, 2007

15- Web 2.0, Library 2.0

Wow, after a lot of doing, and some thinking, a lot of reading, digesting and thinking. And now blogging....
I think Walt Crawford raises some good points about what's hype and what's real, is Library 2.0 mainly about technology, is it really about what it's always been about for libraries, etc. But I don't like his tone....

I see Library 2.0 as the technology of Web 2.0 applied to the (public) library setting to continue to serve patrons in to the future. It includes patron-generated content (rating of materials, tagging, blogging or at least commenting on library blogs, wikis) interacting with patrons using newer technology applications (IM reference, del.icio.us tagging vs/ in addition to Internet links, text message alerts, RSS feeds of library and more content) information/education/enrichment delivery via nta- e-video, downloadable audiobooks, etc.
Gaming at the library, why not, as long as I don't have to DDR myself or supervise it (hee, hee....)

Second Life I have trouble with, both literally, my computer is too old, or lost it's memory or something, never could get it to dowload correctly, of course my 24-year-old son ran in to the same problem with his less than a year-old laptop- and less literally- I don't know that our patrons really want to interact with us there, nor do I think that all teens really want their public library to friend them on myspace, especially when their public library is old enough to be their mother.

I certainly think that whatever Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 are exactly, it's very much worth looking at least 23 things that can possibly be implemented to benefit our patrons. And just because Library/Web 2.0 proponents sometimes contradict each other and even themselves, doesn't mean they're, in essence wrong, Walt....

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

14- Technorati

I can see using Technorati if you're just looking for blog posts, but regular search engines seem to come up with at least some blogs, and in general I'm usually doing a search that probably can work in a general search engine.

Monday, September 24, 2007

13- Del.icio.us

Hard to remember where the dot's go, but a great way of bookmarking. We are about to take down our "useful links" page, and instead provide the url of the Library Info staff del.icio.us account, so patrons can use our bookmarks. Debate on how to bundle the tags (dewey vs other,) or to bundle or not, continues.

Friday, September 21, 2007

12- Rollyo

Can't help but be amused by the name. but it's disappointing that the search is limited (without major tweaking I assume) to top level domains. This appears to preclude searching within a library's catalog or databases directly, only the homepage. It also precludes limiting searches to certain sections of newspapers (i.e. restaurant reviews.) it may still useful for librarians to construct rollyos for YA and kids classes where the teacher wants their internet searching limited.

Monday, September 17, 2007

11- LibraryThing

LibraryThing is easy to use even for Web 2.0 novices and applicable to libraries. I've read where a school library has put their books into LibraryThing so users can more easily find them, tag them, share them. For a public library, it would require a paid acount (limited to 200 books free) and a possibly labor-intensive export process?

Friday, September 14, 2007

10- image generators

The image generators I found are fun and easy to use. I think some of the graphics you can do them would look great on Library webpages or within Library blogs. They could also be used if one were teaching a "Pimp my myspace" type of class- of course that's another challenge....

9- Twitter

I used Twitter for a few days. It was more fun and useful to do it from a cellphone while waiting for a library-related meeting :) then to just say what I was doing at my desk at work. I did not get any great flashes of inspiration about how to use Twitter, but was woken up by the cat who lives his life in the pre-sunrise hours while I'm trying to sleep, and did see how my library could use a Flickr feed!

Monday, September 10, 2007

8- Library-related RSS feeds

I subscribe to at least 2 of the top 25 library-related blogs plus many more not on the list. It's the fastest way for me to keep up with whatever is new in the library world, and I fully read what I'm interested in, and scan the rest. Of course, sometimes someone will post something about a neat new toy and I'll doodle around with it for way too long.

7- Bloglines

I've been using Bloglines since taking the Infopeople Web 2.0 class, and love it. It seems much more manageable to read feeds as you have time and interest, rather than have piles of e-mail. And of course you can get feeds from sites, that are not set up for e-mail lists.

6- Rss feeds, Podcasts, and more, Oh My!

Our library is also offering Rss feeds of news sites we think are patrons are interested in, but not overtly of new content. I can see doing podcasts or videocasts of our storytime, which is extremely popular. I see the point about the Denver Public Library having great Web 2.0 resources, but it not being obvious from their homepage- but if you know you're looking for podcasts, it doesn't seem that diffricult to decide it's under downloads. On the other hand, if you don't know there are podcasts, it wouldn't be obvious from the homepage. Of course, you could say this about library cards also; if you are only vaguely aware of them, it might be hard to find that information from looking at many library's homepages. One way to make podcasts and the like more easily available, would be to not only offer them under a "download" or "e-resources" tab, but also tied to "kids' area" if they are of storytime, etc.