Web 2.0 Wrap Up

Well I started off quickly and then lost track of my blog for almost a year but here I am finishing up. Even though I already use a lot of Web 2.0 tools I still really enjoyed this project and think that it is a great overall introduction to the interactive web and what it has to offer to our patrons and our library system. Knowing about these websites lets us understand and help our patrons and also introduces us to tools that might make our daily lives easier or more fun!

I think for me the two explorations that will stick with me the most are twitter and flickr. I had never used twitter before this assignment and now see how it can be a really useful communication tool. I also really liked what flickr had to offer and see myself taking a look at that at home with my own digital photographs, but I also feel like I could introduce the website to patrons who are interested in photosharing.

The Web 2.0 awards site in this final exploration was really interesting. I was proud of myself for the sites that I am familiar with that made the list (Hey I know about that one and it won an award!) and found several new ones that look interesting. I was especially intrigued by "I'm Cooked"-- the cooking website where people film themselves making recipes and post them for everyone. I often read a recipe and can't really visualize a step or don't know enough cooking terminology to understand what to do but this would let me have my very own teacher on my computer :-)

I am sure I will continue to explore new Web 2.0 (or 3.0?) tools as they appear and I hope that this assignment will help to promote sharing about new tools or new ideas about ways to use them.

delicious

I just recently started using delicious and see where it can be very useful for not only keeping a list of your favorite sites but also for the ability to see what others with similar interests are using.

The programming team at my branch has had a word document list of good storytime idea websites for several years and a few months ago I decided to put it on delicious instead. It is a website any of us can log into from any computer to get directly to the links... we can all add new ideas to it easily and it is a "fluid" document rather then the word document that never got changed very often. I don't think we have had it long enough to really see if it is going to suit our needs yet but it will be interesting to see if we are more prone to making changes and updating this then we were to the old way.

I really like the idea of social bookmarking because I personally use a lot of different computers in my day to day life and it is just easier then having to remember to bookmark something in several places... or going to start a project only to realize you don't have that website saved on the PC you are sitting at.

Wikis

I think wikis have a lot of potential for use for sharing information. Some of the AACPl wikis are accomplishing this already. The Materials Management Wiki is great because it is updated frequently and is a one stop shopping point for all things related to the topic.

I went to a conference program once where all memo's and unclassified internal documents for a library system were moved to wiki format. This way different departments could add their own memo's etc and it was easy to access for everyone as well as searchable etc. Plus they used free software so it was a cost effective change for them and fairly easy to implement and train staff on.

In the future it might be helpful to use a wiki for sharing information about topics like programming. The blog is a fantastic tool for sharing successes/ posing questions etc, however a wiki would let people update documents of programming plans/crafts to share as well as branch inventories of props etc.

Zoho

I've used google docs before with some success (and a little frustration) but I have never used zoho before. I thought that it was pretty user friendly and set up to be easy to use for those who are familiar with Microsoft products. I tried out the writer and the presentation program (power point) and was impressed with both of them. I was able to find my way around easily and like that the presentation had a notes field (I used a free online presentation project once before that did not do this). The only dissapointing thing that I found is that while you can upload your powerpoint into zoho... it doesn't work the other way around... you can not work on a document in zoho and save it or any changes you make back into a power point file.

RSS Feeds and Readers

Quite a while ago I ventured into the world of feeds and readers using bloglines... I actually liked that website a lot but decided that because I use google applications for so many other things that I would consolidate and use google reader. I subscribe to A LOT of feeds... probably too many. Time to implement a weeding schedule for my blog reader. :-)

I like being able to use google reader to get updates from all of my favorite blogs/website in one place. I follow lots of library feeds from ALA, YALSA etc and also lots of personal blogs of librarians and authors that are not only entertaining but very useful in keeping up with library news, trends, and readers advisory information.

My only issue is that I subscribe to so many that if I don't check it for a week or so it gets so full (right now I have over a thousand unread entries - mostly because of about 600 from the Baltimore Sun which I will take off my list as soon as I am done this post... it's just too much). When it gets full like that sometimes I just click on the "Mark all as read" button and start fresh :-)

With budget constraints and the dropping of several professional journals I think that Feed Readers could be a very good way to keep up with professional reading and information about new books.

Recently I also added some feeds from the AACPL catalog for new items and new young adult items and have been very happy with how it has worked out. I like getting notification of new items... if only I had thought to do that with the new Evanovich I wouldn't be still waiting for the book... I would have known the day it was added to the catalog :-)

Flickr!

I do a lot of photo uploading to the web (to shutterfly, facebook etc) but have never tried Flickr. I took the tour of the website (they call it the "magical feature tour" :-)) and learned a lot. I really liked how well you can organize your photos on this site (it appeals to the librarian in me I guess)... allowing you to have folders and to group those folders into broader categories (by year etc). I also thought the ability to "map" your photos was pretty fun.

Recently I was looking at my cousin's (who is only 14 and much more computer literate than I) facebook account and her photos and noticed she was doing some fun editing with a website called picnik.com and I didn't realize they had anything to do with Flickr but it turns out that this is the website that Flickr uses for editing. I think I might have to open an account and try my hand at it.

It seems that Flickr has just about everything I want in a photo storage/editing/sharing website. I guess the only reason I hold out is because I really like all of my photos to be in one place and the thought of moving all of them from one site to another doesn't seem like so much fun. I can barely remember to get them off my camera and onto my computer :-).

Monday Musings

I haven't really finished any more of the explorations yet but I did look at Flickr for a while on Friday, my hold up with flickr is that I already upload all of my digital photos to another website and don't know if I want to manage things in two places. I think I will breakdown and upload a few to flickr just to get the full exploration experience.

I am twittering away and I am really enjoying the tidbits I am learning about staff from all around the system (some of which I have not been able to match up with names). It's fun to share little things about our day and good to be able to get quick feedback on any topic I want to tweet about.

Surprisingly I have not been spending all of my time 2.0ing but have actually carved out a few minutes to do some reading this weekend... I have been reading the Morganville Vampire series by Rachel Caine (a YA series) and it is entertaining enough and is holding me over until I have my hands on my hold copy of Breaking Dawn. The reviews have been so mixed and I am looking forward to being able to chime in on the internet discussion over whether the book was fantastic or a fantastic failure. That will have to wait until at least tomorrow though because my book did not appear in delivery today. I also read The Adoration of Jenna Fox over the weekend by Mary Pearson and found it really intriguing, I think a lot of teens would enjoy this story. If you like teen books or even if you don't you should check it out :-)

Ok - enough rambling for one day!

Happy Blogging, Tweeting and FBing.