Learn and Play Wiki

I had a little trouble adding my blog to the Favorite Blogs on the CML Learn & Play wiki, but I finally figured it out. I think the directions were not very helpful or clear. Was this just me, or did anyone else think this too? It's actually very simple once you know how. It was kind of fun having the power to edit the page.

Wikibrary

The idea of wikis used in libraries is interesting. I think, however, we should be careful with what we let the general public edit. After all, people come to libraries and library websites for accurate information, and even the most well-meaning customer could edit something with incorrect information. On the other hand, it could be helpful for some things. What if our customers could post reviews of books they've read on our catalog? That would be a neat reader's advisory tool that we wouldn't need to upkeep at all. Imagine being able to see what others thought of a book you are considering reading, just like Amazon or Library Thing. Librarians could even promote certain books by leaving a review.

Library 2.0

Dr. Wendy Schultz comments on Library 2.0 and where we will go after that in "To a temporary place in time." For me it is hard to imagine what will come next, as technologies are constantly changing. Who would have thought 30 years ago that we would rely so heavily on computers today. 20 years ago, who would have been able to picture the internet, email, and mp3 players? And just 10 years ago--Web 2.0? What's that?!

I liked what she says about Library 2.0 "the library is everywhere, barrier-free, and participatory." I think barrier-free is the key here--Library 2.0 and beyond will continue to break down the barriers between people and the information that they seek.

Social Bookmarking is Delicious!

After looking around on Delicious, I think this could be a very useful tool for libraries in the 21st century. Great news for readers advisory--just look at what other people have tagged. I also love the idea of web-based personal bookmarks that can be accessed from any computer you use, anywhere.

Twitter

Twitter--I'm not really seeing the point. Do I really want other people to know what I'm doing 24/7? Do I care what other people are doing 24/7? This reminds me of teenagers who text each other (and run up their phone bills) texting things like What r u doing? and OMG, how R U?
Seems pointless to me. But that's just me.

Check out what I'm doing on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/jewly1

I'm a Library Thing

I'll admit, this "thing" was an easy one for me. I've known about Library Thing for some time and this summer I signed up and catalogued all of the books that I have read over the past few years. My husband saw how incredibly fun this was and he is now a member, too (with more books entered than me!).
I could see this being very helpful for librarians as a reader's advisory tool. For example, that co-worker who knows every sci-fi title ever written when your experience with that genre is almost nonexistent? No problem, just check their library thing book shelves!
Check out my Library Thing catalog:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/julie555

Oh, the possibilities...

So far I like this week's "things" better than last week's. Image generators are fun...I have played around with some and liked Letter James. If only I were more creative, I could have a blast with this, but this was all I could come up with.

Here's the link:

http://www.letterjames.com/start.php?mod=image-personalization

Finding Feeds

Finding feeds was a little more difficult for me. Mostly what I did was manually subscribe by cutting and pasting from a website or clicking on the little orange icon. I haven't been too successful searching and looking for other feeds. I found the search tools somewhat confusing, but I think I'll play around with it more next week.

Really Simple RSS (yeah, right!)

Hooray, I've finally learned what those little orange RSS feed icons are for! Setting up the bloglines account and subscribing to feeds was not that difficult, but I found myself wondering...why? What is the point? Maybe I just don't have enough sites that i check on a regular basis to make it worth it. However, I think this could be a great thing for librarians to keep up with new releases, book trends, authors, etc.