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And now, a few words on Library 2.0

Thing 17 involves reading some stuff on Library 2.0 and commenting on the whole phenomena.  I think I’ve been exposed to lots of commentary on Library 2.0 through OLA and Library Journal, but it’s always nice to step back and look at the big picture now and again.  Michael Stephens’ column was interesting in that it didn’t just talk about technology, indeed it warns against ‘technolust.’  But most of the precepts he discusses are pretty straightforward – user-centred service, watching trends, transparency, meeting clients where they are, that sort of thing.  I’d say it’s hard to disagree.  I should note that I saw Stephens at OLA once and read his column in LJ.  I’m a little less enamoured with Wendy Schultz’s column (people wanting virtual reality info coach from a librarian avatar?), but maybe I’m just not futuristic enough.  Second Life is another thing I keep hearing about but can’t get excited about the hype.  I do like this line:

But let’s be clear: Library 4.0 will not replace Libraries 1.0 through 3.0; it will absorb them. The library as aesthetic experience will have space for all the library’s incarnations: storage (archives, treasures); data retrieval (networks—reference rooms); and commentary and annotation (salon). Available as physical places in the library “storefront,” they will also be mobile, as AR overlays we can view (via glasses, contacts, projections) anywhere. 

That kind of sums it up for me, except the viewing stuff with glasses and contacts.  Mobile, sure, but WTH?  Anyway, we have lots of clients who come in now, and I don’t get the sense that they’re clamouring for Web 2.0 services.  That said, they’re already clients.  We can’t forget everyone else out there, some of whom still have the stereotype of the library as a stodgy place where you have to follow a bunch of rules and navigate unfamiliar systems to get what you want. 

One final comment.  One of my favourite columnists & bloggers is Dan Gardner of the Ottawa Citizen.  He had a great post on the swine flu last May that talked about the difference between cynicism and skepticism.  Cynics dismiss everything almost automatically (kind of like gullible people, who accept everything almost automatically), while skeptics “…don’t accept things at face value. They demand evidence and examine it carefully. But neither do they automatically dismiss claims without first examining the evidence. They weigh and balance and consider: Only then do they judge.”  This is what I try to do, not always successfully.  It also applies to Library 2.0 – not all of it adds up.  For instance, everyone cites this library in Michigan  (I can’t remember which one) and their catalogue and its thousands of patron-driven book reviews and comments.  That’s excellent, but sometimes it reminds me of people pointing out the guy who became a millionaire after failing to finish high school and saying “hey, if he did it, I can too! ”  It happens, but it’s rare.  As far as I know, this library’s experience is sort of unique – much emulated, but never equaled.  I hope we get a cool catalogue overlay here someday, but sometimes think we’d be better off connecting to some other source of online comments, like Amazon.  I don’t get the sense that our patrons are itching to contribute comments to our catalogue.  Still, this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t give them the chance.

So far, in my skeptical opinion, Library 2.0 is a good thing…but we need to make sure we look at everything carefully and not with rose-coloured glasses.  Not that we need to paralyse ourselves and end up the last to do everything, or that it’s wrong to try and not succeed.  Be skeptical, but in the good way Dan Gardner talked about.

If you’re one of the two or so people who have read this, I thank your for your patience with my blathering.

Back to Technorati

Still not a fan of Technorati.  As noted in the 25 Things blog, their new beta site has a lot of ads.  That isn’t a big deal for the most part, but there’s this stupid mouseover Coors Light contest ad that expands to fill a quarter of the page.  It drove me nuts.  There are several of them on the page, so it’s really hard to avoid mousing over them.

Anyway, I searched for a hobby-related term and found nothing related to said hobby.  However, I was pleasantly surprised to find a bunch of stuff on Google Blog Search – it seems that some American used fire truck companies have blogs, so I added a couple of accounts to the Google Reader. 

But Technorati?  Meh.  If I were obsessed with reading foam-at-the-mouth political stuff or celebrity news, sure (because that’s really really hard to find online, right?), but life’s too short.  Even the search feature isn’t that great – you have to remember to click the “post” button if you want to look for posts instead of blog titles.  I see why they have that, but it’s easy to miss.   And like I said, total ad overkill.

BTW – I couldn’t find the advanced search, but looked for a phrase in one of my older blog posts.  Nada.

Delicious! Yum.

So delicio.us is one of this week’s topics.  I’m afraid this isn’t really something I could get all excited about – most of my links are to obscure websites related to my fire truck hobby.  I’m not convinced that I would find more stuff by opening them up to the world.  I do like the fact that they’d be available from anywhere and I don’t have to worry about what happens when my computer dies (I try to make backups), but, neh.

This exercise did remind me that I have an old account that I haven’t accessed for three years.  I created it and imported all of my old bookmarks, most of which I’ve since deleted.  So I updated the delicious account by getting rid of a bunch of old stuff, much of it deadlinked anyway.

One way this could be useful (h/t to Donna for the idea) is that we could have this on the ref desk.  We have two computers that should have the same links (but don’t) in the bookmark folder.  Trouble is, you’d have to leave it open all the time or log in just to find a website.  Might work, might not.

LibraryThing

So I’ve created an account on LibraryThing.  I’ve always been sort of curious about it, and this may be another place to store a list that I already keep anyway.  I actually have a spreadsheet listing all of the books I’ve read in the last few years – I think I was looking at a title here wondering if I had already read it when I decided to create this thing.  I don’t know if I’ll get into the whole review thing – probably not.  I’m bad for skimming, especially books that don’t really grab me, so I miss some important points.  The reviews posted look pretty insightful, so I’d probably feel like an idiot – the book I’m reading now is apparently an allegory using architecture as a metaphor for family relations.  Makes sense, I guess.

Anyway, it looks like there’s a way to set up a corporate / library profile here.  Maybe this is another way we can connect with our patrons?

Image Generators

I’ve always wanted to try one of those highway sign generators – I wouldn’t go so far as to call myself a roadgeek, but I am sort of interested in highways, signs, infrastructure and that sort of thing. 

So I made a quick sign using the Kurumi Signmaker.  I was sort of disappointed that all of the highway marker shapes were American (see Interstate marker above – maybe I’m a roadgeek after all), but it is pretty cool.   They don’t make it easy to save the image – you have to take a screenshot, edit that, then save it.  And WordPress is kind of zany when it comes to inserting images into posts.  But this is still sort of neat.

Twitter

Further to the last post – I’ve actually started using my Google Reader account fairly heavily.  My work browser wasn’t updating the RSS feeds for some reason (I had to do it manually) and the portability is nice.   I’m still wary of the fact that I’m logging in to Google, likely giving them the ability to track my internet activity, but that’s getting hard to avoid anyway.

Twitter – I have a bit of a head start on this one.  Is that fair?  I dunno.  Anyway, I’ve had a Twitter account with the handle “info_ninja” since the summer.   I’m kinda proud of the name.   Also, I’m one of the administrators for the library’s Twitter account too.  So join us!  Become a follower!  Do not be afraid.

RSS feedfind – Where’s Waldo?

Like I said in the previous post, I already follow a bunch of library-related blogs at work and other stuff at home.  I took a quick look at Technorati and Topix.  Nothing really interesting, to be honest.  Lots of vitriol about the usual political topics.  And it’s good that you can subscribe to the RSS feeds on your browser or through Google Reader once you find something, since the ad content on Topix was insane.  I’ll keep them in mind if I want to search for something specific, but in the meantime I’ll just watch for the little orange symbol on top of my browser.

RSS Mania

A confession…I’ve been using RSS feeds for quite awhile.  They kept prattling on about it at OLA and I kept thinking, yeah, yeah, I get it.  RSS is awesome, blah blah blah.  However, as with any new thing, it’s a lot cooler when you figure out something useful to do with it.  I started out at work by following a few blogs, then gradually found some more useful stuff and even added a bunch of hobby and other stuff to my home computer.  Now the first thing I do when I turn on my home computer is check my RSS.  At work, I do it when I can, but it’s still extremely useful. 

Using Google Reader is a new one though.  It seems like a useful tool in that it aggregates all of the blogs into one handy place (hence the name ‘aggregator’).  Still, all I do now is open up my RSS feed list in Explorer and check the stuff that’s changed.  Maybe I’ll gradually move everything over to Google – if nothing else, it’s portable and longer-lasting (I had to rebuild the whole list when I got a new work PC), but the advantages aren’t insanely great.  And of course, Big Brother Google gets yet another way to learn what I’m doing and what I’m interested in….

Library usefulness?  Definitely.  For example, I have RSS feeds for the bestsellers list at Amazon.ca.  This is a great place to see what books we need to order.

As an aside, I also use Watch That Page to keep an eye on changes in pages that don’t have RSS.  It sends a daily email advising when the pages I’m ‘watching’ change.  It’s old school, but pretty useful, since there are a lot of pages out there that aren’t RSS compliant.

Bloggin’ on technology

Ah, thinking under pressure and with a time deadline, as I have to be on the desk in 20 minutes and still want to grab a snack. 

Technology is generally cool.  I particularly like what’s happening with maps.  Google Maps has revolutionised mapping – I remember thinking how cool it would be to have a great big map book covering all roads at the same scale those MapArt city maps use.  Of course, in real life, such a thing would be encyclopedia sized for Ontario alone.  And now, you can get decent maps of just about anywhere (although still not as detailed, colourful and neat as MapArt).  StreetView is even cooler – I’m looking forward to more coverage of Canada.

Week 3, Thing 7

I poked around a few of the mashups and didn’t really find anything to get too excited about.  There was one that was sorta interesting – Bubblr allows you to put little voice bubbles in a photo to make it look like a comic.  All of my photos are fire trucks, so maybe not the best subject, but I still managed to quickly create something.  In the right hands, you could do some pretty cool stuff with Bubblr.  I clicked on the ‘blog this’ link, so we’ll see if this works.

Update:  Bubblr gives you two options – post the photo directly in the blog or post a link.  I liked the idea of posting directly, so I tried to cut & paste the HTML coding provided.  No dice.  The blog either erased it for me or just posted HTML in the blog text as is.  Very annoying.   So to see the photo, just click here.