Task 18-Online Productivity

I just took a look at Google Docs & Spreadsheets and some of the applications at Zoho (mentioned in Stephanie's Blog). These applications look like a great way to collaborate on documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. I played with ZohoShow a little. This is a fun application that can be used to make slideshows promoting current programs. They can be embedded into blogs and websites.

Task 17-Our Web 2.0 Things Wiki

I added an entry under Blogs & Bloglines about blogging legalities and I included a link to a Blog that speaks to some of the legal issues bloggers must consider. I signed and date stamped it. See the addition signed by Kimba.

http://wiki.infopeople.org/index.php?title=Our_23_Things

Task 16-Learn About Wikis

I was especially interested in this exercise because I am not all that familiar with Wikis. I found this link to a resource from the University of Saskatchewan Library that has links to different library wikis.

http://library2.usask.ca/~fichter/wiki/

I took a look at each of the wikis in the first two sections of this web page. Wikis look like a great way for a library staff to collaborate in maintaining a website. They are also great places for knowledgeable individuals on a given subject to share links and resources they have discovered that might be of value to those with similar interests. I especially liked UBC HeathLib-Wiki - A Knowledge Base for Health Librarians (2007). It has a well organized table of contents making it easy to find your way around. I found WardsWiki (the Wiki that the link in the challenge eventually leads to) informative, but not easy to navigate. It seems navigating Wikis is usually facilitated by using searches--not the easiest way to find your way around, if you ask me. A lack of organization can make a Wiki quite convoluted.

Task 15-Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 and the Future of Libraries

My, what a huge subject. I just made some notes and I will comment on a few thoughts I had upon reading "Library 2.o and 'Library 2.o'," written by Walt Crawford in Cites & Insights.

http://citesandinsights.info/civ6i2.pdf

I found some of the comments by Michael Stephens interesting. I agreed with Crawford that taking advantage of the "hive mind" that the "2.o thing" seems to promote might lead to more group-think than recognition of individuality, which is one of the potential implications here. I do like the "folksonomy" concept, though. It seems to me that a lot can be learned from group-think when it comes to the naming and categorization of new ideas and terms.

I believe that the "permaconnected" referred to in the Talus section of the article still constitute a minority of the general populace (although an affluent one). The contingency of Library 2.0 promoters (especially as it pertains to making wide use of Web 2.0 applications) does not have the mandate to serve disadvantaged and under-served segments of the community that public libraries have. Many people don't have the money for new computer systems with the latest capabilities in their homes. I realize this can be used as an argument in favor of libraries providing access to Web 2.o to those who might not get to experience its capabilities any other way, but let's not kid ourselves that all of these capabilities are expected by, or even familiar to, everyone.

Don't get me wrong. I do enjoy the many new applications, and the interactivity of Web 2.0. And I think new technologies, and new ideas about the way libraries do business should be analyzed. If a technology or an idea is found to be desirable and feasible it should be implemented, applauded, and emulated. It is a good idea to do this not only to serve the library community better, but to maintain an awareness of the information service provision field in general. This will assure that we are able to address the question of the relevancy of libraries whenever it is posed. When I first got my job working in OCPL Library, some of my friends said things to me like: "Aren't a lot of libraries closing because we don't need them anymore because we have the Internet?" The perception that libraries may be replaced by the Internet (though perhaps not well thought out by those who have this perception) does exist--and we should not ignore this.

Just a note on Blog maintenance. I attended a webcast by David King - Digital Branch & Services Manager Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library, Topeka, Kansas and Thad Hartman - Technical Services Supervisor Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library, Topeka, Kansas the other day. During the webcast, it was mentioned that comments on Library Blogs need to be answered within a reasonable amount of time from when the comment is made. If comments are not responded to, the conversational nature desired from the Blog is lost. I know this impacts library personnel's time, and it is something that should be considered when implementing a Library Blog.

Task 14-Technorati

Exploring Technorati, I clicked on the tag "Web 2.0" and here is what I got:

http://technorati.com/tag/web+2.0

I followed this link to Craig Bellamy's blog: Social networking boom reaches the workplace

And here is his explanation of what he is doing...

"Hi, my name is Dr Craig Bellamy and I am an Australian in London and I work at King's College. My task is to build, maintain, and promote a resource within the Digital Humanities called ICT Guides...and it is my goal to join every online social networking thingee in the whole damn world!...PLEASE SEND ME YOUR LINKS... "

Look under Web 2.0 in his blog for more blogs about Web 2.0.

Task 13-Social Bookmarking and Del.icio.us

Yet another great social networking tool. I bookmarked the homepage of LibraryThing and found it has been saved by 12033 other people when I researched it on the Del.icio.us site. I bookmarked the Casa Romantica Reading Series (from the link under Links to Poetry Resources) and found no one had bookmarked it. Maybe someone will discover it if they look at my bookmarks. I bookmarked About.com : Poetry and found 9 other people who had marked it. I looked at the bookmarks of one of those people, clicking on the poetry tag, and followed one of the links to a page full of Library of Congress blogs; one of which was a blog about upcoming poetry events. I used the RSS feed to insert it under Poetry Events from Library of Congress.

I did experience the shortcomings user defined tags. I was looking at the bookmarks of another person who had tagged About.com : Poetry and found it difficult to locate other poetry tags in the cloud; tags are assembled without hierarchical structure. It helped a little to sort by alphabetical list--finding tags that started with the word "poetry,"--but that did not help me to find the tag "sound_poetry." I also got different bookmarks for "poetry_reading" and "poetry_readings." You can tell if you are using a tag that is not one likely to be used for your subject by the community if no one else has selected it (if your subject is not too specialized). I chose the tag "live_poetry" as a possibility for poetry readings and found no one else has used it. I'm going to delete it. The following article addresses the shortcomings of folksonomy. Even with its shortcomings, this system of classification offers some semantic intelligence in searching: something that search engines lack.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folksonomy#Folksonomy_and_top-down_taxonomies