Library 2.0

What an exciting time to be a librarian. All of those who are in the profession now are in the unique position of shaping the library of the future. We are the ones who are laying the foundation of what librarianship will be for the next generation. All of these articles reinforced the idea that I am happy to be a part of this paradigm shift from the stuffy old library to the library with no barriers, a library that welcomes technology and uses that technology to further connect patrons to information.

technorati

Take a look at Technorati and try doing a keyword search for “Learning 2.0” in Blog posts, in tags and in the Blog Directory. Are the results different?

I thought that given the success of my adventures with delicious, I would have no trouble with Technorati. Not so much.

I played around with it enough to find out that:

1. I could find no keyword search for blog posts, in tags and Blog Directory. I did find one general keyword search, which gave me 6816 results.

2. I think this will be a very useful barometer for measuring collective reactions to any number of topics.

I will continue to play with Technorati. I have it book marked in delicious!

Eureka! it's delicious

Okay, so it took me a little while to figure delicious out. I have been playing with it all day and finally it occured to me why this could be a very useful tool. I am now imagining that libraries can create web path finders on any number of topics for a wide variety of patrons. Now that I have figured it out, I cannot wait to start building some del.ici.ous (sp) bookmark lists for teens.

LibraryThing- Play time for bibliophiles

I am having so much fun on LibraryThing. It so interesting to find people with the same books as you. I also love playing with the book tags. This is the perfect way to catalog a personal collection of books. If you would like to check out my Librarything catalog, this is the link:

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

Also, I highly recommed purchasing the Cue Cat book scanner from Librarything. It is a very cute scanner that allows you to enter your books via barcode. It is inexpensive and actually works!!! Now you can have all of the fun of scanning books at the library AND at home.

Exercise 10, Continued

Here is the link to the bead maker:

http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/beads.php

This will be great for making patterns for beaded projects, cross stitch, coloring pages, etc.

Exercise 10

I am having fun playing with Big Huge Labs Bead Generator. This allows you to turn an image into a beaded image. This would be great for library craft programs.

Exercise 9

Curiouser and curiouser....

While I am still trying to unravel the whole bloglines thing, I have taken a break to investigate newsfeeds. I am now completely in love with Technorati, having just spent almost 1/2 an hour browsing it. Of the suggested newsfeeds this week, I thought this was the most user friendly.

Another site that I like (that is kind of similar, but not) is Digg.com. Digg is a lot of fun because it is a newsfeed that allows you to vote on whether or not you "dug" a story. The site keeps up with which stories people respond to the most and least. Digg also invites dialogue on the news stories.

RSS

Today I discovered Bloglines. I really like the concept of a site that allows you to aggregate and organize all of the blogs you like, but I am finding the site to be not terribly user friendly. While I am not a computer person by any means, I would like to think that I am a pretty smart cookie, capable of finding my way around a website. After many attempts at following the directions provided and exploring on my own, I finally had to resort to asking for help from Eric S., who is super terrific and completely explained it to me.

I am looking forward to further exploring the site, but I just wish it was a little less cumbersome.

Open Library

The thing that I am really interested in right now is the Open Library. Aaron Schwartz created this cataloging wiki in an effort to catalog every book. Because it is a wiki, it can be added to by virtually anyone. This is a fascinating concept and the possibilities for application in the library setting are astounding. I am eagerly watching this site and waiting to see what it does for our profession.

Here is a link to the Open Library: http://openlibrary.org/, if you would like to check it out.

Flickr applications

Here is a badge I made using Big Huge Labs Badgemaker and a photo from Flickr.

British Library Reading Room (from Flickr)

This is a picture of the British Library Reading Room. This picture could be titled Why I Became a Librarian. Visiting the British Library is one of the most exhilarating experiences you can imagine. For your visit, you must make an appointment with a counselor who will determine if your research needs are suitable for the library. Then, you must surrender your bags and backpacks. You are allowed a small, clear bag for small items, such as pens and notebooks. After perusing the catalog, if you find a book you want, you have to ask a librarian to retrieve it for you. I was amazed at the all of the measures taken by the library to ensure that the books were treated as they should be. This library seemed much like a temple dedicated to honoring the written word.