AfterThoughts

OK, I'm not positive that I completed each and every exercise - some time around my February trip to Florida I may have missed something. I could probably catch up if necessary. But I have been thinking - not just about Learning 2.0 or even Library 2.0, but about the broader Web 2.0 in general - and maybe addressing my thoughts via this post can substitute for any missed exercise(s).

Web 2.0, in all its permutations and social connectivity tools, has been discussed at great length for several years already. Amidst these discussions, many questions continue to be asked. The more I think about it, the more questions I have - some of which I'll ask here.

While Web 1.0 was a resource created largely by those with techonological knowledge and skills, Web 2.0 has been more of a grassroots revolution pairing technology with pop culture to provide a wide variety of computer users with what we want. This relates directly with the old argument in librarianship: Do we give the public what they NEED or what they WANT? At this moment, with huge interest in Library 2.0, we're trying to understand more of just what it is our patrons do want, how they choose to communicate, how they search for information resources, and how we can best provide such resources at their points of need.

One of my questions about all this is: How do we in librarianship know what Web 2.0 resources to embrace vs. those that might be current fads or whose future is greatly endangered? For example, the very popular YouTube has been a money-loser for Google. Can YouTube continue to thrive in its current manner or will limits to it cause user dissatisfaction? By the time libraries catch up, will the general public be on to the Next Big Web 2.0 Thing? How much of this stuff is best left for personal recreation and how much should be embraced by libraries? And which library staff members can drive such change, anyway - recent library school graduates on the front lines, support staff, management, or will it take a concerted cooperative effort at all levels?

The personal vs. professional use of Web 2.0 tools is particularly intriguing to me. When I first discovered the possibilities of live online reference service via the Internet Public Library MOO (Multi-User, Object-Oriented environment, via telnet) way back in mid-1995, the professional quickly blended with the personal. We "Early Adopters" of the technology became adept at balancing the two aspects of this amazing Internet (not Web) resource. However, library management at the time looked askance at what I was trying to do professionally, assuming that the recreational aspect of the technology was interfering my job and wasn't sufficiently useful to the library. All these years later, we're still advised by the City not to use City-owned property to browse the Web or "play," although in Learning 2.0 we did get to play, and it was, indeed, in the best interest of the employees as well as the employer.

OK, this is what happens when I'm granted a little time to think: I get long-winded. I need to wrap up this post very soon. Overall, it seems to me, one who earned an undergraduate degree in Sociology, that Web 2.0 is one great sociological phenomenon. It reflects the ever-changing ways that people relate to each other by means of Web resources and tools. It's absolutely amazing how people have become so much more socially interconnected by means of Web technology. In many ways this is a good thing, and yet there are also negatives that should be addressed. What about people whose lives are too hectic or are even just surviving day-to-day - do they find any value in, say, Rollyo? I wonder, too, about true introverts who don't want to be more socially connected but are practically forced to be so by new cellphone and Web 2.0 technology (although some tools do have Private settings). Introverts are already misunderstood by the extraverted majority - will Web 2.0 increase this dichotomy? Will it also increase the chasm between the current young and old segments of society, with older people being uninterested in or unable to grasp all the bells and whistles of the new technology?

I have many more questions but the library closes in 10 minutes. If you've read this entire post, you deserve one of the memory sticks given to those who successfully finish Learning 2.0.

Week 9, #23: Summarize thoughts about program

Hm, I have the feeling that I may have missed an exercise or two but will do this last exercise this week and go back next week to make sure I haven't missed anything.

Overall, I enjoyed this program. It was fortunate for me that it coincided with a reasonably busy rather than insanely hyper schedule. I may have resented it had I been forced to fit it in amongst way too many other responsibilities. It would be such a luxury if staff could have even just an hour a week donated specifically toward training and lifelong learning. That hour would certainly pass quickly, that's for sure!

I think the best outcome for me was Bloglines, which I now check on a daily basis. The trick to it all is to keep it simple by limiting the number of your subscribed sites. For me, this has been the ultimate challenge of all aspects of the Internet: to limit my precious time online as much as possible. With more and more valuable resources online all the time, this gets increasingly challenging! However, certain offline pursuits continue to prevail, such as reading the hard copy of the Sunday newspaper in its entirety, and curling up with a good book at home.

Week 9, #22: eBooks and Audio eBooks

I'm familiar with eBooks and Audio eBooks, to the point of helping provide eBook backup support via email to our library patrons. And I'm familiar with Project Gutenberg, mostly because its fearless leader, Michael Hart, has been an outspoken participant of the DIG_REF listserv to which I subscribe. Due to constant change in the realm of digital collections, I appreciated this chance to take another look at both our and Mr. Hart's eBook websites.

I think everyone should read Hart's essay on the history of the Gutenberg project - which goes back to 1971! Long before the Internet, and even before the use of personal computers, the Gutenberg project began at about the same time that I took a little class on computers - taught by my high school geometry teacher on a large computer with punch-card technology in a narrow custodial closet. I never cease to be amazed by the amazing changes in computing technology during the past 35 years. Amidst the changes, Project Gutenberg, with the help of its volunteer workforce, continues to grow and fluorish; its latest venture has been development of a wiki soon to appear on the website.

As for me, I spend so much of my work time at the computer, that if I manage to have some leisure time for reading, I'd rather curl up with a good old-fashioned hard copy book. Electronic format doesn't have to be a substitute for print format; it's good that the two are complementary.

Week9, #21: Podcasts

This was a frustrating exercise because when I finally found a podcast related to librarianship that was of interest to me, I couldn't access it. I went to Podcast.net and found "Virtual Dave's Podcast" by Dave Lankes, who used to lead the annual Virtual Reference Desk Conferences that I enjoyed attending. Upon trying to click on the podcast of the opening remarks to the very first VRD Conference in 1999, I got an error message telling me to "Click to run an ActiveX control on this webpage." I clicked, nothing happened. If I need someone from IT to fix this, maybe I'll eventually ask, and then maybe they'll eventually get to it... When I tried Podcast Alley I couldn't access any podcast at all, and when I tried Yahoo! Podcasts, I got an IE error and my browser exploded. wheee, are we having fun yet? ;)

Week 9, #20: Discover YouTube etc.

My 12-year-old daughter fully discovered YouTube before I did and has shared with me several of her finds of very funny and/or intriguing videos. Nevertheless, it was a friend who shared my current favorite on YouTube: an amateur production of "Fiddler on the Roof" by an all-Japanese cast, entirely in Japanese. It's great! One aspect of YouTube that I truly appreciate is its keyword searching; just type in Fiddler Roof Japanese to find it. Or, if you're lazy, here's the link.

Like nearly everything else online, YouTube can be highly addictive and time-consuming. Yet I definitely appreciated the opportunity to search it for videos related to librarians. I also appreciated the top video site list. YouTube alone is overwhelming; I can't even begin to think about checking out the others.

Week 8, #19: LibraryThing

So many books, so little time. Being given the opportunity to indulge in a little book selection, cataloging, and sharing at Library Thing is like being offered time to roam freely in a bookstore with a large group of friends/colleagues and/or shelve those books in my personal library. Like most of the other Learning 2.0 activities, this one could easily become downright addictive. And like most intriguing online endeavors, I must balance what's most effective and efficient with what's fun but potentially time-wasting. For now, at least, I'm limiting my Library Thing experience to work-related matters, but even that is a HUGE realm, since the public library is so much to so many people.

I was a little surprised to find that I'm the first to list Heart of the Community: The Libraries We Love. It will be interesting to see if others will be inspired to add this book soon.

NoMarian's Library Thing

Week 8, #18: Online productivity tools

Since I consider myself to be both a writer and an editor, Zoho and other web-based word processing tools might come in handy. I wonder if knowledge of HTML (of which I have a little) is being phased out as its steeper learning curve can be increasingly bypassed by tools such as Zoho.

Ooh, the templates could be fun - I particularly like the recipe template. I'm not sure how to find Help to answer some of my questions, like What's an anchor? But for now I just want to learn how to share this entry via my blog. Here goes....

Technorati Tags Newbie,Practice

Week 7, #16: Learn about wikis and their use by libraries

OK, I already knew about wikis and have tried to start one (using PBwiki) in my own library unit but it hasn't taken off yet. Perhaps when more people have gone through this exercise, some in my unit might join me in developing the unit wiki, we shall see. I think that one of the ways we might use it is to update and completely revamp our sadly outdated telephone reference service manual. Unit staff members may have widely varying ideas regarding the type and content of information to be included in such a manual. Anyway, one particularly useful tool from this exercise is the wikimatrix which compares many different wikis - very cool.

Thoughts at large

I've been meaning to post about copies of articles on all things 2.0 (Web 2.0, Library 2.0, Learning 2.0, etc.) that have been on my work desk during the past year, waiting to be read and filed. SJPL's Library 2.0 launch allows me the time to review them.

The first is from way back in December, 2005, titled "The Hive Mind: Folksonomies and User-Based Tagging," by Ellyssa Kroski, posted at http://infotangle.blogsome.com/. It starts: There is a revolution happening on the Internet that is alive and building momentum with each passing tag. With the advent of social software and Web 2.0, we usher in a new era of Internet order. One in which the user had the power to effect their own online experience, and contyribute to others'....The wisdom of crowds, the hive mind, and the collective intelligence are doing what heretofore only expert catalogers, information architects and website authors have done. They are categorizing and organizing the Internet and determining the user experience, and it's working.

The article goes on to address del.icio.us, Flickr, 43 Things, and Technorati. It states: As users continue to add tags, a grassroots organizational scheme begins to emerge which has been dubbed by information architect Thomas Vander Wal, to be a "folksonomy." Folksonomies are described as being inclusive, current, and non-binary, and as offering discovery. They're also democratic, self-moderating, follow "desire lines," offer insight into user behavior, engender community, offer a low cost alternative, and offer usability. Furthermore, Resistance is Futile.

Flaws of folksonomies are that they have no synonym control, have a lack of precision, lack hierarchy, have a "basic level" problem, have a lack of recall, and are susceptible to "gaming."

Since this article was posted as a blog, the many comments on it are nearly as interesting as the original post itself.

The 2nd article is "Library 2.0" by Michael E. Casy and Laura C. Savastinuk, published in Library Journal, September 1, 2006. If anyone is reading my blog, you may have already seen this clear overview of Library 2.0. It also includes useful 2.0 resource links, including other articles (one back to Otober, 2004) and blogs.

The 3rd article is "Tagging," by Johnathan Rochkind, posted 7/10/2006, at http://techessence.info/tagging/.

The 4th article is "Tagging Play: Forget Dewey and His Decimals, Internet Users are Revolutionizing the Way We Classify Information - and Make Sense of It" by Lee Rainie, Director, Pew Internet and American Life Project, posted on January 31, 2007, at http://pewresearch.org/pubs/402/tagging-play. I highly recommend this one.

And now that I've spent too much time on article reviews, I've run out of time to finish this week's assignments. I'll have to double-up on them upon returning from vacation in a week.

Week 6, #13: Learn about tagging & Del.icio.us

I was going to try to zoom through this week's and maybe even next week's exercises before my vacation next week, but can see now that I'll be lucky if I complete this week's stuff. The information has become overwhelming to me. Upon starting in on #13, learning (more than I knew before) about tagging and Del.icio.us, viewing the tutorial and reading the us.ef.ul guide for beginners, and after my browser was busted by an attempt to view the Seven Habits page, I found out that there are an additional 3 Discovery Exercises, and I haven't even started Week 6's Lessons #14 and #15. This is too much. I'm going to peek at #14 and #15, and if there's time to return to #13, will do so.

Suffice it to say that I think tagging is great - like a democratic form of classification (as Wikipedia is a democratic form of informational content). By tagging, we can use our own ideas and/or those of others to better categorize all that we're inundated with online. Being an organized person, I appreciate all the help I can get to improve my organizational skills. Of course, we can also use tagging as a social networking tool, but not all of us are looking to increase the expanse of our social network. Some of us are trying to limit the network we already have!

Week 5, #12: Rollyo

Again, I zoomed through this assignment, checked out Rollyo, registered, and created my own search engine for all things live online reference service. I'll name it LiveOnlineRefYo. So far I only entered a single URL (lii.org), but can think of several others to add for future searches.

For personal rather than professional purposes, I may create BarackObamaYo.

Uh-oh, I'm letting my politics show...

Week 5, #11: From Web 2.0 Awards list

I was thrilled to see the category "Philanthropy" in the Web 2.0 Awards list. However, upon clicking on the link, I read this: There were either not enough nominations or there was no clear leader to award winners in this category. That's a shame; hopefully there will be more next year (I could suggest a couple!). Regardless, the Honorable Mention for the category was of interest: GiveMeaning.com. Participants can express an idea for raising funds for something or someone, can share ideas with other members of the GiveMeaning community, and can direct funds to individual charities. Included in the list of popular causes is the category library, currently with two links: Help Ship Donated Books to a Village Library in Kazakhstan and
Support education for 980 disadvantaged children in Kenya! . The category literacy has 7 links, including: Help children in Fallujah, Iraq cope with war trauma and Fund the opening of a community center serving at-risk youth .

I was also glad to see the category "Grassroots" in the Web 2.0 Awards list. Sadly, once again, There were either not enough nominations or there was no clear leader to award winners in this category. The single Honorable Mention was KnowMore.org: The People's Corporation Watch Project. Its admirable mission statement is "We are a grassroots, web-based community dedicated to chronicling and resisting corporate attacks on democracy, worker's and human rights, fair trade, business ethics and the environment. Our shared goal of a more informed and conscious consumer is being accomplished via this website: a vast database of easily searchable corporate and political info designed to aid responsible citizens, progressive thinkers and activists. We are not affiliated with any political party, candidate, or PAC in any way. Our primary objective is to provide an independent, objective source of information to our readers about some of the most crucial, contested topics of our time." I typed "Converse" into the site's search box and got a plethora of interesting information about Nike, which purchased the bankrupt Converse Shoes for $305 million in 2003.

Week 5, #10, Post 2

My other two generated images - an avatar and a button - are far more tame and both from ImageGenerator.org:

Week 5, #10: Online image generator

This one's new to me. Again, it's a lot of fun but could be SO addictive and time-consuming. I took a look, checked a couple sites, generated a couple of images, and got out. Here's the flashiest result, from the Generator Blog:


http://www.TrippyText.com - Trippy Text
http://www.MakeYourSpace.com/ - MySpace Layouts

Week 4, Things #8 & 9, Addendum

I was able to take the time today to put some of my IE "Favorites" or bookmarks into my Bloglines account. I'd like to recommend a couple of sites: (1) "10 Blogs to Read in 2006," posted Tuesday, February 21, 2006 in LISNews.org at http://features.lisnews.org/features/06/02/21/1328204.shtml and (2) "Library Zen and LISZEN," which is a long, partially annotated list of library-related blogs, at http://libraryzen.com/wiki/index.php/LISZEN .

Week 4, #8: RSS Feeds, Bloglines; #9: Library-related blogs

I've known about RSS for a long time but never got around to taking the time to get my own feeds, except for BBS headlines that go directly to my LiveJournal account. It was good to take the time to create my own Bloglines account. Now I can delete some email listserv notifications I had been receiving at work, such as the Librarians' Internet Index and Resourceshelf, because I can access them via Bloglines. I also added BBS headlines but may delete that and continue getting them via LiveJournal, keeping my bloglines account for strictly library-related sites.

I'm glad I have work time (barely) for at least the basics of Learning 2.0 and wish that I had more home time to go beyond the basics, but eventually I'll become adept at what I need to know. And now I've got my 11-year-old daughter to help me. Hers is the first generation born with an active, vibrant Internet, and she's a natural at technologies that take us old-fogeys longer to embrace. And the youth shall be our guides.

Week 3: Things 5, 6, and 7

Flickr, like blogging, is not new to me. Unlike blogging, I haven't had the time or desire to delve into Flickr, other than trying to keep up the photos and links of a single prolific poster to Flickr, who is a rising star in librarianship and whose photos and blog entries blur the lines between professional and personal interest. Simply to be able to occasionally comment on his photos, I created my own bare-bones Flickr account but rarely use it. The major problem with all this technology is how time-consuming it can be, and how much restraint and discipline is required to maintain a distinction between the professional and the personal. It's a balancing act that I've learned to hone since way back in 1995, but I think a full explanation requires a separate post. Suffice it to say for now that I'm grateful to be granted time at work to explore technology for professional purposes, and I continue to make some time at home to do the same for personal purposes. So much technology, so little time!

Week 2: 4 of 23 "things" completed

This blog represents the completion of Week 2's tasks #3 (set up blog/add first post) and #4 (register blog).

Prior to creating the blog I completed Week 1's tasks #1 (read introductory blog/learn about program) and #2 (discover pointers from lifelong learners). Last week I jotted down notes about #2, including my hardest listed habit to break as that of not viewing problems as challenges. It seems to me that the most resilient people do view problems as challenges, whereas the rest of us view problems as obstacles, some of which all too often seem unsurmountable. My easiest habit to embrace is playing! - that is, when I allow myself the freedom to do so.

What I like most so far about "The 23 Things" is that I'm allowed to play with technology for the sake of professional growth. Although I think we're a little behind the game in this endeavor, I'm glad to be allowed to catch up and learn.

Welcome to my library blog

This is an interesting adventure for me because I've had a personal blog on LiveJournal since 2000 (making me an "Early Adopter" there). I contemplated putting my library blog on LJ as well, but this will help keep the two completely separate, and I'll get a chance to compare Blogger with LJ. I feel a bit of a traitor, but LJ is quite robust and healthy and I'm loyal to it. In fact, here's a chance to market LJ to more people! I highly recommend it for personal blogs and will gladly reply to any/all questions or comments about it.

So, here I am. Most likely I'll keep this blog as simple and straightforward as my LJ blog. And I'll try to remember to distinguish between LJ (LiveJournal) the blog and LJ (Library Journal) the traditional journal!