The Web 2.0 Journey

"Mrs. Hill, may I please by excused? My head is full."

23 Things has indeed been an interesting and very S-T-R-E-T-C-H-I-N-G experience. Although I don't count this as a mastery of all the things we learned, it was a valuable exposure to the Web 2.0 world. As information specialists/librarians it is important for us to keep abreast of the current technology and this project has helped us out in that respect.

Downloadable Audiobooks

Our collection of downloadable audiobooks contains 352 fiction titles and 234 nonfiction titles. These books can be downloaded to a computer and then transfered to a portable device. It is unfortunate that iPods and Macs cannot be used, as these are the most popular of the portable devices.

Podcasts

Podcasts are audio files that can be downloaded from a computer to an IPOD.

Of the three podcast directories that were given in our discovery exercise, I liked the Library of Congress directory the best, no doubt because I am a librarian! I was fascinated to find out that you could listen to famous authors who had presented at the National Book Festival. Also, there was an impressive variety of RSS feeds and email subscriptions available through this site.

For our assignment, I subscribed to a podcast from Podcast Alley called "Open Stacks" which is one librarian's perspective on things of interest to the Library & Information Science profession.

YouTube

For my discovery exercise I searched for videos having to do with libraries.

The results were indeed interesting. Most of the videos seemed to be of entertainment value only, such as pranks done in libraries. Yet there were others that did serve a greater purpose.
I noticed videos used for welcoming patrons, library tours, library orientation and videos of teen programs at the library. It is a great way to take a virtual tour of libraries around the world that you might not otherwise visit.

YouTube is also good for demos. I've seen a few cooking videos. Overall though, I think YouTube is primarily for entertainment. It is another creative outlet for techie people.

Web 2.0 Award Winners

What an incredible variety of interactive sites. I had no idea there were so many of these Web 2.0 sites! I visited several including Lulu, Craigslist, Im Cooked, Zango, Yelp, Farecast, ColorBlender and Yourminis. The common themes among these are cyberspace community, interaction and collaboration.

My favorite site was Farecast. This travel search engine searches fares from major travel sites, helping you to find the most affordable flight in the least amount of time. Very useful for people who travel.

The library might make it's own "Award-winning" websites page.

Zoho Applications

Zoho has a very impressive collection of online applications and tools. It's like having Microsoft Office online, complete with all the bells and whistles. I could see how this would be very conducive to collaborating with other people on producing a document.

While exploring Zoho writer, I was intrigued by the 50 different templates that are available to use, and all of this without cost. It makes me rather suspicious; so what's the catch? For one thing, you're giving up privacy. Supposedly the documents you create are stored safely online, but whenever you release something into cyberspace, you've got to realize that there is nothing private about that.

Playing in the Sandbox-pbclswiki

For the discovery and exploration activity, I made two entries in the pbclswiki.
One was my favorite vacation spot which is Torch Lake, Michigan, and the other was my favorite restaurant which is Sweet Tomatoes.

Wikis

Wikis are a great tool for collaborating and sharing information within a community. I can see it would be useful for two people who are coauthoring a book and live in different places. In exploring the different wikis, I was intrigued to find a Toastmaster wiki, which I found extremely interesting since I am a Toastmaster.

My concern with wikis is that it seems TOO open. What would keep people from entering information under a false identity? How trustworthy would such information be? Then there is the issue of etiquette. Sometimes people don't behave themselves if they think there is no accountability.

Library 2.0

The expression Library 2.0 is a spin-off from Web 2.0. The emphasis is on using new technology that encourages patron feedback and participation, in contrast to library service that traditionally has been one directional.

The world is continually changing. If libraries are to continue to be relevant and needed, we must keep abreast of the latest technology and implement it into our service.

The challenge for librarians, especially those of us that are older, is to keep an open mind to change and learning new things. As the expression goes, "Something you can always depend on is CHANGE."

Technorati

Technorati is a glorified blog search engine and social networking tool. It is another good example of TOO much information. An advanced search of PBCLS resulted in 73 blog reactions and the tag search for Web 2.0 showed 34,063 items. That's an information overload!

Del.icio.us

Del.icio.us is a useful tool for accessing one's favorites from any internet computer. It is also a social networking site in that one can share favorite websites with other people and also receive their recommendations.

Webfeat

Webfeat certainly is a powerful and useful tool, yet the search results can often be overwhelming. The category search function is helpful in narrowing down the results.

Image Generators

So many toys and so little time! Truly, image generators appear to be more toys than anything of serious value. I find it overstimulating with all the types and choices available. It's kind of like going into Baskin'Robbins and being dazzled by all the different ice cream flavors, but feeling so overwhelmed that you settle on chocolate.

RSS Feeds

The advantage of an RSS feed is that you can obtain information from several websites all in one place, saving you time in traversing the web. Libraries could provide RSS feeds that would be of interest to their patrons, such as "What's New" in library news, events and resources.

In case you're wondering...

Yes, you guessed it right. The Walrus, Carpenter and their company of clams are enjoying cool, refreshing Coolattas from Dunkin' Donuts! For all you DD fans, have you heard the good news? Dunkin' Donuts is giving away FREE Iced Coffees all day on Thursdays from May 22 through June 12. Aaaah....HOW REFRESHING!

Ooooh, Mashups!

A mashup is a website or application that combines content from more than one source into an integrated experience (definition from Wikipedia). Hmmm, it's a bit vague, but I guess it's a start, just to know that mashups exist. Frankly, my favorite mashup is with garlic and sour cream! :)

Truly Amazing!

I can see that blogging could be a fun and effective way to communicate with other people who have the same interests. What I especially like is that there is so much room for creativity and personal expression.

"The time has come," the Walrus said, "of tekkie tools to sing: of wikis, blogs and podcasts and other webby things."