Online tools

Ok, I looked at various online tools. I had WAY too much fun with RedKid (see photo in my blog if you don’t see it in the RSS feed). I also set up accounts and played with both LibraryThing and Shelfari. I want to spend some more time comparing these tools for social sharing of book interests, and see if somehow they could work at the high school level to generate interest in reading books and writing about them.

There are several other tools I looked at but did not set up accounts. I can see where Google Docs & Basecamp would be useful when you need to collaborate with others on a project or list of things, especially if the other people are in remote locations. Zotero seems to have a lot of promise, but it looks like it’s in the early stages. Don’t forget also that OCC has purchased NoodleBib as a tool for students to build bibliographies; I have been demonstrating that in classes. Twitter just seems like way to much information on people (similar to “What are you doing now?” in Facebook) – could be useful, but I sure don’t want to be on the computer 24/7!

IM - AFAIC

Instant messaging is the 2.0 tool I am most familiar with. I used to use AIM (AOL's product) in the corporate world around 2000 or so. It was useful since we were all in scattered cubicles and it could be a way to get a quick response on something.

I am also familiar with the use of Meebo and Trillian for virtual reference. I think it's great that you can now post a question from a web site without having to download and use any specific software. The casual user can just go to a library's web site and post a question. I think it would be useful for OCC to start using this (IMHO). My experience at the Arlington Heights and Evanston libraries was that there was typically not heavy traffic - up to 5% or so of the time you are on the desk. It would never be as sophisticated as a face to face encounter (FTF), but it is a way to connect and get a conversation started with some people. If you want to pose a question at Evanston's site, here's the link for Meebo - just find the 'Ask a question' box, type a question where it says 'Type here', and press enter: EPL research page.

HAND. TTFN & KIT

OMG - I like totally redid this post in IM speak ;-) Translations at: Acronym Dictionary

more on social networking

I had forgotten until recently that I have had a LinkedIn account for some time, but I rarely use it! LinkedIn seems to be very focused on careers/employment/networking, whereas Facebook has a lot of fun stuff. I enjoyed setting up Facebook and seeing who is out there. I like the fact that you can stay logged in for a long time - some days there is very little activity among my 'friends', but I may leave open and check periodically.

Facebook was discussed on ABC news this morning: Facebook Stole My Identity. (The link may have a brief commercial before you get to the video.) Very interesting story.

Social Networking

I signed up for Facebook and added a couple friends. Time will tell if I really use this much in the long term - I think very few of my friends currently are on it. Another tricky issue is finding someone who has a common name - there are a lot of Carol Jacksons out there! However I can see the value to libraries in promoting themselves. Evanston Public has this Facebook page: Evanston Public Library.

There are a lot of other social network sites out there also. It will be interesting to see how it shakes out in the long term. A teacher colleague of mine kept asking me to join WAYN (Where Are You Now?) - a social site focused on travel. I finally joined, but this site is very heavy on advertising :-(

Social Bookmarking

I see many advantages to bookmarks being shared and available on the web. One thought is that the organizer in me wants to go in and clean up the tags (e.g., I don't want to see both 'Dictionaries' and 'dictionary' as tags). If we use this and perhaps make available to the OCC community, someone should monitor it and clean those kinds of things up.

I guess that's the point of many of these Web 2.0 tools is to just go in and get messy with it, publish, whatever, and clean up later. Of course you need to teach people to be responsible and careful with what they publish - you hear the horror stories of people publishing videos/blogs/photos and it comes back to haunt them later.

Flickr and YouTube

I created a Flickr account and added photos. Here are my photosets: www.flickr.com/photos/tedlibrarian/sets/. I've had a digital camera for some time, so I added some photos from my high school library and also from an Earthwatch archaeology dig I did in northern England in the summer of 2006.

I'm not video savvy at all, so I did browse YouTube without setting up an account or adding anything. It was fun - I found some videos that were done last November from the musical that the students and six of us teachers were in at St. Scholastica. If you REALLY want to see that dance routine that we teachers were in, I'll get you the link.

I can see the value to libraries. Were are in such a multimedia based world that libraries can of course use these materials for both promotion and instruction.