Tuesday, February 27, 2007

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 I think that one of the ways we might use it is to update and completely revamp our sadly outdated telephone reference service manual.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.

Friday, February 16, 2007

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.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

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!

Saturday, February 10, 2007

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...

Wednesday, February 7, 2007

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.

Tuesday, February 6, 2007

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

Saturday, February 3, 2007

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 .

Friday, February 2, 2007

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.