Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Post Script
An interesting note is that a YouTube video that I viewed and blogged about in July showed up in an article in the 8/13/07 edition of Hotline ("Report Critical of Police In UCLA Taser Incident"). Apparently, many other people were disturbed by the video, also.
Now we have more Things beyond 23 to explore. Let the fun begin (again)!
Now we have more Things beyond 23 to explore. Let the fun begin (again)!
Follow Up
This has been a welcome opportunity to have the chance to explore various new web technologies in an organized way. Having the 23 Things presented to us with all the information, links, and activities, has made learning about them so much easier than trying to search out all that information on our own. While I don't plan to incorporate everything into my daily routine, many of the things could be quite useful. Certainly, it is good to be familiar with them, and it gets us off to a great start in our continuing efforts to stay current.
Now, not only do we get to learn and use the new technologies for ourselves, but we can also dazzle all of the cool twenty-first century library patron-dudes with our brilliant and amazing techno-babble (excuse me, techno-literacy)!
Now, not only do we get to learn and use the new technologies for ourselves, but we can also dazzle all of the cool twenty-first century library patron-dudes with our brilliant and amazing techno-babble (excuse me, techno-literacy)!
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Week 9
Video, Podcasts, and Downloadable Audio
Video
YouTube is one of a number of sites, including Yahoo!Video and GoogleVideo and many others which offer a place to view, to upload, and to share videos; and at least some of them organize the videos into categories, which helps a lot. Besides a lot of silly videos, there were some beautiful nature videos as well as a disturbing one of police zapping someone with a taser in a library. Some YouTube categories are Comedy, Entertainment, Pets & Animals, News & Politics, Sports, Travel and Places, etc.
Podcasts
Three podcast directories at which I looked are Podcast.net, Podcastalley.com, and Yahoo Podcasts. On Podcast Alley, I found several good sites which relate to books, some which deliver reviews and/or author interviews, and some which deliver selections from books themselves.
Downloadable Audio
YPL's Digital Books page offers both e-books and audio books to be borrowed electronically. The page is user-friendly in that one can search by genre or subject or a collection as well as by author, title, or ISBN. It is great that so many titles are now offered in electronic format!
Video
YouTube is one of a number of sites, including Yahoo!Video and GoogleVideo and many others which offer a place to view, to upload, and to share videos; and at least some of them organize the videos into categories, which helps a lot. Besides a lot of silly videos, there were some beautiful nature videos as well as a disturbing one of police zapping someone with a taser in a library. Some YouTube categories are Comedy, Entertainment, Pets & Animals, News & Politics, Sports, Travel and Places, etc.
Podcasts
Three podcast directories at which I looked are Podcast.net, Podcastalley.com, and Yahoo Podcasts. On Podcast Alley, I found several good sites which relate to books, some which deliver reviews and/or author interviews, and some which deliver selections from books themselves.
Downloadable Audio
YPL's Digital Books page offers both e-books and audio books to be borrowed electronically. The page is user-friendly in that one can search by genre or subject or a collection as well as by author, title, or ISBN. It is great that so many titles are now offered in electronic format!
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Week 8
Web-based Apps
I looked at some online productivity tools (word processors, spreadsheets, presentations with slide shows) including Zoho Writer, Google Docs, Think Free, and gOffice. Some of the featured presentations given on Zoho Show had some incredible nature photos. The fact that one can do these kinds of applications online now is amazing.
I created a zoho account and tried out zoho writer and some of its associated tools (sheet, show, wiki, notebook, planner, creator, chat, and meeting). In zoho writer, I like the fact that it has a template library, a button to publish to blog, a button to share, and many other useful features.
Discovering Web 2.0 Tools
It was interesting to see that we have already explored many of the award winning sites on the short list of Web 2.0 award winners. I tried Pandora, but was disappointed that they don't have any classical music yet. Last.fm was more my style. Be Green Now, a philanthropy site also looks interesting.
From the category "City Guides & Reviews," I chose to explore Yelp, the first place winner in that category. Trying various cities, both large and small (from Pittsburgh to Volant, PA), I was surprised to find information even on the small towns. I liked having the categories to choose from, such as "Arts and Entertainment" and "Restaurants." The options to look at a map; see nearby businesses, hotels, parks, etc.; link to a business's web page; read and write reviews; bookmark; send to a friend or a phone; etc.; make this a very handy city guide site.
I looked at some online productivity tools (word processors, spreadsheets, presentations with slide shows) including Zoho Writer, Google Docs, Think Free, and gOffice. Some of the featured presentations given on Zoho Show had some incredible nature photos. The fact that one can do these kinds of applications online now is amazing.
I created a zoho account and tried out zoho writer and some of its associated tools (sheet, show, wiki, notebook, planner, creator, chat, and meeting). In zoho writer, I like the fact that it has a template library, a button to publish to blog, a button to share, and many other useful features.
Discovering Web 2.0 Tools
It was interesting to see that we have already explored many of the award winning sites on the short list of Web 2.0 award winners. I tried Pandora, but was disappointed that they don't have any classical music yet. Last.fm was more my style. Be Green Now, a philanthropy site also looks interesting.
From the category "City Guides & Reviews," I chose to explore Yelp, the first place winner in that category. Trying various cities, both large and small (from Pittsburgh to Volant, PA), I was surprised to find information even on the small towns. I liked having the categories to choose from, such as "Arts and Entertainment" and "Restaurants." The options to look at a map; see nearby businesses, hotels, parks, etc.; link to a business's web page; read and write reviews; bookmark; send to a friend or a phone; etc.; make this a very handy city guide site.
Week 7
This week, I read all about wikis, looked at quite a few, and added entries to Favorite Animals and Favorite Vacaton Spots on the Learning 2.0 SandBox wiki. Some things for which wikis could be used in libraries include book clubs, subject pathfinders, author pathfinders (if you like ---, then try ---, ---, and ---), announcing programs and getting feedback, sharing ideas between libraries on problems and practices, and more.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Week 6
Tagging, Folksonomies & Technorati
Del.icio.us
http://del.icio.us/
Delicious is a social bookmarking site which allows people to bookmark a web page and add tags to categorize the bookmarks. Links to articles blogs, music, recipes, and more can be placed and accessed from any internet computer.
I opened a delicious account and added a few items and tagged them. This could be a useful tool to share information with a group as well as to access your own bookmarks from any internet computer.
Technorati
http://www.technorati.com/
Technorati is the leading search tool and authority for blogs, the leading monitor of the world of weblogs. It indexes the live web and searches blogs in real time. I was not too excited about this site, perhaps since I prefer to read more factual type material as opposed to primarily opinions.
Perspectives on Web 2.0, Library2.0, and the future of libraries
Yes, libraries are changing, and they are changing fast. The web is a huge part of libraries now, and thus the ideas from Web 2.0 are relevant to us. While integrating new ideas, we must be careful to change in ways that serve the community but not lose the essential qualities that make a library valuable.
Such activities, as mentioned in perspective #3 by Chip Nilges, as tagging and personal cataloging by non-professionals might be interesting, but could water down the accuracy or authority of the information if not presented carefully.
Having easily accessible web portals which integrate data from many sources, such as mentioned in perspective #4 by John J. Riemer, would be helpful for library users. That is definitely a trend that is currently in play. I did try WorldCat, and it appears that YPL is not currently in their database.
In perspective #5, the author, Dr. Wendy Schultz, seems to point to a future which goes through ever changing incarnations, with more and more technology usage, to finally returning to a quiet techno-free old fashioned country house library. Wouldn't it be great if the future could combine the best of both worlds?
Del.icio.us
http://del.icio.us/
Delicious is a social bookmarking site which allows people to bookmark a web page and add tags to categorize the bookmarks. Links to articles blogs, music, recipes, and more can be placed and accessed from any internet computer.
I opened a delicious account and added a few items and tagged them. This could be a useful tool to share information with a group as well as to access your own bookmarks from any internet computer.
Technorati
http://www.technorati.com/
Technorati is the leading search tool and authority for blogs, the leading monitor of the world of weblogs. It indexes the live web and searches blogs in real time. I was not too excited about this site, perhaps since I prefer to read more factual type material as opposed to primarily opinions.
Perspectives on Web 2.0, Library2.0, and the future of libraries
Yes, libraries are changing, and they are changing fast. The web is a huge part of libraries now, and thus the ideas from Web 2.0 are relevant to us. While integrating new ideas, we must be careful to change in ways that serve the community but not lose the essential qualities that make a library valuable.
Such activities, as mentioned in perspective #3 by Chip Nilges, as tagging and personal cataloging by non-professionals might be interesting, but could water down the accuracy or authority of the information if not presented carefully.
Having easily accessible web portals which integrate data from many sources, such as mentioned in perspective #4 by John J. Riemer, would be helpful for library users. That is definitely a trend that is currently in play. I did try WorldCat, and it appears that YPL is not currently in their database.
In perspective #5, the author, Dr. Wendy Schultz, seems to point to a future which goes through ever changing incarnations, with more and more technology usage, to finally returning to a quiet techno-free old fashioned country house library. Wouldn't it be great if the future could combine the best of both worlds?
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