Week Seven: Thing # 16

Libraries all over the country have begun to use wikis to collaborate and share knowledge.

I particularly liked the BookLoversWiki developed by the Princeton Public Library at http://booklovers.pbwiki.com/Princeton%20Public%20Library The page was easy to navigate with the Index to Reviews being clearly laid out. Each book has an annotation and a ranking and an image of the book cover makes the page attractive. This page has given me lots of good ideas which I’d like to emulate in my school library. I would like to get a Book Group of students together and a wiki, where the students can contribute, would be a terrific way to boost ‘attendance’.

The Albany County Public Library staff wiki which provides documentation to library staff on how to do things is a wonderful idea – a sort of on-line procedure manual. I had a close look at their statistics information and their technology plan. The Circulation Desk section would prove a boon to school library subs. We do have one in a binder but having the information in an on-line format with the ability to hyperlink headings would allow for easy and immediate access.

The Blogging Libraries Wiki was terrific. The purpose of this wiki is to collect links to library blogs. There is a wealth of information under School Libraries. http://www.blogwithoutalibrary.net/links/index.php?title=School_libraries

Teacherlibrarianwiki at http://teacherlibrarianwiki.pbwiki.com/ maintained my Joyce Valenza gives many examples of how Web 2.0 applications can be used to create useful professional tools for librarians and patrons. Check out the booklists for high school students, information literacy models, Must Have Graphic Novels for secondary schools – so many good things here…

Week Six: Thing # 15

I particularly enjoyed reading the article about Library 2.0 in Wikipedia which gave a succinct definition and a brief overview of exactly where the phrase originated. With Library 2.0, library services are able to be frequently evaluated and updated to meet the changing needs of library users. The discussion about the future of OPACs is very exciting. Students seem to enjoy using OPACs more than the traditional card catalogs. Indeed, students at my school have probably never seen a card catalog!

I contend that the ideas presented using Web 2.0 are not necessarily new – it is the methods of delivery that will foster and promote the services and library materials available to the library patron. There are many excellent ideas and applications available – let’s use them – we have a new generation of library users, let’s give them a new generation of library service.

Part Two: Library 2.0 - It's many things to many people. What does it mean to you? What does it mean for school libraries?

According to Wikipedia, Library 2.0 is a loosely defined model for a modernized form of library service that reflects a transition within the library world in the way that services are delivered to users.

Librarians need to constantly update and reevaluate the best way to serve library users. Students at high schools love their computers. What better way to market and promote library resources than by using on-line services, wikis, blogs, and other Web 2.0 devices. I am in the midst of organizing a wiki for the juniors taking APEL at my high school. They are about to undertake the writing of their Junior Paper – a main focus of their second semester work. These students need to know about the print materials the library has, the e-books which are available, the online databases which would render them good service. I’ll go through these resources with the classes when they come to the library but I’m hoping the wiki will provide them with additional backing. Any student feedback will be useful to me as to how I can better serve them next time.

Week Six: Thing # 14

Tags help describe an item and allow it to be found again by browsing or searching. Keywords in an article can be used for tags. People can categorize their posts, blog, photos, videos, or music with any tag that makes sense to describe it. Other people can add tags to an article. Tag clouds can be formed. The most used tags are displayed in order of increasing font size. Tagging takes away the worries about choosing the ‘correct’ category for a posting.
However tags can be misspelled – or should that be misspelt?? Words can be found in the singular or plural form. Sometimes tags can be irrelevant and lack precision.

Technorati is an Internet search engine for searching blogs and tagged social media. It can be found at www.technorati.com The Support tab was informative and useful, so too was the FAQ section. In Technorati, there are two kinds of tags. There is the Post Tag and the Blog Tag. The Post Tag is used to describe the topics covered in individual items and is associated to the item either via Tag Code or Category Code (Wordpress Categories, Blogger Labels). This can apply to all types of media such as posts, photos, videos, or music. The About page of Technorati had the following information: Technorati was founded to help bloggers succeed by collecting, highlighting, and distributing the global online conversation. Founded as the first blog search engine, Technorati has expanded to a full service media company providing services to the blogs and social media sites and connecting them with advertisers who want to join the conversation, and whose online properties introduce blog content to millions of consumers.

If only I had time to read all of these blogs!!

Week Six - Thing # 13

Exploring del.icio.us was interesting, it’s a great way to keep track of things on the web. If you use computers in multiple locations, say one at home and one at work, delicious can synchronize your bookmarks. I loved the social networking aspect of Del.icio.us, I found myself bookmarking all sorts of interesting things. The ability to see how other users have tagged similar links and how this can lead to discover other websites of interest to me is a strong plus. The interface is simple to use and RSS feeds are enabled too.

And I’ve finally worked out what a folksonomy is! The activity of tagging website addresses (any object which can be identified by URL) is called a folksonomy (folk + taxonomy).

Potential of this tool for research assistance – it’s free. It allows for the identifying, organizing, storing, finding, classifying and sharing of favorite web resources. Because it is a social bookmarking service, not only can favorite information be archived on the Internet, but other new sites can be discovered using ‘collective intelligence’. It is easy to use, no special knowledge is necessary. The sites can be saved and accessed on any computer with an Internet connection. Students love computers – social browsing leads to finding useful links.

Week Five - Thing # 12

Rollyo allows the user to take up to twenty five websites or blogs and create a search tool called a Searchroll that searches only those domains. The Searchroll can be edited and modified at any time. Rollyo Searchrolls can be shared with friends. I can see the possibilities of incorporating Searchrolls with Pathfinders for school students as an aid when conducting research.

Have a look at the Rollyo I created for Citation Creators at http://rollyo.com/eturner/my_citation_creators/

Free, online citation help. You can create records for books, web sites, interviews, images, music and sound effects, videos and animation, and more. Records can be formatted in several formats. Each has its own features so find the one you like best.

It was very easy to create my Searchroll which can be found from any browser or computer.

Quick Quotes at http://rollyo.com/kizuki-sama/quick_quotes_search/ was wonderful

Rollyo - very cool, very easy, and totally free!

Calendar Widget

See, I did it. A widget can be imported directly to your blog page. Again the necessity of keeping a good record of passwords is evident. What fun!