Web 2.0 tools

So I decided to check out the Upcoming events website. On this site you are able to pick a city or area and search for events going on. There is an easy to use calendar where you pick the date. You can narrow the results by event type. You can also add your own event to the list, and create an account to keep track of events you want to attend. I see this having a dual function in libraries. It gives me a place to start when a customer asks about either a particular event, or when they are looking for something free to do with their families. I have gotten several questions in the past about church festivals, and this is another place to look. I also will show this to customers who are traveling. My mom is always looking for festivals or farmers markets in the places we travel to, and since this is a nationwide site it can be used for a current list of things to do. Bonus=there were tons of Obama events listed for Columbus!

Here are some shoes that probably wouldn't be good to travel in, but are pretty fabulous nonetheless.

Power Tools

I have FireFox at home and that's what I use. I like it much better than Safari or IE. IE sucks. But I'm a Mac girl. Anywho, since I was already familiar with most of the "tools" on this page, I looked at Digg. This site reminded me of delicious. People linking sites that they find interesting. A difference is that people can "digg" a link, so you can see how popular the site is with users. Here though, I found stuff I actually wanted to look at, like a youtube video of cats doing cute things. I have used the World Cat site for school alot, and for ILL. And I love it! Great catalog, great interface, great refinement tools on the side.

More Wiki

Once I gained access to Learn & Play's wiki, it was super easy to edit/add stuff. I enjoyed adding a few of my favs to the various lists. Reminds me of one big email quiz your friends send you, even though they know all the answers. The only thing missing was the "who is most likely to respond" question. Anywho, this experience has made me more likely to edit stuff on wikipedia if I notice errors. So know the likelihood of me doing that is .75%.

Wikis

I am no stranger to Wikipedia, I use it frequently and love the clickable links in the text, and how it has information on everything......

But I digress. Taking a look at the wiki sites given for this "thing", I noticed a few things. One being that some of the wikis are very similar to internet directories, like Yahoo's, collections of useful sites about a topic. What I think is an important distinction is that everyone is able to add sites to these lists. On the SJCPL Subject guide wiki, they had a sub-category for jobs, and another for local art events. I think this is a cool way for people to share what resources helped them in their job search, and for artist to have a way to advertise their events. What I liked about the Book Lover's wiki is that different reviews for the same book were shown side-by-side, so you could get various opinions.

I think that wikis could be used by libraries to promote programs, be a programming resource, reader's advisory, and be a place for customers to look for good reliable websites. Much like the webfinders we used to have on our old webpage.

Here's a collection I admire.....

Librarian 2.0

Ok, so I read a few of the articles about web 2.0, and here are some thoughts.....

I like the entusiasm for making sure that the library remains a relative entity for people. I love books, as I'm sure most people who work in libraries do. Libraries should and always will have books. But let's be honest here people, if only dealt with books, would we pass our next levy? Would there even be more than 10 people in the building? Would we have been forced to shut down branches? Let's face the facts that technology is a big part of what today's youth see as "the library." So, for that reason I think it is important to incorporate aspects of Web 2.0 into our services. Schultz said "Libraries are not just collections of documents and books, they are conversations, they are convocations of people, ideas, and artifacts in dynamic exchange." Word up. Now that's the kind of library I want to work in. (I'll stop being corny now.)

Ok, so here are some Dior shoes I found on flickr!

Not so delicious....

Ok, so I looked around at del.icio.us and I do not really see the point of it for personal use. At least not for me. It kind of seems like a glorified Favorites list with subcategories. After looking at the way that some CML divisions are using it, it makes more sense. (And I found a really cool site = internet book database) I can see how having the ability to add categories for sites would be helpful for reference work. So I've slightly changed my mind. However, these shoes are mighty fine!

More fun.....

awwww.....doesn't look as cool on my blog.....boo!