Week 6, Thing 15 Perspectives on Library 2.0

The Library 2.0 Meme Map from bonariabianco

I’ll admit (again) that “Library 2.0″ probably isn’t the best label. That assumes that everything that came before now was “Library 1.0″ (including Alexandria). That’s silly. I’d suggest, then, that the term was coined amidst a flurry of excitement, partially spurred by Web 2.0, but mostly by the promise of an exciting new era in modern librarianship. Instead of arguing over the efficacy of a label, look inward and evaluate your own institution’s efficacy.

11 Reasons Why Library 2.0 Exists and Matters blyberg.net

I liked the "Machine is Us/ing us" video the pace of the video seemed somewhat analogous to the pace that technology is moving. I read all of the suggested articles and then looked at the links from the Wikipedia entry and links from those pages. I think that the Library 2.0 Meme Map by Bonaria Biancu very clearly, completely, and succinctly explains the concept.

With RFID, self checkout, wifi, internet access for all within the branch and then online reference materials, Ask Us Now, ebooks, downloadable audio, etc. available to customers remotely BCPL is an active participant in this "new" library mindset.

Below are some links to library websites that are utilizing some web 2.0 / library 2.0 concepts and technology like RSS feeds, tagging, social computing, blogging, and open source. Library 2.0 might be here now and for the forseeable future, but I must say I find Library 4.0 most appealing:

Library 4.0 revives the old image of a country house library, and renovates
it: from a retreat, a sanctuary, a pampered experience with
information—subtle thoughts, fine words, exquisite brandy, smooth coffee,
aromatic cigar, smell of leather, rustle of pages—to the dream economy’s
library, the LIBRARY: a WiFREE space, a retreat from technohustle, with
comfortable chairs, quiet, good light, coffee and single malt. You know, the
library.

Schultz, Wendy To a Temporary Place in Time ... OCLC Next Space

Library websites to look at:
http://www.aadl.org/
http://www.summerreading.org/
http://www.hclib.org/
http://www.georgialibraries.org/lib/pines.html

Week 6, Thing 14 - Technorati

While I originally dismissed most personal blogs as too much navel gazing, it is amazing how in such a short period of time how blogs have grown and in some respects have become almost full fledged members of "the media," as well as, becoming an established means of business communication and marketing. There are now several work related blogs, besides our own CCD and Merchandizing blogs that I read regularly.


Technorati is an amazing search engine and aggregator of what's hot in the ever expanding blogosphere. I claimed my blog (in the name of France), did a few searches, and looked at some of the most popular blogs boingboing, lifehacker, and engadget. And then I looked at some others, finally, I went to Del.icio.us and bookmarked a couple. I added some tags to my blog and then I pinged my blog (it did not require a machine that goes ping) on Technorati and did a search looking for my post - Success!!

off topic - classic book quiz & classic movie quiz

I took the classic book test , but I wasn't particularly taken with the book that it said I was so I tried again. I then took the classic movie test. Much better.

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Week 6, Thing 13 Del.icio.us

I dragged my feet on this assignment, initially I was put off when the site wanted to download buttons on to the tool bar. I thought that I would try to use the site at home where I could download if I chose to utilize Del.icio.us. The distractions at home proved to be numerous, but I finally tried Del.icio.us yesterday and at 12:30 a.m. I was still adding sites. No buttons actually needed to be downloaded. After creating your account, if you click on the post tab it will take you to a screen where you enter the url that you want to add. (The buttons are just the easier way.)

This is a great tool and since in the branch we use several different computers during the day, I think that it could be quite useful. It is really easy to organize your bookmarks by tags and interesting to see what sites others have bookmarked and tagged. When I was using the same computer everyday at work and then at home I probably wouldn't have continued to use Del.icio.us after this assignment, but now I'm hooked.

Week 5, Thing 12 - Rollyo

Rollyo is very cool! I created my own search of news websites including local news.

Select...hammer28 news searchSearch The Web

Week 5, Thing 11 - Library Thing

I had added some titles on Library Thing a few years ago and then forgot my user id and password. It seems like a really great thing, but the task of actually cataloging all of my books seems a bit daunting . . . and I've alreaded weeded extensively.

I created a new user id and cataloged a few titles, the link is below. I hope to add some more.

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/hammer28

Week 5, Thing 10 online image generator

I went to The Generator Blog and then to the Sketch Generator and used a Flickr photograph that I took in the Badlands and turned it into a sketch. Very cool! I saved the code and inserted it into this post, but then I had to edit the html code because I had two and half images. I impressed my self with that.

Week 4, Thing 9 Merlin and other sundry sites

I played around on Merlin and looked at the recommended reading and then created a Yahoo and a Meez avatar. I also added Merlin to my Bloglines list of feeds. I looked at the other sites and was puzzled why despite putting in my zip code in Topix.net it had Virgina news stories. It was interesting to discover different ways of finding feeds, but if you already know the site it is much easier just to go directly to that site and pick up the feed.

You Tube video

Gorilla Librarian

Week 4, Thing 8 RSS Feeds

The first step with RSS feeds was deceptively simple; however, trying to get the RSS feeds from Bloglines linked into my Blogger blog was a challenge. The screen shot on our instructions is not how the site is currently configured. "Share" is actually on the left hand side of the screen all the way down and does not appear as a tab. When first subscribing to Bloglines your user name is your email address, but in order to share your feeds you need to change your user name under "Account" then "Blog Settings" and then click on make your Blogroll public. Then you can get the HTML code to add to your blog. Whew...there was a lot of frustration involved with this thing. But - YEA! The blogroll is now up my blog!

Week 4, Thing 8 - RSS on Bloglines

Easy set up, just user name and password. I signed up for a bunch of feeds and then realized that I needed to scale back, some were duplicates that I had already set up on My Yahoo and others I would still regularly check the site. But I can definitely understand the appeal of having an aggregator for new information from regularly read blogs and websites.

Week 3, Thing 7 - Technology related post

We're supposed to write about anything technology related that currently catches our attention. As I am currently being distracted by downloadable video technology and You Tube that will be my topic. I added video content to my blog - the book cart drill team from the opening of the new Pratt branch (I am actually in the video towards the end in the audience) and a Muppet video of the Mahna Mahna Song. It was surprisingly easy to do.

I didn't have a similar experience when trying my first Amazon Unboxed video download last week, but after the second call to customer support I was assured that my experience was completely atypical. Once the issue was corrected on their end (vindication - first call to their tech support ended with the guy saying "Well, everything here is okay, maybe this isn't going to work out for you.") everything worked fine and I was able to transfer the movie to my video MP3. The transfer was totally easy and gave me the confidence to then try to utilizing a video grabber site (http://www.zamzar.com/) that I saw referenced in a LJ article about web 2.0 . The site allows you to save a copy to your hard drive of a video clip, like a You Tube video, into a variety of different formats. It only took a few minutes of playing with it to get how it works. Pretty cool.

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UPDATE:

It was driving me crazy that I couldn't find the article that I read since I wanted to link to it. I finally found it. It was in the eNewsletter American Libraries Direct 5/9/2007 not LJ as I previously thought. Here's the link to the original article that was on Mashable which reviews several other ways to download You Tube videos.

Can't leave out the Naughty Puppy

Here is a Warholized picture of Dash.

Week 3, Thing 6 - Flickr 3rd Party Sites

I played with fd's flickr toys this morning and created a magazine cover and a Warholized picture. Hard to stop playing with this, definitely having too much fun.

Week 3, Thing 5 - Flickr

I have spent some time on Flickr this morning and have registered (hammer28) and have uploaded some pictures. It was a lot of fun, I have used Yahoo Photos, Easy Share, and Snapfish before; however, none of those comes close to all the cool things that they have on Flickr.