23 Things: #23

Thing 23 completed...

This program generally has been an effective exercise in exploring tools and resources that fall under the rubric of Web 2.0. I think the expectation that we as librarians should be familiar with web tools that some of our patrons are using is reasonable and I appreciate InfoPeople's presenting Helene Blowers' program to us in this format.

One thing that would have been useful is the provision of guidelines for how much time one may have expected to complete the program. Maybe even for some of the Things, like Flickr, something like, if you just want to explore what's there, spend x amount of time, but if you really want to dig into it, upload photos with tags, spend y amount of time.

This last observation is not directed at all at InfoPeople but at library administrators and managers. Asking staff to complete 23 Things is fine. But when one more task is loaded on the front end, does anything get taken off the back end? If not, even staff who are open to exploring these technologies feel like they're saddled with one more thing to do, one more thing added to one's workload. And this feeling potentially dampens one's enthusiasm for undertaking the project.

23 Things: #22

Thing 22 completed. At the suggestion of our system's Technical Services Manager, I e-mailed to all computer-book selectors the process for setting up an RSS feed for Library Journal's Computer Media Reviews. This instruction tied well into Thing #7 which was all about the RSS Feed and Bloglines.

23 Things: #21

Thing 21 completed. Went to Yahoo! Podcasts, searched for "libraries" and found LibVibe: The Library News Podcast. After scanning episode descriptions, listened to the Aug 13 podcast. An interesting item was the report from Wisconsin indicating that library users and non-users are not enthusiastic about libraries' instituting new technologies (e.g., IM, podcasts, MP3 check-outs). A spokesperson who worked on the survey suggested that promoting new technologies should tie in with the "public library brand," the core mission of providing patrons with information and materials that they enjoy.

Note: Yahoo! Podcasts will not be around for long. There is a banner announcement on the site indicating that the site is closing down Oct 31.

23 Things: #20

Thing 20 completed. Viewed library-related videos on YouTube such as No Cookies in the Library/Sesame Street. Other video-sharing sites? Here are a few:

purevideo.com
stupidvideos.com
veoh.com
video.aol.com

23 Things: #19

Thing 19 completed. Went to Google Maps and saved a map showing the running route between my residence and my place of work in My Maps.

23 Things: #18

Thing 18 completed. Logged into Google Docs. Created a document and shared with members of my work unit who are now listed as collaborators. Say, weren't collaborators shot during the war? :-) But seriously, this tool has great potential for sharing work.

23 Things: #17

Thing 17 completed. Registered on InfoPeople's "Our 23 Things" wiki and added an entry to the Twitter category.

23 Things: #16

Thing 16 completed. Read What Is Wiki and explored the three links offered on that page. Our library system and consortium each has a staff-access wiki but their use appears somewhat limited right now.

23 Things: #15

Thing 15 completed.

Wikipedia's Web 2.0 was a bit too technical for me in parts, but one thing that stuck was the mention of Amazon's having made user comments available predates Web 2.0 as a term or concept.

Walt Crawford's Library 2.0 and "Library 2.0" was tedious to plow through although some of his overarching perspectives were noteworthy as I interpret them:

• "Library 2.0" is unnecessarily confrontational and potentially alienating;
• implying that anything previous to "Library 2.0" is worthless is throwing the baby out with the bathwater;
• over-emphasis on the technology side of Library 2.0 may increase the chasm between the haves and have-nots among our patrons;
• "Library 2.0" advocates who describe their patrons as tec-savvy may not necessarily be describing all their patrons;
• "Library 2.0" doesn't directly address one of the library's most primary missions: circulating books and other materials.

I do think, though, that when Walt criticizes Talis for its assertion that Amazon and Google threaten the relevance of today's libraries, he may be underappreciating the influence that these resources, especially Google, have on the public and the public's perception of libraries.

23 Things: #14

Thing 14 completed. Technorati doesn't do a very good job of explaining what they do or how they do it. There is a brief description on the About Us page. The term, World Live Web, is interesting. My Technorati search did show clearly, though, that its results included my search term matched in tags attached to postings, blogs, videos, and photos.

23 Things: #13

Thing 13 completed. Read the Wikipedia article on social bookmarking. Created a Del.icio.us account and added and tagged four websites.

http://del.icio.us/library_dragon

23 Things: #12

Thing 12 completed. Rolled my own search tool for movie reviews. A couple of downsides I see to this resource:

• searching on websites that one includes in a search tool still results in too many false drops
• Rollyo's insertion of sponsored links in the middle of search results is a little off-putting.

http://rollyo.com/library_dragon/movie_reviews/

23 Things: #11

Thing 11 completed. Cataloged two books on LibraryThing.
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/library_dragon

23 Things: #10

Thing 10 completed. Listened to Helene Blowers' podcast. Explored The Generator Blog, Letter James, and FD Toys. Wow! Too much fun! Noticed the Framer tool in FD Toys and given my casual interest in philatelics was immediately attracted to it and created this image. (Original photo posted to Flickr as part of completing these 23 Things.)

23 Things: #9

Thing 9 completed. Signed up for a Twitter account and entered my first message of fewer than 140 characters. Read the Twitter blog post, A Guide to Twitter in Libraries, which was helpful, particularly the links to library Twitter accounts.

23 Things: #8

Thing 8 completed. Added an RSS feed from Jenny Levine's Shifted Librarian blog and while I was at it, added a feed from a library-related blog not included on the list: Sarah Houghton-Jan's Librarian in Black.

23 Things: #7

Thing 7 completed quite some time ago. I created a Bloglines RSS feed with Library Journal when they began delivering computer-book reviews through this medium rather than including them in their print issues.

23 Things: #6

Thing 6 completed. Reviewed libraries listed by InfoPeople. The annotation for Denver Public Library, "It's a cool site, but try and find a link to them [podcast stories and interviews] on their homepage!" has me puzzled. I had no trouble finding the podcast page which is linked from DPL Downloads in the nav bar on the homepage.

23 Things: #5

Thing 5 completed. Read the webpage on Flickr mashups and third party sites. The book, Flickr Hacks, referenced on the page is in our library's collection. Yay for us!

23 Things: #4

Thing 4 completed. Seven images uploaded to Flickr. Six of these are quick-and-dirty scans of black-and-white photos I took back in the mid-eighties.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_dragon/

Lemme know whatcha think!

23 Things: #1-3

Thing 1:
Completed. See Aug 14 post.

Thing 2:
Completed. Sorta obvious since I'm posting to my blog! :-)

Thing 3:
Completed registering this blog this morning by e-mailing the URL to infopeeps@gmail.com.

TypePad, Amazon, and Blogger

TypePad has worked out an arrangement whereby its users are able to legally post images from Amazon to their blogs. Will Blogger do the same?

Participating in Infopeople's Our 23 Web 2.0 Things

I created this blog to participate in Infopeople's Our 23 Web 2.0 Things as required by the administration of the library where I work.

One message I took away from Helene Blowers' webcast was her emphasis on the need for administrators/managers to motivate staff to participate by providing adequate, even generous, incentives.

Whether this was heard by our managers, much less implemented, is, imho, highly debatable to put it kindly. From where I sit, anyway.