Reflections on 2.0

This has been a really fun project for me. I enjoyed working on the 2.0 Team tremendously. I know that I never would have taken any time to sit down and learn about many of the 23 things had I not done this. Many of my work processes have changed as a result of this discovery program. My bookmarks finally make sense, many of my reviews are organized into Bloglines, notes for meetings, IMing has become an integral part of my day. I am looking forward to incorporating even more of the things into my work.

Web 2.0 Award Winners

I looked at many of these winners. A few are just fun/funny but some are incredibly slick. I love, for example, charting the topsy turvy value of my home on Zillow.com for example. I am a sucker for a good on-line to do list and although I did not join, I am intrigued by backpack's organization options. I also like iGoogle and set up a page for myself. Of course, I am so dependent on the research page that I don't use my iGoogle page very much.

Podcasts & Audiobooks

Podcasts remind me of ye olde college days when professors were kind enough to tape record their lectures. What an incredible relief that was for me in Biology class. They also remind me of the advent of webct and online classes - professor's lectures there in print for me to return to as many times as it took. I can't remember if I read this in this exercise (or in Currents about a prof who is recording lectures and podcasting them), but the concept of allowing people/students to actually sit and listen and absorb the discussion (instead of note taking) resonates with me.

Youtube

I enjoy youtube tremendously. It is incredibly distracting, however. For example, I just did a search for libraries on it and instead of watching incredibly informative educational things, I watched "No Cookies in the Library - Classic Sesame Street." I do recommend it. It is a nice view of how people view libraries and librarians. I'd say it was a snapshot in time, but it probably is still accurate. Check out how the librarian says "library." I also fully enjoyed the librarian's apoplexy. Who hasn't encountered some form of apoplexy in a library, or, themselves been apoplectic?

In any case, I do think youtube, or its counterparts could be useful in instruction or as a tool for tour creation. Being a visual learner, I always appreciate and remember best anything that is shown to me - as opposed to spoken to me. I think there are probably lots of clever ways to incorporate this Thing into our lives - work or otherwise.

Online Apps and Firefox Extensions

(among) My two absolute favorite things in this list of 23. I use zoho faithfully. I have used its database creator to keep track of purchases for the funds I manage. I intend to use it for any minutes I need to share in whatever committees I am on over the course of the next year. It is such a wonderful thing to end the days of email attachments. I am equally enamored of Firefox extensions. The LibX add on has been fantastic. I use it often when I am selecting titles. I love the addition of a drop-down list of search options (delicious, google, open worldcat, amazon, etc.)
Similarly, the blogline subscriber tool has been incredibly useful. I also downloaded the proxy server add-on and use it faithfully from home. I can see how these kinds of add-ons would be very useful to our users. A customized, research ready browser would be an excellent resource to share with our users.

Rollyo

Rollyo:

I must say, I had the same initial reaction to rollyo as I have when I walk into a music store. I draw a complete and utter blank. I cannot recall the name of any music I like. Similarly, I couldn't think of a single thing I like to search. Fortunately, I work with smart people and after talking with one of my colleagues, I was able to get over my search amnesia and I saw the utility. This smart colleague used it to create a customized search for one of her classes. I like this idea very much and in the spirit of Web 2.0 am going to steal this idea (I mean, borrow it).

Library 2.0:

I think the key to this whole 2.0 thing is to experiment, be comfortable with experimenting and failing and/or succeeding and or a little of both and mixing the old good (things we like) with the new good (things we like or even don't like but our users like). How could these 2.0 advances not take our users and ourselves some place better? I say bring it on OCLC.

Wikis 2 & Meebo & Yackpack

I went in and added the url to the title "collection planning." I see the point of wikis. I especially see the point for classes with library instruction components. It would be incredibly useful to collaborate with a select few for a class assignment page (I feel I have already written this, but will keep this in my blog anyway). I use Google chat but hold no loyalty to it and would be happy to use meebo. I have installed it on my blog. I'd like to experiment with adding it to class assignment guides and set up on-line chat times with students throughout the quarter. It may be another venue for helping students with their library research, clarifying which resources to try, etc.

Yackpack, or any kind of voice over internet protocol seems like the perfect solution for all of those crazy back and forths we do (on airplanes) in the system for meetings. I'd like to see the UC system invest the money spent on travel to system-wide meetings into really usable, on-line collaborative meeting tools. I think we can get a lot done online and if using set-ups that allow us to hear each other's voices helps turn the worm on this one, then I'll get a microphone (and some duct tape) for my pc and lead the charge.

Library Thing & Wikis 1

LibraryThing:

I think this is something we can really work with and I would like to see us explore it as an enhancement to our catalog - as Danbury Public has done. I really appreciate the idea of taking controlled vocabulary and running it in parallel with tagging. It provides another access point for our users and, as we used to say in ILL, we're about getting the stuff to the people who need the stuff, so why not help the people get the stuff in whatever ways we can and in ways that make sense to them and not just us.

Wikis 1:

I think wikis have a lot of potential for libraries. Collaborative subject guides, collaborative assignment guides, collaborative training guides. I really haven't reached the "open it up to the world" idea though (for editing) and am leaning more towards the "open it up to this defined user group in the world" idea. I may get there (the world) by thing 23, we'll just have to see.

testing the technorati ping thing

this is a test, only a test, do not adjust your television. uniquorama verbiage for my ping-thing.

Technorati

My pinging was not very successful. I kept getting error messages and then was told I had already successfully pinged. I think I may have delayed too long in checking if my blog updates made it. I'll need to try this again.

Del.icio.us

This is one of my absolute favorite things. Finally, a bookmarking tool that actually has some searching utility. I am a huge fan and use it daily.

Second Life

So, my 9 year old son thinks second life looks pretty cool. He watched the youtube video from SJSU with me. He is all for this technology and already participates in Second Life for kids, or, Club Penguin, for the uninitiated. He's even one of the Penguin "in-world" informants. He has been selected (for his longevity in-world?) to inform about any club members who are being "inappropriate." Specifically, giving out their name, age, sex or inviting people to come visit them. He's a good spy my 9 year old. He's turned in 3 people already. 9 is the best age for informants really - strong sense of right and wrong and fearless in their willingness to call it out. We should all be 9 forever.

I am trying to be very open to this because I think I should be. Honestly, I just don't get it except in cases when you can visually represent a product: a building, a car, an engineering concept, an artistic concept...I am pretty far in the box on this one vis a vis libraries.

What struck me as odd, too, is that many of these second life spaces look pretty much like our 1st life spaces. I wonder why one wouldn't move beyond the 19th century library building facade for example. It's minor but still puzzling. Of course, I don't understand or know enough about this to be too critical, and I would describe myself as more perplexed than critical anyway.

I asked my son to tell me what he likes about the idea of second life. He likes, " that you can walk around, the cool cloud things and the fact that you can talk to people." He also likes it because you can construct things and move things in the ways you want.

This is the future library demographic and he is using Club Penguin now, so, although I am not convinced, he seems like he is.

My Space

I cannot say that I am a big fan of Myspace. I can rationally, logically see how it would be a good tool for reaching library users and have read about librarians using it and having outreach success with it. I'm just not in the user population that would have a Myspace account. I think I may be too anti-social or particular-social for the social networking aspects of this kind of thing.

Big air dogs!

Big air dogs!
Originally uploaded by Rick Takagi

I'm a sucker for dogs doing tricks and this one looks like a Labrador. I have not changed this photo. It has a CC license asking for attribution and no derivative works. So, it is by Rick Takagi and I have not altered it in any way, shape or form.

And, yes, this also felt like a weird thing to do, but I am also (largely) over that feeling, too.

Onward.

test post from Flickr

hoodoos_blog
Originally uploaded by pkscott4

Set up a Flickr account and uploaded and made public this photo. Gave permission to Flickr to upload to my blogger account. Uploaded it successfully.

The picture was taken in April 2007 at Bryce National Monument.

Overall, I had a weird feeling of discomfort when selecting the option to make the image I loaded into Flickr public. I'm over it now, but thought it worth documenting for posterity.

Now, for fun, I'm going to find someone else's photo and upload it and see if that also feels weird.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Added Library Thing to Blog

In prep for Library Thing entry, added the app that allows books to show up in blog.

Testing Embedding Google Spreadsheet

Dates for Drop-Ins (Personalized)

testing blog tracking exercise set-up

just checking things out in prep for Exercise 3 RE: keeping tracking and more about blogging.

Zotero Word App. Fixed

Smart friend found the hidden application folder and successfully installed word add on for Zotero. Played a little bit with importing citations and setting up bibliography. Besides reported bugs (extra parens), seems to be okay - on first pass. Not sure if the hidden applications file is unique to my set-up or if it is standard to all (?) PC users. If so, problematic for easy-use, easy-install free bib/cite service.

Download Issues

Tried downloading zotero word file several times with no luck. Instructions ask to place file into non-existent path. Will check in with others on Tuesday to see if can get it to work.

Test Post

Saturday June 2nd, 2007

Blog work: tried adding chat to the site. Google Talk attempt was poorly executed and ended up deleting it. Signed up for Meebo and added the html code to the blog - seems to work but have yet to master logging off of Meebo without shutting down browser altogether. Certain I am missing the obvious. Oh, well, will ask smart friends and/or read more and figure it out.