Play Time!!

Inspired by the activities that I have chronicled on this blog and the work of Meredith Farkas et al. and Helene Blowers, I am starting a training program among our staff and faculty on web 2.0/library 2.0.

The program consists of me presenting a quick and simple overview tutorial on the topic of the month (June will be on blogging) during a library staff meeting. At the end of the instruction session, I will present the group with an activity for them to do on their own before our next session in July. I will also provide weekly emails chronicling the discoveries that the staff have made through their own "play time" with the technology. Then, once a month, we will all gather together for a "play time" where we can discuss the technology and practice using it ourselves.

I announced this activity at our staff meeting today and it was well received though with some apprehension by our more tech inexperienced staff. I encouraged them that this was a low stress exercise that was focused on the play aspect and the need to have fun with things we find intimidating. I hope to detail some of my observations through this blog.

Wiki Mania

Of some of the web 2.0 applications, Wikis have been the least approachable for me. Blogs I understand very easily but wikis have a element that I am just not comfortable with. I think it is the edit aspect that puts the html scare into me and makes me think that one false move will cause the whole page to come crashing down. For sure, I need to play with this technology and get over this apprehension that I have. To this end, I have created a wiki through PBWiki. I am not for sure what I will be doing with this wiki but hopefully I can make it a productive and useful tool. Otherwise, I can trash it right?

Library 2.0 - What it means to me

I am good with noticing buzzwords and trends but terrible with definitions and even understanding. If you asked me what Library 2.0 is I could give you examples of 2.0 environments (Flickr, MySpace, Wikis, Blogs, etc.) but that doesn't mean I could define it. I am forced to dig deeper though and ask myself what makes these things fall into the category of Library 2.0. Through this exercise, I see three things that make up a 2.0 technology.

1. One touch - With a click of a mouse or touch of an enter button, your contribution to the web is published and viewable. No middle man, no publisher, no editor.

2. Simplicity - The technology is not shrouded in code and tech-speak so as to inhibit practitioners in other areas from using the technology for their own purposes. In other words, most users can teach themselves the technology with little effort. The product is high end and the labor is low.

3. Social - With most of the 2.0 technologies, there is a component to contribute to the technology through comment boxes, friend lists, or bookmark clouds. What I produce can be shared with others, critiqued by others, or enjoyed by others and that is part of its purposes. The goal is for collaborations, conversations, and community.

All of this may sound simplistic to the professional but the list helps me to view Library 2.0 from a perspective where I can analyze its true value above a buzz word or trend.

My Favorite Blogs

Here is my list of favorite blogs. In no particular order.

- Agent B Files
- Jesus Creed
- D.C. Sports Bog
- Dan Shanoff
- Crunchy Con
- Mavs Courtside View
- Ubiquitous Librarian
- What I Learned Today
- Kept Up Academic Librarian

Technorati Top 100

I recently glanced over the Technorati Top 100 blogs to see if I can observe any trends. Here are some of my musings -

- A sports blog didn't show up until number 76 (AOL Fanhouse). I subscribe to several sports blogs and find sports to be a natural blogging topic. I would have thought that there would be more sports blogs on the list.
- Only two of my subscriptions showed up on the top 100. The Freakonomics Blog at 61 and Stereogum at 80.
- It looks as if Technorati determines popularity based on number of unique links to blogs and by the number of people who have marked a blog as a favorite. What about subscriptions? Wouldn't a good way of determining popularity be to determine how many people subscribe to the blog? Maybe since there is such a wide variety of blog feed readers there is no way to determine the number of subscribers. Surely there is a way from the blog itself to chronicle subscriptions. Maybe I should seek my answers in one of the many tech blogs out there that are so popular.
- The blogs on the list that tempted me to subscribe were PostSecret and 43 Folders.

Del.icio.us vs. Zotero

During this school year, I have used Zotero as a research tool more than the citation tool it is usually marketed to be. Why I enjoy using Zotero more than say Del.icio.us is Zotero's ability to capture citation information from web pages such as library catalogs, electronic databases, and Amazon. With a click of my Del.icio.us tag button I can capture a URL and tag a web page but I don't have a capture of the citation information. Plus the subscription/firewall nature of the databases limits my ability to quickly link to a database article from a remote location making my bookmarks in Del.icio.us kind of useless. In Zotero I may even get an abstract of an article even if I can not access it at the time. Some people may have much more experience with social bookmarking than I do so they may find Del.icio.us easier. To me, in certain specialized situations, Zotero can't be beat.

Librarian on Location: Live Blogging 4-23-08

2:15 p.m. Finally, back on the Librarian on Location beat after weeks being preoccupied with Are You As Smart as A Freshman? (see below). I am located at my favorite spot so far - the Soda Shoppe. Good location to talk with professors and students are still in academic mode when they walk by me as opposed to being in social life mode at places like the cafeteria and the dorms.

2:21 p.m. Spoke with a professor face to face who had requested a journal in which he was a contributor. I was able to explain the accessibility of the journal without the confines of the email medium. Face time makes a difference.

2:31 p.m. More professors. One wanted to drop off his papers for me to grade. Now there is an idea. Trading jobs with professors. The librarian grades papers while the professor handles research needs. I wonder how that would work?

2:50 p.m. Whenever I am "On Location" I work on Library 2.0 things like wikis, blogs, tagging, etc. I consider this program kind of a Library 2.0 exercise so I think it relates. I am going through The 23 Things and 5 Weeks To A Social Library.