Week 3: Thing # 6 Flickr Mashups

I was finally able to find a Flickr mashup that would create a mosaic for me from my photos. Bighugelabs.com has various Flickr tools, one of which is a mosaic maker. It was very easy to request that the mosaic be from my Flickr account, and that it be made from photos with a particular tag. The size and shape of the mosaic is also selected. I followed the directions and had the mosaic posted to my Flickr account. I was pretty happy with the results, especially since it took me so long to figure out how to get there!

Week 8: #19: Web 2.0 Awards, Instant Bull

I looked at a number of sites on the Web 2.0 awards short list of winners. The site that I selected to explore is Instant Bull, a business site that pulls together links to many sites with business news. At the top of the page is a search box for stock quotes. I put in McCormicks for the spice company, not knowing the ticker symbol, and the box gave me a selection of possible companies to choose from. The result was a "buzz matrix" that showed which message boards had information about the stock and how long ago the message was posted. On the left were links to pertinent messages.
Instant Bull also provides links to news sites like Bloomberg, blogs, weblinks to popular sites like technorati, and finance message boards. The site tries to bundle a lot of financial links into one package. It is geared more toward someone who follows the stock market on the web, instead of someone used to using the high cost services like Value Line. It is a fun site if you like to follow financial message boards and blogs. It is worth considering for inclusion in a list of business websites if a public library has a customer base that follows the stock market.

Week 8: Thing #18, Google Docs

Hi! I opened the Google Docs account, and now I'm trying it out. I love the idea of sharing documents on a site so that they can be edited and reviewed by different people. Actually, from a public library standpoint, the ability to save a document to a website is great. So many times we have customers using public computers who do not have a disc or flashdrive to save their work. Maybe it will be a viable option to steer some customers to Google Docs or Zoho. Then they can access their documents later or email them directly to where they need to go.

Some of the other features like the calendar or slide presentation feature would be great for people who are working from home or are away from their workplace. These same features would work well for volunteer organizations. Volunteers are often involved in many activities, from work to other organizations, and being able to pool information through these web apps may streamline organization.

I'm going to try to post this to my blog ... We'll see if it works!

Week 7: Thing #17 Sandbox Wiki

I had a little trouble with creating the link for the blog in PB Wiki. I finally got the page linked, though. In the process, I thing I created a new page that may be lost or erased somewhere in the wiki. Actually, I went back to the Favorite Blogs page, and I did see the page listed under recent activity. I think I finally got a link to work on the marylandlibrariessandbox blogs here page. Whew! That took some work! I even added a little to a wiki entry. It was fun to try out this program, and it was easy once you learn how to get around.

Week 7: Thing # 16 Wikis

My only previous knowledge of wikis came from using Wikipedia. This encyclopedia is a great help to a reference librarian, even with the caution that comes from knowing that it is not an authoritative source. For this assignment, I enjoyed looking at wikis that were used for subject guides and book reviews. Using a wiki for patron book reviews seems like a great way to get them involved in the library, while providing a service for other users.
The wikis used for conferences or meetings really provide on the spot information for the participants. What's great about those wikis is that the information is provided by participants who may not be organizers of the meeting. They may have great tips that would otherwise not be available to all the participants without the platform provided by the wiki.
The drawback of wikis is the opportunity for misinformation. If a library uses a wiki, I would think that there would have to be individuals who would have to keep track of the postings to try to minimize problems.

Week 6: Thing # 15 Library 2.0

Library 2.0 really seems to center on bringing the tools of the web 2.0 to the public. For a public library this may mean using blogs or other information sharing tools to make the content of the internet more accessible. One of the articles linked in the Wikipedia article quotes a definition by Sarah Houghton: "Library 2.0 simply means making your library's space (virtual and physical) more interactice, collaborative and driven by community needs." ("11 reasons why Library 2.0 exists and matters", www.blyberg.net). Michael Stephens' talks about giving users access to the library services wherever the users are located.
I think that one of the major functions of the Library 2.0 will be to give users access to the internet, through our computers or through interaction with our website. Given all the new tools that users may not be aware of, like del.icio.us and RSS feeds, I think that the libraries must provide users with some education on how to use these tools. Online productivity tools would certainly be useful for many users. Maybe there are ways to use tags to enhance the search capabilities of the a catalog or websites. Certainly there is a lot of information out there, and the library's mission should be to show it's users how to find it. Like Stephens says, it may also be the library's mission to show users how to use the tools that will allow them to shape and use the information.

Week 6: Thing 14, Technorati

Technorati's advanced search helps to narrow the search area for the keywords that are used. When I limited the search to blogs about learning 2.0, the search retrieved blogs that focused on learning and education. The couple of blogs that I looked at appeared to be by teachers who were exploring web 2.0 for the classroom. Searching the tags seemed to have better results than searching the blogs.
Searching for learning 2.0 in the tags retrieved a blog by a librarian in Pittsburgh who was working on library 2.0, http://libraryalchemy.wordpress.com. This blog had a lot more information that I was interested in as a librarian. I was particulary intrigued by the link to a del.icio.us page titled clpmainreference. The page listed links to webpages such as the Smithsonian art page which could be used for reference. The tags were bundled into several categories, like art, social science and ready reference. It was an interesting way to organize websites.
The favorite blogs,top blogs and searches tend to be about technical issues, like engadget and techcrunch, or about entertainment, like boingboing and blogs having to do with movies, music or entertainers. Blogs are still new and people are learning new ways to use them and the other internet tools, so it could be expected that technical topics would be popular on technorati. Entertainment is also a big part of the internet, and technorati would be a good way to find the latest videos and entertainment news.
I had some problems trying to claim my blog and tagging my posts. I will keep trying to get my blog set up right for technorati.