As I read the article from Wikipedia about Library 2.0, one of the first comments that jumped out at me was that Library 2.0 involves "an increased flow of information from the user back to the library." Right now, the information flows out, but only comes back to us through email or phone calls. Allowing library users to customize the way that information comes to them and to participate in decisions about library services is at the heart of Library 2.0. Another item that struck me was that implementing these items is not a one-time "fix"; change is constant and systems have to be monitored to see if they are meeting the current needs of users. The list of references at the end helped clarify some of the points of the article. I also noticed that Wikipedia suggests other wikis for more on this conversation, provides a link to del.icio.us for tagging the article and links to a network on Ning for Library 2.0.
The second article read, "To a Temporary Place in Time" , by Dr. Wendy Schutlz, hypothesized about what Library 3.0 or 4.0 might be like. I loved the definition of libraries: "Libraries are not just collections of documents and books, they are conversations, they are convocations of people, ideas, and artifacts in dynamic exchange. Libraries are not merely in communities, they are communities...." She correctly advises us to put people and meanings at the center of our concerns. This aspect has been a part of libraries since before 2.0; it just looks different in an online environment.
I loved her vision that in 3.0 people will need a "tour guide" to guide them through the maze of information; who better than a librarian? Internet users already turn to virtual doctors and financial advisors; it is not a stretch to see them reaching out to virtual librarians. (Gotta work on my avatar's wardrobe.....) But Library 4.0 as a "knowledge spa", "a retreat from technohustle" is really a return to the things we value today in a library. It brings up the point that in our efforts to reach the wired generation, we cannot forget the unwired members. Nor should we forget the value of the physical space as a welcoming, stimulating place to browse or research, to be part of a community.
To me, Library 2.0 is enlarges the circle of people that the library serves and connects to. By providing blogs and wikis, access to podcasts and RSS feeds, by letting users leave comments and have access to other users' opinions, a library can grow into a dynamic place, online and in real space. It is a another way to connect with patrons. I see it as valuable, but also realize that we have many non-techno-savvy users who continue to need the personal touch and encouragement.
School libraries of the future will have to work closely with school boards and principals to be sure that equipment and connection speed and teacher training are funded. In our district, most of the technologies in this project are blocked by our filter. In order to effectively use the sites, they would need to be unblocked. I think that school libraries will continue to provide physical books in the future, but the social computing aspect will increase the students' connection to the world. Another issue is the young age of students, their privacy and the posting of their ideas online. Schools will need to work hand-in-hand with parents to develop policies that protect students.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Thing #13 - Social Bookmarking
I have been hearing about Del.icio.us for several years, but had not tried it. The social aspect is very interesting and goes along with the idea of the "circle of the wise" that we read about earlier. I liked the user comments on some web sites. It would probably be more useful on education sites; I had the feeling that businesses may post their own complimentary comments in order to attract customers.
As I add people to my network, it will be very interesting to see if their links are helpful when I am building links for classes doing research. It will also be very convenient to have all my bookmarks in one place. Now I just have to decide which of my bookmarks at school that I want to add! Since librarians already categorize information, the idea of tags is very useful for us. This is another tool for helping students find relevant web sites on any topic.
I had a little trouble adding the browser buttons, but their help page walked me through most of it. I didn't realize I had to respond to their email before the buttons would be added.
Furl was not working on the day I did this assignment, but I will check back with it later. I like Ma.gnolia's clean look. When I did a search for "library 2.0" I found a number of other libraries also doing this exercise. At this point, I will stick with Del.icio.us because it will be easier to find others to network with.
As I add people to my network, it will be very interesting to see if their links are helpful when I am building links for classes doing research. It will also be very convenient to have all my bookmarks in one place. Now I just have to decide which of my bookmarks at school that I want to add! Since librarians already categorize information, the idea of tags is very useful for us. This is another tool for helping students find relevant web sites on any topic.
I had a little trouble adding the browser buttons, but their help page walked me through most of it. I didn't realize I had to respond to their email before the buttons would be added.
Furl was not working on the day I did this assignment, but I will check back with it later. I like Ma.gnolia's clean look. When I did a search for "library 2.0" I found a number of other libraries also doing this exercise. At this point, I will stick with Del.icio.us because it will be easier to find others to network with.
Thing #12 - Social Networking
I entered social networking with some reservations about its value for me, the amount of time it would take and how to maintain some amount of privacy. It seems like most of the students I talk to have either MySpace or Facebook accounts. I know that the majority of students who get past our filter do so in order to get on MySpace. Educators who know how students are communicating with each other can utilize that knowledge to create similar ways for students to receive information related to the classroom or library.
Here is a link to my Facebook page. My son says I need a photo so I don't look so "confused"; photo added! A useful feature in Facebook is the ability to create groups. I'm going to check with our student book club to see if they have any interest in having a Facebook group to discuss books. You can also check the photo albums of your friends and upload video. I don't really like that any time someone contacts you on Facebook that it sends you an email, especially since I used my school email. On the positive side, that feature may keep you from constantly going to check on your page for new messages.
MySpace seems like a much larger site. It has dozens more options, including its own version of YouTube, classifieds, forums, linking through favorite film and TV shows. lots more. That could be an advantage if you need those options. For me it was too much. If I were to consider using it as an educator, I would have to be very cautious about some of the ads and other postings that students would be exposed to. I think that Facebook would be more useful for educators, because there are less pop culture distractions for the students.
If the sites were unblocked, I could see a classroom teacher creating class groups for project work or for a forum to discuss issues.
Ning is such a great way to create a social network. I was very interested in the Teacher-Librarian Ning and the Classroom 2.0. Since we are helping teachers in the library, I like to read about what other teachers are doing so I have realistic ideas for projects involving Web 2.0. Our Mesquite Librarian Ning could be an interesting forum for discussion on issues that we deal with. It's an improvement over email, because you can see all the posts at one time on a topic. If we had an issue with a challenged book, we could submit our thoughts to the group. I'm going to keep looking for more ideas on using social networking.
Here is a link to my Facebook page. My son says I need a photo so I don't look so "confused"; photo added! A useful feature in Facebook is the ability to create groups. I'm going to check with our student book club to see if they have any interest in having a Facebook group to discuss books. You can also check the photo albums of your friends and upload video. I don't really like that any time someone contacts you on Facebook that it sends you an email, especially since I used my school email. On the positive side, that feature may keep you from constantly going to check on your page for new messages.
MySpace seems like a much larger site. It has dozens more options, including its own version of YouTube, classifieds, forums, linking through favorite film and TV shows. lots more. That could be an advantage if you need those options. For me it was too much. If I were to consider using it as an educator, I would have to be very cautious about some of the ads and other postings that students would be exposed to. I think that Facebook would be more useful for educators, because there are less pop culture distractions for the students.
If the sites were unblocked, I could see a classroom teacher creating class groups for project work or for a forum to discuss issues.
Ning is such a great way to create a social network. I was very interested in the Teacher-Librarian Ning and the Classroom 2.0. Since we are helping teachers in the library, I like to read about what other teachers are doing so I have realistic ideas for projects involving Web 2.0. Our Mesquite Librarian Ning could be an interesting forum for discussion on issues that we deal with. It's an improvement over email, because you can see all the posts at one time on a topic. If we had an issue with a challenged book, we could submit our thoughts to the group. I'm going to keep looking for more ideas on using social networking.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Thing #11 - LibraryThing
LibraryThing is a great idea for sharing favorite books. It is very easy to use and to update. I enjoyed seeing how many other readers liked the same books as me. I can see using the list to create groups of books for book club (thanks, llanolady, for that idea.) I couldn't think of all the titles that I would add to a virtual list, so as I remember my favorites, I'll be coming back to add new titles. The Tools option gives some interesting ways to share the books. I put a widget on my blog to share my list.
Thing #10 - Online Image Generators
This was a fun exercise and limited only by my imagination. The Comic Strip Generator had lots of fun cartoons to use. What a great way to bring a little fun into any presentation or web site. I'm thinking about using the one below on our web site in February. Unfortunately, I don't think I can recommend that site for students, since it contains some images that are inappropriate for them.
Next I tried Custom Sign Generator. What I loved about it was the ability to upload your own photo to customize with frames or text or other "frills". I saved this picture to my computer, but the HTML button was not working.
Image Chef had some very creative, humorous templates. It also seemed easy to use.
Happy Face Generator would be a good place to go to find a quick image to convey emotion.
I'm going to try to use image generators for our web site and also for inserting some humor in powerpoint presentations and signs.
Next I tried Custom Sign Generator. What I loved about it was the ability to upload your own photo to customize with frames or text or other "frills". I saved this picture to my computer, but the HTML button was not working.
Image Chef had some very creative, humorous templates. It also seemed easy to use.
Happy Face Generator would be a good place to go to find a quick image to convey emotion.
I'm going to try to use image generators for our web site and also for inserting some humor in powerpoint presentations and signs.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Thing #9 - Library Feeds
Whew! I feel like I've just been around the world on the web. I had no idea that blogging was so organized and easy to get to. Even though it is not a search tool, one of my favorite ways of finding feeds is to look on the blogs that I enjoy reading to see which ones they subscribe to. Many of those blogs were interesting and expanded on the topics from other blogs.
The Feedster link was not working when I checked it. Through Edublogs, I found A Library By Any Other Name, which seemed very organized and had interesting, short comments. The Google Blog search was very easy, but I didn't find what I was looking for: teen authors or YA authors. Since I have Google Reader, it was very easy to add feeds. An interesting feature of Google is that it lists how many people are subscribed to the blog.
Syndic8 was confusing to me because it returned lots of results that didn't seem to be relevant. Also, I thought the blogs were old until I realized you can sort by date; then the recent rose to the top. Also it seemed confusing to find the link to the actual blog.
One interesting thing I found was that School Library Journal has a long list of feeds on very specific topics that you can subscribe to. I added the feed to Joyce Valenza's Neverending Search. On all the topics she addressed, there wer good links to find more information. I also added the Cool Cat Teacher Blog. I'm still searching for one for teen authors.
I would use Technorati and Topix.net again. Technorati returned some useful blogs and posted lots of video and audio as well. Topix was great for news feeds. I put in plagiarism and found out that bloggers are passionate against plagiarism. I can see that Topix would be very useful for class assignments on current topics.
I didn't really find an unusual blog, but I found an unfamiliar graphic. It seems like many of the individuals who blog put a homepage banner at the top that contains a what seems like a random collection of items that interest them. It's like a collage that reflects their interests. Hmmm....
On one of the Blog searches I found a tool that would let you subscribe to a search for a keyword. In other words, it wasn't a direct blog feed, but a feed that showed where any blogs were talking about a certain subject. Now, I can't find which of the search tools had that; hopefully, I will locate it again. I'm looking forward to checking my feeds regularly and looking for ways to use them.
The Feedster link was not working when I checked it. Through Edublogs, I found A Library By Any Other Name, which seemed very organized and had interesting, short comments. The Google Blog search was very easy, but I didn't find what I was looking for: teen authors or YA authors. Since I have Google Reader, it was very easy to add feeds. An interesting feature of Google is that it lists how many people are subscribed to the blog.
Syndic8 was confusing to me because it returned lots of results that didn't seem to be relevant. Also, I thought the blogs were old until I realized you can sort by date; then the recent rose to the top. Also it seemed confusing to find the link to the actual blog.
One interesting thing I found was that School Library Journal has a long list of feeds on very specific topics that you can subscribe to. I added the feed to Joyce Valenza's Neverending Search. On all the topics she addressed, there wer good links to find more information. I also added the Cool Cat Teacher Blog. I'm still searching for one for teen authors.
I would use Technorati and Topix.net again. Technorati returned some useful blogs and posted lots of video and audio as well. Topix was great for news feeds. I put in plagiarism and found out that bloggers are passionate against plagiarism. I can see that Topix would be very useful for class assignments on current topics.
I didn't really find an unusual blog, but I found an unfamiliar graphic. It seems like many of the individuals who blog put a homepage banner at the top that contains a what seems like a random collection of items that interest them. It's like a collage that reflects their interests. Hmmm....
On one of the Blog searches I found a tool that would let you subscribe to a search for a keyword. In other words, it wasn't a direct blog feed, but a feed that showed where any blogs were talking about a certain subject. Now, I can't find which of the search tools had that; hopefully, I will locate it again. I'm looking forward to checking my feeds regularly and looking for ways to use them.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Thing #8 - RSS feeds
I'm so glad to finally understand (at least the basics) of RSS feeds. It's an interesting concept to have news come to you, instead of searching for what you want. I like that not just blogs, but also news agencies have RSS links. I chose Google Reader because I also have an iGoogle page and thought it might be easier to link the 2 pages. The list of headlines is a convenient way to quickly scan the postings, and it's easy to customize.
I can see classes who are doing research on current events subscribing to feeds from all over the world to get an average citizen's view on the events in their country (for example, Iraq.) The challenge will be to remember to check the reader frequently. I'm looking forward to being more connected now.
I can see classes who are doing research on current events subscribing to feeds from all over the world to get an average citizen's view on the events in their country (for example, Iraq.) The challenge will be to remember to check the reader frequently. I'm looking forward to being more connected now.
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