Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Thing #16
Wikis are cool. Very often, it seems like some of the best Google keyword search results, for a random topic, come from wikis. One of the best things about the World Wide Web is this opportunity for enthusiasts to form a community around their shared interest. Googling specifically for wikis seems to brings up just a bit less commercial junk to the top, but not much less. Of course the first results are always Wikipedia-associated.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Thing #15
On Library 2.0:
Anderson's essay, "Away from the 'Icebergs'" was the clearest and most concise viewpoint among the 5 perspectives. This is an opportunity and a quagmire. Libraries must embrace the changes, but make sense of the explosion, in technology and information.
Anderson's essay, "Away from the 'Icebergs'" was the clearest and most concise viewpoint among the 5 perspectives. This is an opportunity and a quagmire. Libraries must embrace the changes, but make sense of the explosion, in technology and information.
Thing #14
Technorati is useful for giving an at-a-glance view of what's getting the most attention online. Unfortunately, a lot of attention is paid to commercial junk and the same infobites we are getting over and over on tv networks. What I did enjoy, though, was some of the links to video shorts. The YouTube video, An Engineer's Guide to Cats, was funny, clever, and sweet.
Monday, April 21, 2008
it's delicious!
del.icio.us is great! I've known about this website for a while and have meant to start using it ever since but never took that decisive little step until now. That's one of the magnificent things about this web challenge, that it's turning my "gotta use this" into "I'm using this and it's great!"
It will take awhile to make my delicious favorites list as useful as the favorites lists on all the various computers I use (my laptop, the ys desk terminals, the ys office desk terminals, etc.) but once I catch up, it will be so much superior to have a master favorites. And fun too, of course - I love the clouds. And the highlightable notes feature is very cool.
It will take awhile to make my delicious favorites list as useful as the favorites lists on all the various computers I use (my laptop, the ys desk terminals, the ys office desk terminals, etc.) but once I catch up, it will be so much superior to have a master favorites. And fun too, of course - I love the clouds. And the highlightable notes feature is very cool.
Friday, April 11, 2008
webthing #11
I like LibraryThing very much. While I had heard about it and looked at the site briefly before, I had never opened an account. It's fun and easy to use and has some cool features. It's fun to know how many other people also chose that particular title and so on.
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/bluegreen
I would like to just comment at this point - the notion that the oclwebthings challenge will take only about an hour each week is utter nonsense! Here is a case in point - how can a library person resist spending hours on this site alone?
I like LibraryThing very much. While I had heard about it and looked at the site briefly before, I had never opened an account. It's fun and easy to use and has some cool features. It's fun to know how many other people also chose that particular title and so on.
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/bluegreen
I would like to just comment at this point - the notion that the oclwebthings challenge will take only about an hour each week is utter nonsense! Here is a case in point - how can a library person resist spending hours on this site alone?
webthing #10
As a digital non-native, my first impulse when contemplating TECHNOLOGY is to whine along the lines of: "sure all this new stuff is exciting and wonderful and useful but who has time to keep up with it?". OK, that's counter-productive. Let's see, at this moment in time, in my work and home life, I am most interested in two techy things: social networking and e-books. I have no personal interest in socializing online but as a library professional I know that there is a virtual world I need to learn about in order to be effective in my work. Already, by simply taking a few minutes each day to read NJYAC (New Jersey State Library Youth Services) listserve postings, I am benefitting from the ideas and knowledge of others in our field. So I need to explore the online communities of the library users I serve and want to reach out to. The development of e-book technology could benefit me personally as well as professionally. I listen to an average of about 10 titles per month via cassette and cd format plus about 12 per month in print format so I look forward to the day when a truly useable form of portable e-book reader is available. In the meantime, when I get my MP3 player and load it with books on sound files, I can stop juggling all those cassettes while I walk, and discs while I drive. Reader-bliss.
As a digital non-native, my first impulse when contemplating TECHNOLOGY is to whine along the lines of: "sure all this new stuff is exciting and wonderful and useful but who has time to keep up with it?". OK, that's counter-productive. Let's see, at this moment in time, in my work and home life, I am most interested in two techy things: social networking and e-books. I have no personal interest in socializing online but as a library professional I know that there is a virtual world I need to learn about in order to be effective in my work. Already, by simply taking a few minutes each day to read NJYAC (New Jersey State Library Youth Services) listserve postings, I am benefitting from the ideas and knowledge of others in our field. So I need to explore the online communities of the library users I serve and want to reach out to. The development of e-book technology could benefit me personally as well as professionally. I listen to an average of about 10 titles per month via cassette and cd format plus about 12 per month in print format so I look forward to the day when a truly useable form of portable e-book reader is available. In the meantime, when I get my MP3 player and load it with books on sound files, I can stop juggling all those cassettes while I walk, and discs while I drive. Reader-bliss.
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