Week 9: Best of Web 2.0

This was a fun one! First I looked at Yelp, because I had not heard of it and am a big fan of checking reviews before I spend money on a place (although obviously you can’t always trust the reviews). It didn’t have a huge number of reviews, but was easy to use, and I did discover a bubble tea place close to my house that I wasn’t aware of. I also saw a review by one of my co-workers!

I also looked at HotPads.com. Some really nice features there – I liked the cartoony visuals and the map zoom. There were a couple of things I couldn’t figure out easily, like how to close the “more information” window about a property (although maybe that was just me as it seemed obvious once I found the “minimize” arrow). Also, there didn’t seem to be a way to scroll up and down on the map. I learned that there are some very expensive rentals out there! And that lots of people are trying to sell their homes!

 

Week 9: Online productivity tools

I think for my test document, I’ll go ahead and write my Week 9/Thing 18 blog post here. Then I can try publishing it directly from Zoho. So far I like it! It doesn’t look all that slick, but the functionality seems to be there! I especially like the ability to comment in-text. I think I’ll try this next time I need to use an online word processor. In the past I have used Google Docs, which I like in general, but it doesn’t allow for “callout” style comments as far as I know. Also, I find the formatting to be a little funky when importing/exporting to Word, so I’ll be interested to see how Zoho compares.

OK, now to test the publish feature!

It worked! Didn’t export the tags the way I thought it would, but that’s my only complaint. Oh, and I see it’s “scheduled” to be published 4 hours from now. I wonder why that is?

 

Week 7: Wikis (Thing 17)

I’m pleased with our MSD and FAQ wikis, but what would REALLY make them successful is if people add to them! That’s the thing about wikis – they are most useful when the community really contributes and updates them frequently, which is kinda the whole point. So I will personally do my best to keep this in mind and to add new entries as I see fit. I also need to create shortcuts to the MSD wiki on my personal computer and the reference desk computer. I have issues with bookmarks. There are so many that I never remember what’s there or how to find it, tags notwithstanding.

Along with Google Docs, I have found wikis to be helpful for short-term collaborations (ad-hoc committees, etc.), but no group leaps out at me as a good candidate for a dedicated internal wiki. Again, I don’t think a wiki would hurt, but it seems to me that there really has to be a need for it first, or it won’t be used. Hmm, maybe for an internal library instruction group…I’ll have to let that little idea germinate to see if it goes anywhere.

 

Week 7: Wikis (Thing 16)

This week we looked at several examples of library wiki use. I can certainly see how they would be beneficial for public libraries, both in building communities for their users and for collaboration among staff, particularly when those staff are spread among multiple branches in a large library system. That said, as an academic librarian, I am of course most interested in the examples of wiki use that are most relevant for academic libraries. Among those, there seem to be three categories: wikis for staff, wikis for professional organizations/associations, and wikis for outreach/instruction.

In terms of professional/organizational wikis, I thought the Library Success wiki was very nice as a shared resource for professional development. I wasn’t even aware of all the ALA wikis! I’m guessing I have heard announcements about them multiple times, but I seem to have ignored them. I have added one to my RSS feeds (Tech Casting of course!) to see how often it’s updated.

I see that some libraries are doing nice things with wikis as subject guides. One thing I didn’t see many examples of were libraries using wikis for user FAQs like we are doing here with Boatipedia! Anyone aware of similar pages at other academic libraries? Maybe I should add it to the LibSuccess wiki page.

 

Week 5: Library Thing

I’m a little out of order here. I had to wait until I was home to add some books to my LibraryThing library – much easier when you can just look at the shelf. I really loved the LibraryThing interface. It was super simple and intuitive, really good design in my opinion. My only complaint is that a couple of things did not display properly in Safari. For instance, I tried to review a book, and the pop-up window appeared halfway out of my screen with no apparent way to move it down to where I could access it. I have to admit that, while I’ve searched it before and have certainly heard LOTS about it, this was my first time actually adding books to LibraryThing. Somehow I didn’t realize or had forgotten that you can just look things up in Amazon or the Library of Congress, which is much easier than typing in all these manual entries! The keyword search worked well, and only let me down on one book. It was fun to go through a shelf and rediscover some of my collection, but jeez – it would be a whole lotta work to add all of my books. I do love that you can sort by author, title, LC classification, pretty much anything you want! And the cover displays are nice as well. Overall, I am really impressed.

See my catalog 

 

Week 6: Library 2.0

Oh my. There are a lot of issues raised in the debates on Library 2.0. Among them are:

• the importance of studying and consulting our users
• intelligent implementation of technology
• keeping up with change & staying relevant in the face of “competition” from the Web

On one hand, I do find the trendiness of certain ideas within the library profession a little odd and off-putting. Do we really have to discuss the same things over and over again at every conference and on every blog? Maybe other fields are this way too? There does seem to be a certain level of desperation to the Library 2.0 thing.  I think someone called it a “life-preserver” on one of the blog posts, but now I can’t remember which. I really don’t think we need to be so fearful. Our jobs may change, but we’ll adapt. Libraries will change, but information is not going anywhere!

On the other hand, I can also see that this label, as Meredith Farkas calls it, can be useful in summing up some important themes that libraries are considering at this particular point in time. So in that way, it serves a purpose – to get us thinking about wider trends in the creation, organization, and consumption of information, and where we fit into all of that. It’s a good discussion to have.

 

Week 6: Technorati

So I signed up for Technorati account and “claimed” my blog. I looked at the widgets, but didn’t think there was much point in embedding something that shows how many blogs are linking to mine, considering that this is the message I see in WordPress: “This dashboard widget queries Google Blog Search so that when another blog links to your site it will show up here. It has found no incoming links… yet. It’s okay — there is no rush.” I like how comforting they are.

I am very wary of discovering new blogs to subscribe to since they already suck up a significant amount of time, so I tried not to look too closely. I did, however, find myself following a link to the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince trailer. Technorati is a nice site, but it makes me feel a little info overload anxiety!

 

Week 6: Del.icio.us

I took a look at the del.icio.us boatwright account, and within seconds, had added a new site to my own del.icio.us account using the tag “lifehacks.” The site, in case you’re interested, is The 20 Healthiest Foods for Under $1.

I have been thinking for awhile about adding del.icio.us links to my subject guides. That way, when I encounter a new website that would be useful for say, sociology research, I don’t have to go back and update my guide; I just tag it “sociology.” I had been holding off from doing this, since it seems that our undergrads are really not aware of del.icio.us (based on some small, informal surveys), but it’s probably worthwhile just for the sake of efficiency! I’d love to hear what others think.

Oh, I see that my “Wordle” finished loading while I was typing this.

 

Thing 12: Rollyo

I had some trouble will Rollyo. For example, it wasn’t allowing me to make it public for some reason? Also, I tried pasting in the code to embed a search box in my blog, but when I published the post, it removed most of the HTML. I’m not patient enough to toy with it for long, so it has to work the first time around!

I did like some of the other Rollyo searches I tried though.

 

Image Generators

This was fun! I really hadn’t played around with these tools much before, and I think they would be great for library outreach and marketing. I especially liked PhotoFunia and the Sign Generator, but the Flickr toys were cool too. Here’s one of my dog, Winston, created in PhotoFunia.