Web 2.0

After reading the Web 2.0 pieces, I can't say that there is a lot of surprises. Are they teaching Library 2.0 in library school? Is this something that our next generation of trained librarians are bringing with them? In this changing age, I hold to the tenent that we are going to be irreplacible for the amount of information filtering we will do. Everywhere you go, it is information all the time. With so much coming at us, it is going to be our responsibility to help people filter through the bad and poor quality information. This almost beggs another questions for me. (I was a history major.) In this age of free information, will we ever see a rise of dictatorships again? Most violent leaders would destroy information to keep people ignorant. Interesting? The fact that Web 2.0 can have such broad scope ramifications is completely unprecidented. Probably hasn't happened since the creating of the American Constitution and the security of democracy in the World.

Wikis abound

Wiki's are cool concepts. Recently, I tried to get my cousins to work with me on a weight loss wiki I set up. I couldn't get them to work with me but it was cool nonetheless. I think for libraries it becomes a little more disorganized. I liked the book review site. That worked well but the library catalog wiki seemed disjointed. I couldn't follow where I was supposed to go or what I was supposed to do. I think it would work well for internal groups to minimize meeting time. Very interactive.

Technorati

I had a blast with this activity and plan to play with it even more. I searched a few of the top sites. I had never heard of Boing Boing but found it facinating. Very cool for ecclectic information. I decided to search for blogs on Harford County. Boy, there was a lot of interesting pieces out there. For anyone wanting to know the local low-down, I think this has potential. All those times we just want to scream at the Aegis for getting it wrong, this allows you to make the comments immediatley and get the satisfaction of getting things off your chest. HarfordNow is looking for bloggers to add to their site. Maybe.. Nah.

Del.icio.us

This seems like a better use of software than Rollyo. At first, I didn't think I would like it. First searching the library sites, the rag-tag assembly of the sites threw me of. When I started playing with the tags, I found a lot of sites that I had not idea existed. It was very fun to just play with these sites and tags. The more you can say about a site, the more beneficial. I can see the library doing this or at least having a branch set of favorites. I also liked that you can see who else has added this site and check their list. I found a couple of interesting sites that way as well. It was very easy to set up an account. Most likely, I will use that rather than bookmark. The TAG button is easy and totally accessible on my taskbar.

Week 8 # 19

Okay, you can tell that it has been a stressful couple of weeks. What did I research and play with? www.cocktailbuilder.com. It won the top award for Fun Stuff under Web 2.0 awards. I don't think there is any library application with this site, unless you count the blowing off steam after work. I put in a couple of liquors that I have at home and don't know quite what to do with. Voila! I got several drinks that I could make. I haven't had the opportunity to try any that I found but hope to this weekend.

Week 8 # 18 Jumping around again

I really like doing the assignments when I have real life applications. This time, I used Google Docs to create the Librarian's Meeting Agenda for today's meeting. I can see a create application with this for that purpose. In the share settings, I can send the agenda out to all the librarians and they can add and upload the information from anywhere. If one of us is out sick and happen to be working from home or even from another branch, this function allows us to work without having the work saved on a file at the branch. Very cool.

I can see it having very positive applications for our patrons, who often forget a disc and can't save to the computers. What happens when the printer is acting up? Just upload this to another networked computer and print from there.

Week 5 # 12

I created a Rollyo on alternative medicine. I included 5 sites that I might want to use. I can see the potential for this but I think Google is just as easy. There is a search box on IE and it makes the steps so much shorter to find things. I might use Rollyo to remember my favorites versus leaving them on one computer so I can have access anywhere.

http://www.rollyo.com/betiread/alternative_medicine/