LIBR 246-13 Building the Social Library Online

This class is liable to be point of contention for any of the more traditional employeers I might choose, or it could very well be the best selling point I have. Over this semester, I've discovered some interesting new tools and some creative uses for them in a library setting. In the course of this class, I've woven some Web 2.0 elements into my work for better or worse. I say for better because del.icio.us makes it easy to work on several computers while sharing nifty things with friends. I say for worse because now that's one more thing I regularly have to check on.

Of course you need policies for social software tools.  If nothing else, it's a cover your rear tactic.  Okay, so I'm not a fan of having a policy that won't allow me to add friends to the library MySpace page unless they're an author, musician, or teen that I can confirm comes to the library regularly and bears no profanity or otherwise offensive material on their personal pages.  It's social networking!  What good is a MySpace if you take out the network and the social tools?  Still, I have to go for the policy.  When you add real people, you can't predict wh

So it was a bit of a challenge this week for me trying to learn how to work Camtasia and actually producing the screencast, but it was fun.  I think if I enjoyed the sound of my voice more, I would really enjoy this program, but since I don't, I just got the screencast done and called it done.

Podcasting is perhaps the Web 2.0 toy that I'm the least enthusiastic about.  I'm personally not the audio learner so I prefer video over podcasts and a human over video.   It was a neat idea to actually use the podcast to add content for our group project, so it was a really new experience for me.  One, I was recording a podcast and two, I was reporting a topic I'm not exactly rock solid on.  Anyways, in retrospect, it's a fairly neat medium.  If you're getting walked through in a podcast on how to do something, you obviously want to click and try for yourself

Gaming does a lot of "people training" and they do it well.  Okay, so they use a lot of intuitive mechanics to get us to do something while giving us goals to strive for.  It's not practical to give patrons goals like "the more xp/books you earn/check out, the faster you get your new flaming sword/library card."  It would be nice if libraries would apply the intuitive mechanics more often though.  Some libraries do, but some libraries just don't.

I don't think I'd ever cut it as an archivist or squirreled away in some musty storage library.  I enjoy my human interaction so maybe that's why I'm not too fond of AskNow.  I enjoyed chatting with Meebo since I do IMs and the librarian seemed to have more time for me.  They let me know I would have a wait, and I really appreciated that they didn't leave me hanging like AskNow did to me.  Really, they should have something in the chat window that says something like connecting or locating a free librarian.  Some people might enjoy efficient transactions, but I've n

My experiences with virtual reference were similar; however, I found the chat reference better than the commercial tool.  I asked about the GDP of Bahrain which is not a particularly difficult question.  It's pretty straightforward so I'm thinking it wasn't perhaps the best question to test with.  In any case, I had just a few exchanges. 

Apologies for not doing this sooner seeing as I'm one of those people that have had a MySpace and Facebook for years, but mono is not a fun!  Anyways, since this clearly cannot be a real library and I used penguins the last time, I present Penguin Library's MySpace Page.  MySpace is the more flexible of the two, but Facebook is nice in that you know what you're more or less going to.  It's neat, orderly, and well a bit sanitary.  MySpace offers personalizing the space with colors and graphics.  The flip side is t

Wikipedia has been perhaps one of the most debated sources of information on the Internet.  In theory, it's a great idea: anyone can edit the entries.  In theory, it's a bad idea: anyone can edit the entries.  It was the site that brought into question the accuracy of the Internet.  Really, anyone can put up a website.  Wikipedia allowed anyone to edit entries, and in theory, lots of people would be keeping an eye on the site so that wrong information would be spoted by at least twenty people in the world and seek to correct the mistake.   There are people

I had a very busy Saturday packed with Web 2.0 stuff!  I borrowed Guitar Hero I and II and let the anime club have at it after their meeting.  Gaming in the library!  As far as I know, it's a first in the library.  After they started getting bored, I asked them if I should request the game system for another day.  Most of them said yes and I asked if I could post some follow up information on the blog.  Surprise, surprise, hardly anyone actually had steady access to the Internet.  Well that explains why nothing happens on the blog.  So Web 2.0 doesn't