Flicker Possibilities 6A1

Since the libary is my classroom, I’m going to discuss how Flickr can help us. Libraries lend resources of all kinds. With monies from local and state government, we provide full-text online databases, books, print journals, newspapers, magazines, DVDs, VHS, CDs, etc., etc. That’s a lot of “stuff”. And, we know a lot. What librarian doesn’t love to share information, stories, and/or news? Yet, we don’t share images about our libraries or ourselves. We don’t post photos of what’s going on, of a patron hitting that one millionth check-out, a class, an exhibit, students using the library, or patrons walking out of the library with armloads of books and DVDs.

Flickr could change all this if we try to take advantage of sharing who we are. Flickr can be a great public relations tool. Why not advertise what we do since we are so successful?

Wiki Whine-tasting

Ok, I have posted and lost material. I have saved and lost material. I finally found out that I should “save and publish” as I go along; I guess “save” just isn’t good enough anymore. And, my lesson plan seems too long, because I couldn’t extend the margins, but had to go with what was there. I mean, what’s up with this? If we’re encouraged to pick a background, at least we should be able to choose a font, font size, spacing, alignment, etc., etc.

And, when I tried to post comments to my classmates’ blogs, I had trouble as well, even though I was signed in. And, to make matters worse, I posted my wiki lesson plan here and not in wikispaces. And that took time to cut and paste and paste and paste.

I must have been in glitch heaven tonight. I don’t know what computer and social networking gods I have offended, but right now, I say, I am innocent!

Great article: “The Battle for Wikipedia’s Soul”

I just read this article from The Economist discussing whether wikipedia should ban articles on trivial subjects such as fictional character biographies from Pokemon. The dispute is between inclusionists (those who believe that stricter editorial policies will dampen contributor enthusiasm) and deletionists (those who believe stricter editorial polices are needed and that wikipedia needs to be more selective).

Click here to read more about this battle.

Working on a wiki

It’s been quite an experience working on the wiki, and at first I wasn’t sure how to edit or post questions. I’m still a bit unclear as to the most current final draft, but I’m sure I’ll figure this out.

In my group, we are exploring RSS. When I looked at the wikipedia definitions, my eyes just started rolling. It’s worse than getting driving instructions. The explanations for RSS and XML, for example, are definitions of overload–just way too complicated.

Wikis at work will, I hope, save us time. We’re starting to look for a replacement for the Acquisitions Specialist at work. We’ve discussed and changed the job description, I wonder if it would have been more advantageous to do this on a wiki. And, I’ll have to read about setting-up an internal wiki.

Adding RSS Feeds and Blogrolls

I’m quite proud of myself. This was straightforward and I focused on collection development blogs. I even set up a list of blogs I thought others might want find interesting. I got so carried away that I added the How Stuff Works website. This is a remarkable and fun place to just take a breather and poke around. Well, I’m on a roll (so to speak), so I’m pressing on while I’m successful.

Learning via RSS

For most of my professional working life, I’ve never had time to read journals  about collection development, cataloging, reference, information literacy, serials, etc. Using RSS will be so innovative because it’s a click on a link, and I’m off and learning. It just seems easier to go to the Reader then to pull out several journals, read, get interrupted, find your place, more interruptions, and suddenly it’s the end of the day, and I haven’t read more than a few paragraphs. Now, much of this is online, so I’m delighted to have an opportunity with Google Reader to start reading. Having access to information in my field will keep me up-to-date. Also, I know my colleagues are in the same position, and I can post some of the highlights on my blog.

Another idea is to set-up a collection development blog. Once I do this, I’d like to meet with department chairs and make a presentation to division meetings about using RSS to receive information about new resources in the library. I’d also like to see the library subscribe to RSS feeds on the home page from local community sources, such as the newspapers, college news, and other student-related information.

What a week

For some reason, this week was time-consuming and difficult. I’m not sure if it was trying to do too much to set-up my new social world. And now that I’ve set up these pages, I need to keep using these immediately or I’ll lose my way.

I am looking forward to trying out these new tools with my colleagues. I’d like to implement the 23 (or lessen it to 10) step program in the library, but I’m sure I’ll meet with heavy resistance from some.

I’ll borrow Walter Cronkite’s line for tonight, “and that’s the way it is”.

Social Bookmarking Plan 4 D 2

Social bookmarking is just a wonderful tool for librarians. I have so many bookmarks that my bookmarks have bookmarks (or marklets). I can see so many uses for this both for myself and for my colleagues.

First of all, the reference librarians are always emailing new websites. Just bookmarking what we think will help a class or that should be put on our “Websites by subject” will save us time from reading a number of emails daily. Blogging will not even reduce our time management as social bookmarking. The possibilities are endless. We can send our links to the faculty by subject and they can alert their students to websites that may help their research. We can also use the social bookmarks as links in our online research guides.

Secondly, I’d like to share cataloging and social networking bookmarks with our Technology Coordinator as she shares some of these same professional interests.

Many of my friends are former colleagues who are catalogers, librarians, or in the book world. We could all save so much time if we had a name for ourselves so we could check on our newly added sites.

And, as I look at websites from my colleagues, I’ll be able to spend more time reading these than looking at emails suggesting that I explore a particular website. This is a great way to keep learning.

RSS Resource Page 4 C 1

I have had tremendous fun doing this. I must have spent the last hour figuring out what I want to load on this page and do I dare delete anything (too late, I already deep-sixed photos)? My page is titled “A Peep’s Page”. Here’s the URL: http://www.pageflakes.com/JoansPages/22294847

Life in the not-so-fast lane

It’s been an almost arduous experience trying to learn and use all of this new technology. I’m trying to figure out how to get around the limitations of font, spacing, etc. Also, I fear that as we move from one new “experience” to another, I won’t remember what I’ve just used. In tech services in the library, work never stops; it just keeps piling on. I’ll have to remember to take my tech break and keep messing around with all of this.