16- Wikis

One of the librarians at MY library has created an often-asked questions reference wiki, as well as one for homework assignment. These have been for staff use only as the url was posted only on a staff intranet. However, when our "Useful Links" page dies, and our del.icio.us account takes its place, the wikis will be more accessible, although I am not sure how they are tagged.

Wikis seem anywhere from very easy to mildly complicated to create and edit. and of course each one you have to look at the sometimes unspoken protocol, when you are going to edit. Are things in alphabetical order, do you delete and then post updated content, or do you post underneath or?

In some ways wikis are/can be like the stenographer's book at the reference desk, where people use to write important things that they wanted all to see. Of course they can be much more, and some brave libraries probably allow their patrons/customers/clients/stakeholders to edit.

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....

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.

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.

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.

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?

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....