Well, I explored del.icio.us a bit and created an account. At first I looked at popular tags and felt a bit overwhelmed because a lot of them seemed to be for programmers and web designers, and I was in over my head. (One was Top 10 YouTube Hacks.) I was gratified when I found "Cliff Notes on delicious--making it useful," which says that the interface is geeky and has even baffled many experienced computer users. Oh yes, now that you mention it, I was finding it difficult to navigate. But I added about 10 bookmarks, mostly related to the 2.0 project. Of those I chose, it was interesting to see which ones were bookmarked by the most other people--for example, Pandora Radio. Library Journal's Movers and Shakers article and People StyleWatch both had 17 other users at the time I created my bookmarks to them. It might be interesting to explore the bookmarks of those people and see if there are common intersections.
I printed out a bunch of articles from the S-I 2.0 syllabus and hope to read them soon. Yes, I can see how using delicious would provide research assistance, though I don't think it will ever take the place of databases. It is a fairly easy way to create bookmarks that can be accessed from anywhere. I think I will use this in my work/personal life, though I also thought that about RSS feeds and haven't accessed them again since I completed my blog post for that unit... Still, I remain optimistic.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Wiki Wiki Fun
The subject guides in the St. Joseph County PL system are interesting and innovative. I explored the travel, craft, and tax guides for this assignment. I liked how they provide links to their online catalog and local stores. And I found a book I wanted to check out from their list, so their guides must serve their local customers well too. The tax guide had some useful info; even more helpful would have been lists of places where people can get (free) tax help, if they offer such services in their area. (Now of course I realize that it's not tax season now, so perhaps that's why there aren't any of these listings.)
I also looked at the ALA annual meeting wiki and read some of the entries listed there. The ground rules for the ALA wiki seem reasonable: No content unrelated to Annual Conference and Washington DC, no defamatory remarks, no ads or spam, no politics, etc. Some kind of moderator must be necessary to enforce these rules, and it makes sense to establish some similar rules, especially for a wiki with a large membership such as ALA.
I could see using wikis to create subject guides, or for book discussion groups. It might also be useful to try the next time I'm a participant in a meeting with more than two or three people. This was a good learning opportunity, and I hope to apply it soon.
I also looked at the ALA annual meeting wiki and read some of the entries listed there. The ground rules for the ALA wiki seem reasonable: No content unrelated to Annual Conference and Washington DC, no defamatory remarks, no ads or spam, no politics, etc. Some kind of moderator must be necessary to enforce these rules, and it makes sense to establish some similar rules, especially for a wiki with a large membership such as ALA.
I could see using wikis to create subject guides, or for book discussion groups. It might also be useful to try the next time I'm a participant in a meeting with more than two or three people. This was a good learning opportunity, and I hope to apply it soon.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Streaming Video
What a lot of cool stuff to explore! I was of course already familiar with YouTube, but I had not used hulu or fancast before. On YouTube, I looked at some of the ways libraries are promoting themselves, and there's a lot of innovation there. I'm sure that some of these videos will help libraries reach a wider audience than they might otherwise have been able to reach. I looked briefly at a couple of videos on sewing from the authors of a website called threadbangers.com. It was certainly not your mother's sewing lesson. They might entice some young people to try sewing for the first time. And, because I had a customer request on the topic this week, I looked for videos on parallel parking and found many relevant clips.
I looked at some brief clips on hulu and later watched an episode of "Monk" on Fancast. I was very impressed with the video quality. Everything seemed to go smoothly, with very few interruptions or glitches. And with the episode of Monk that I watched, there were a few brief commercials, but nothing terribly intrusive. I notice that at the time of this posting, we have 72 people waiting for Monk Season Six. I could see recommending to customers that they try using fancast if they need a fix of Monk (or other available programs) before they can get the DVDs from the library.
I plan to use all three of these sites at home--there's a lot that interests me. And I can recommend the sites to library customers, especially those who have home computers. For long movies, it wouldn't work well to watch them at the library because of our time limits, but for material that's less than an hour in length, it should still work OK. And now we have headphones to lend to customers. So I think these are really useful sites to know about. This was my favorite assignment yet!
I looked at some brief clips on hulu and later watched an episode of "Monk" on Fancast. I was very impressed with the video quality. Everything seemed to go smoothly, with very few interruptions or glitches. And with the episode of Monk that I watched, there were a few brief commercials, but nothing terribly intrusive. I notice that at the time of this posting, we have 72 people waiting for Monk Season Six. I could see recommending to customers that they try using fancast if they need a fix of Monk (or other available programs) before they can get the DVDs from the library.
I plan to use all three of these sites at home--there's a lot that interests me. And I can recommend the sites to library customers, especially those who have home computers. For long movies, it wouldn't work well to watch them at the library because of our time limits, but for material that's less than an hour in length, it should still work OK. And now we have headphones to lend to customers. So I think these are really useful sites to know about. This was my favorite assignment yet!
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Friend Networks
For this assignment, I explored Facebook and LinkedIn. Following Jim's suggestions, I decided to see if a classmate of mine was on Facebook, and he was! We went to school together for grades 1-8. He later went on to earn a Ph.D. at Harvard and is teaching at the University of Chicago. I decided not to request to be his friend. We haven't been in touch since 8th grade. But I did show his profile to another classmate of mine with whom I've stayed in touch. Her college-age daughter was also there, and of course the daughter has a profile on Facebook. She looked at our classmate's picture and said, "He only has five friends! I have more than 130!" Of course, he probably doesn't devote as much time and effort into developing his Facebook profile as she does--he may have more professorial things to do. But it gave me an interesting insight. Facebook and other similar sites provide quantifiable measures of popularity and fame. When I checked this afternoon on Facebook, Barack Obama had more than 1, 314,000 supporters, and John McCain had more than 199,250. It reminded me of "Extras" by Scott Westerfeld. By the way, I sent my friend's daughter a message asking to be her Facebook friend. That may be all the Facebook friends I have.
One of the Facebook features I like is that when I put in the names of schools I attended, it gave me a list of other people on Facebook who attended those schools and offered me the chance to be their friends. I tried it for UNC Chapel Hill, where I went to library school. If I have some extra time, I'll try it for the college I attended too.
I also looked at LinkedIn and initially planned to complete a profile there for this project. I had heard good things about it from people at the Special Libraries Association conference here in Seattle in June. But I decided that doing their profile requires more time and effort than I should spend here at work, so I'll save that for later. I looked at Library Thing and told some of my favorite bibliophiles about it. And soon after all my 20 for 2.0 assignments are done, I'll remove my profile from Facebook. But I'm glad to have had this chance to explore this very popular part of the Internet.
One of the Facebook features I like is that when I put in the names of schools I attended, it gave me a list of other people on Facebook who attended those schools and offered me the chance to be their friends. I tried it for UNC Chapel Hill, where I went to library school. If I have some extra time, I'll try it for the college I attended too.
I also looked at LinkedIn and initially planned to complete a profile there for this project. I had heard good things about it from people at the Special Libraries Association conference here in Seattle in June. But I decided that doing their profile requires more time and effort than I should spend here at work, so I'll save that for later. I looked at Library Thing and told some of my favorite bibliophiles about it. And soon after all my 20 for 2.0 assignments are done, I'll remove my profile from Facebook. But I'm glad to have had this chance to explore this very popular part of the Internet.
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