Librarians Rock

#15 (WEEK 6) What I think about Library 2.0

Still thinking. . . .

After thinking, I agree with Walt Crawford:

"My own suggestions for librarians and other library
people reading this and thinking about Library 2.0:
Relax. Take a deep breath.
If you’re an ALA Midwinter person, enjoy San
Antonio. As you’re touring exhibits and participating
in discussion and interest groups, pay attention to
new service possibilities that rely on “Web 2.0”
tools—and think about how such tools might be used
to create your own new services.
When you get back and have a few minutes free,
take a look at Ann Arbor District Library, St. Joseph
County Public Library, Metropolitan Library System
(Illinois), Kansas City Public Library, and some of the
many other innovative public and academic libraries.
See if what they’re doing makes sense in your envi-
ronment—or if they bring other possibilities to mind.
You’ll hear about these and other ideas at your
state conference and during ALA Annual; I can pretty
well bet on that.
Some of the tools and concepts can be used with
little or no monetary investment and expertise.
Some of them won’t work out for you; some will.
If you’re not already doing so, read some of the
blogs and articles by librarians who are doing these
things—some mentioned here, some not.
Don’t worry about doing it all—you can’t.
Do keep an open mind to ideas and tools that
started outside the library field—if you haven’t al-
ready been doing so.
Consider the benefits of change, but don’t assume
that all change is inherently good.
Do all this, and you’ll probably build better li-
braries and enjoy your work more in the process.
Finally, don’t worry too much about “Library
2.0”: it’s just a name.
The name does matter
I’m biased. I care about semantics, and would think
that every librarian should have a respect for lan-
guage. I believe names do matter. I’m a touch over
thirty. I’ve been involved in change throughout my
five-decade career, and I resent being told that no
change has occurred. I’m not a revolutionary and I
believe that “evolution” has worked remarkably well.
For me, “Library 2.0” is a rallying cry that carries
too much baggage. I don’t believe the term adds value
to the concepts and tools—and I believe it’s possible
that “Library 2.0” gets in the way of Library 2.0. You
may disagree."

Great combination of school and gaming!

Here is a video project that a student did for a Canterbury Tales unit using World of Warcraft.



I found it on geevee.com, a site dedicated to gaming videos.

#14 Week 6

Discovery Exercise:

1. Take a look at Technorati and try doing a keyword search for “School Library Learning 2.0” in Blog posts, in tags and in the Blog Directory. Are the results different?
Yes the results were different.
Blog posts: School Library Learning 2.0

tags:(congratulations Mimi!)


from blog directory:
http://www.degreetutor.com/library/librarians-online/michael-hart

2. Explore popular blog, searches and tags. Is anything interesting or surprising in your results?

I found the blog directory search to be the most useful.

3. Create a blog post about your discoveries on this site.

Yep doin' it now. I decided to just post the questions straight into the blog. If anyone is reading tell me what you think of this format.

4. Now that we’ve worked with tags in Flickr, Del.icio.us, and Technorati, what are your thoughts about tagging? What are its advantages? What are its disadvantages?

I think tagging is a great idea. It is the very beginning of cataloging the content of the internet, but it is only the most rudimentary step of cataloging. The more we are able to make meaningful connections between pieces of data the more we will be creating knowledge online.

OPTIONAL: If you're up for a challenge, learn how to tag your posts with Technorati tags so they can become part of Technorati tag searches. Create a post about something. It can be anything you want and add the HTML code to the bottom to tag it as “SJLibrary2.0.” You may also want to consider claiming your blog and creating a watchlist.

NOTE: When adding HTML code, you'll want to make sure you're in Blogger's Edit HTML window. There's a lot to explore.

Discovery Resources:

1. Technorati Tour – videocast of new features & new look
2. Technorati Discover & Popular features

done and done.

#13 Week 6 Delicious sites

I was already familiar with del.icio.us, but I found Netvibes doing this assignment and now it is my new start-up page. I added a guest book, the network badge for delicious, and a better template. My blog never looked better! In terms of delicious as a search tool, I think I'll tell students to search google book search first, then delicious, then a regular google search in the order of reliable sources. You may not get as many hits using delicious but you certainly get quality.

#12 Week 5 Rollyo

I can see this as a good way to narrow searches for research projects. I created a search engine of the websites of libraries from competing schools.

Here's a sample search box:

Select Search Engine...ReferenceSearch The Web

Powered by Rollyo

I don't like the sponsored links in the search results.

#11 Week 5

Since I have already looked at Technorati and Bloglines I explored Findory. Rather than clicking on one of the stories I went directly for the search bar and typed in "librarianship" (what can I say, I'm impatient). After just a little digging I came across The Library Instruction Wiki which should be very useful. In fact next week I'll be introducing a small summer school class to the library so I may be able to find some useful handouts and lessons.



Above is a picture of an entry for the ALA conference in the Library Instruction Wiki. As near as I can figure it had been spammed by someone who wanted to sell ringtones. So I made my first ever edit to a Wiki; I deleted the spam. But since this was my first edit and I was not 100% sure that it was spam I also started a discussion about the page noting what I deleted and asking for an explanation if it was not spam. If you have seen this kind of thing before please let me know. Here is a picture of the page after the edit:



Just as a side note, in order to make this entry and place the photos where I wanted them I had to cut and paste the html for the photo in the correct place since the only web options are to post the photos at the top. This is easy but if there are users who are intimidated by html then it is a limitation.

I've created a project blog.

I'm starting to see more possibilities for blogging now. I just started a project blog to record the process of cleaning up and organizing the library I have just "inherited." I also used Slide.com for a slide show of the "before" pictures of the library (Very cool! Thanks learning 2.0 team!). We have an independent study program that is now evaluated from an essay, but a project blog would be much more ideal for this. I also think reading journals are now obsolete. Students blogging and the teacher reading with an rss feed would be so much simpler.

The beginning of YouTube

#10 Week 4

I know some students who would enjoy doing the real thing.



These are fun to play with, but I need some convincing that they have educational uses.