wikis

I often click over to wikipedia every now and then for a quick answer, but all the while understanding that anyone posted that info and it is entirely possible for any or the whole part to be incorrect. I think today too many people believe 100% of what they read and see on the Internet – and I know I’ve read stuff on wikipedia that I knew was wrong, but then other people will go on to quote this wrong info.
Anyways, back to wikis, I liked the one library’s reading page and I think that something like that here could be a great resource for patrons. With summer reading coming up I think this is something the branches should look into.

#15 Library 2.0

I think there has definitely been both physical and mindset changes in the library and I think the perfect example is this Learning 2.0 project. Technology has revolutionized the world and there’s no way around it: you either have to be in on these changes or consider yourself obsolete. Over the years I have worked with some people who just think the Internet is a place to read your email and while these people are secure in their positions or near retirement, this unawareness would not fly in society today if they were applying for their job. This isn’t a fad, it isn’t going to go away. I grew up with the pc and even I feel behind sometimes – the computer class I took in high school focused entirely on typing and a little time was spent on basic internet research. When my brother took the same class four years later he was learning basic coding and flash programming. The tedious typing speed and accuracy tests were long gone – everyone now assumes you know how to type.
Today’s librarians seem to be at least keeping up with technology. I believe that being a good librarian is about providing good, knowledgable, friendly, useful service to people who want information – whether it’s a rare book, a best-seller, or a research article on the internet.

#14

Since I have been blogging for awhile I am aware of how big the blogosphere is, but I use my personal blog as more of a journal or diary and I don't know how comfortable I am with complete strangers reading it. At one point I was curious and Googled my blog's title just to see if it came up with anything and I was surprised at how many people outside of my circle had linked to or posted about it. It was kinda neat, but weird in the way that why would someone I've never met in California be interested in my journal? Since then I've made most of my posts private.
So while I'm not ready to claim my personal blog on Technorati yet, for the purposes of Learning 2.0 I will claim my little work blog, although I would be even more surprised if anyone outside of LCPL read this one!
[L2LCPL]

#13 Del.icio.us

Del.icio.us seems like a handy site and while I haven't signed up for an account I can't promise that I won't in the future. Recently my computer running Windows 98 died and I lost all of my bookmarked sites which was annoying, but to be honest half were saved from college that I had filed away and probably hadn't looked at in years. Perhaps if I was doing a lot of research I could justify using it but at this point it's not necessity.
Also, maybe I'm nit-picky, but I'm not sold on tagging, especially after some of the things I came across in Flickr. In theory I think it's a good idea - in theory, but there doesn't seem to be any real guidelines although I will say del.icio.us seemed better about it than Flickr. What about all the people out there tagging things who can't spell or aren't using commas? Or are just plain mislabeling things? And why do I want to know what other pages these people have saved?

rollyo

Roll out with my rollyo.
Since I recently posted my home pictures, I decided to create my own search using my bookmarked design sites – not that I really “trust” all of these, but I was having a hard time coming up with enough to really make a good search list. I can see where this could be very useful – awhile back when we were going to get a new digital camera we spent quite awhile searching on the internet, reading different reviews, comparing prices, etc. I think at the time it really would’ve been helpful to put all those technology sites we did trust together and search instead of going through each one individually – it certainly would’ve saved time.

library thing

Perhaps I was meant to work in a library because sometimes I just like cataloging things. I use a database on one website to catalog all my vinyl collection and have kept a book log of everything I've read in the last couple years. I had a lot of fun playing around with LibraryThing and decided to input my book log into my library. I find this to be a more resourceful to look at what I've been reading, tag books subjects, and compare them to others with similar reading interests.
The only thing I didn't like about LibraryThing was that the little widget sidebar I created will only display random books from my library when I'd much rather have it display my favorites. It's not fun to see a book I really disliked or am embarrassed I read pop up on my blog as if I endorse it. I guess I will have to trust people to go to my library page and read my actual ratings and reviews of those books!