week 7, Thing 16

I like the premise behind wikis. I was particularly interested in the SCPL subject guides for St. Jo Country PLS. I loved being able to click on elections (at least I think that's what I clicked one) and it was neat to have access to local, state and national election information. I could envision something that could gather "election guides " from many different points of view and having them available from one access point. Sort of a one-stop shopping guide with info from bar associations, values-bases organizations, leagues of women voters, etc.
I thought the best practices wiki was a good one too. I was sad to see so little "weeding" information on it and it would be a good place to contribute. Maybe OPL could "share" some best practices--for example, does every staff member know about item group editor and using inventory to creae lists?
I think OPL could potentially use a wiki for problem items, among other things. You could organize your items and carry them in a wiki for much easier checking than happens with the email group. Right now, you can't see what someone else has on their problem shelf. I think you could in a wiki format.

Week 6, Thing 15 Library 2.0

Library 2.0 is a broad concept to think aobut. Lately, with the concentration on the 23 things, I was slipping into the notion that 2.0 is all about NEW, TECHNOLOGY, VIRTUAL. It is about that, but it's more a focus on user-centered services, collaboration, and communication. How we discover what our users want is still a difficult proposition, even with the ability for some of them to tell us online.

In spite of the notion that Storey mentions (that we are all always connected online), libraries still have the same old problem of access. Not everyone has it!

Even when people do have access, I often think that libraries in general have missed the boat that sailed with Google. I fear that we are putting our time and energy into something for which we are already too late. It seems as if we are always trying to play catch-up instead of being truly innovative. It's easy to appear critical and I certainly don't intend that, particularly since I don't have any solutions to contribute. I just have many years of observing.

I really think that innovation might come from folks like Michael Stephens, who, at least, seems to recognize some of the needed qualities to be a 2.0 Librarian. I particularly liked his notion of keeping technolust curbed, and ensuring that any given technology will actually enhance services and delivery.

Week 6, Thing 14

I didn't get excited about Technorati. I really really dislike popups and flashing advertising. It's far too distracting and hard on my eyes. The more time I spent there, the less I enjoyed it.
I did several searches in different parts and was surprised to get the same number of results. I thought the searches would be more selective.
I was surprised also by the use of the word "authority" thinking it was perhaps related to what I think of as traditional authority in library speak. It was related to the number of people who linked to the blog. ( I found that in FAQ's)

I guess I was truly surprised by what is popular in the blogosphere. For better or worse, it's a different world. It's good to have that information available and to know it's there.
I wasn't up for the challenge of claiming my blog. I actually would prefer to disclaim my blog! :)

Week 6, Thing 13

I looked at both of the resources suggested to get an overview of Delicious. I even created an account. I can see where this tool might be helpful if you were doing research on a topic. Some interesting url's on dementia turned up that I hadn't seen before, and they came up really fast. I didn't spend a lot of time looking at the sources that came up. I bookmarked them in my delicious account for future reference.

Week5,Thing 12

Not only did I get to create a search roll, I had opportunity to edit it. After I finished creating a short list, I thought about some other things to which I might want to have easy access. I went back to add to my original list and I changed the tags. I think I have linked to my list, but it's one of those instances where I can't really tell until I have posted the post. This whole business of not being able to see what's there until you make your post is a bit frustrating. I tried creating a draft in order to see what I had done, but I ended up having to start over since my draft wouldn't show up. Question to self: Do you want some cheese with your whine?

Select Search Engine...serenitySearch The Web

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Week 5 Thing 11

Well, using library thing to catalog some books was mystifyingly simple. I couldn't believe I had added books so easily, so I ended up adding the same one several times. However, because of that, I found out how easy it is to delete books as well. This is one application that, at some season of my life, I might actually use to find folks with similar interests.
The widget was fun and easy to use as well.

Week 5, Thing 10 again

Well, I had a little trouble saving my creation. After I created my Wordle, I thought I followed the directions, and I was expecting the image to show up in the blog. It didn't. I found that I had to save the post first before I could see my creation. That was a little frustrating. I think it might have something to do with that "technology thing" (where it's intuitive for younger folks, to catch on, but some of us who are older don't see it as easily:) )
I looked at a couple of other image generators. (Sarah Palin baby name? color illusion?-- not for me) I was tempted to play with liftmagic.com and weightmirror.com, but I didn't have a picture with me. It was probably a mercy I didn't have one since I was thinking of aging myself, and adding weight as a sort of reminder to continue to eat well and take care of myself.

Most of the generators I look at were sort of ho-hum. They weren't things on which I wanted to fritter away my play time. I know some people are really into image generators, and I am not. It was a good chance to be exposed to image generators, and look at them a little bit. I think I'd prefer to read.

Week 5 Thing 10

Saving my image from Wordle seems to require that I post this in my blog.

Week 4, Thing 9

I have to say that I really did not like trying to use Technorati. The first screen had flashing advertising. I think my older eyes really object to that type of content, and it is disorienting to me, so I didn't bother to explore it.
I did find a couple of feeds by using Bloglines Search tool. That was pretty direct to use keywords to find topics of interest. Syndic8.com was very -s-l-o-w-loading anything. On the third try, it brought up a list of feeds, most of which were awaiting approval to syndicate, so I didn't find any useful ones in my particular area of interest.

Week 4, thing 8

I did it! I created an account in bloglines, and subscribed to some RSS feeds. It took a good bit of practice, and a colleague's help to get the hang of adding feeds. Now that I know how to do it, I am amazed at how simple it is to do. I'm not sure I want so much information coming at me from the feeds to which I subscribed. We shall see! I think that perhaps using feeds to cull information that is important to you is a good idea. What bothers me about the idea, though, is that the information is being filtered for me, and the filters might "color" or "select" what I see, much as the news media does. That's certainly something I need to keep in mind.
There is great potential for libraries to judiciously post programming, to boost interest in materials, to inform the public about our library, and to solicit help from the community. Here I think the danger could be in pushing too much information, too often, so that people could turn a "deaf ear", or a "blind eye."

If you happen to be following my posts, I realized that I spelled Wii incorrectly in my last post, and I did practice playing a Wii game the last time I was at my daughter's house. It sure could become addicting. It's probably a good thing I don't have Wii at my house.