Online Word Processing

On line word processing (brought to you by Zoho writer) is extremely cool. It is an area that needed to be explored a long time ago. It opens the door to creating items when you may not have a floppy disk or usb key with you to save the item on, which often happens with patrons. There eventually may be a concern with privacy but if it's something sensitive then it should not be typed up and saved to the internet to begin with. This is something that we as a system should definitely promote.

Sandbox Wiki

I didn't contribute to the wiki but while I think that the concept of a group wiki is good, there are many ways Wiki's can be great, they also can be "dangerous" in the sense that anyone can edit them. When these types of wiki's become used as an authoritative source for information while doing research or as a single source on information it can be a slippery slope. When used in the right context wiki can be a weath of information sharing!

Wiki's

I have to say that I really enjoyed exploring the world of wiki in terms of library use. I loved the book lovers wiki and also the SJCPL subject wiki. I think that a valuable use of a wiki for our system would be to revamp the community information page, turning it into a wiki. This way we could have clickable information on different subjects, interest areas. Not only could we provide the basic information that people are looking for such as; address, phone number but we could link them to the organizations web page and possibly other members who have web pages with similar interests.
The book lovers wiki would be good for the adult src activity I think that it would provide participants with motivation to finish or even start the program, to have an online book club, opinions from other reading the same book, suggestions of books to read. It would explore another avenue.

Technorati & Web 2.0

I don't know that I fully understand Technorati, but I will explore it more later. I do have some thoughts on the Web 2.0; in Michael Stephens article he talks about how the librarian needs to cater to the needs of the emerging techno savvy patron, while I agree with this I think that there could be a point that we go to far and alienate the population that "likes us just the way we are.." {homage to Bridget Jones} We need to reach out to the changing demographic using the tools that they use; internet, myspace, friendster, etc. I don't however believe that we need to move away from the community aspect of libraries. The library is the heart of research for individuals and we should be able to access those hard to find items for people and not move entirely away from the "just in case collection" as Rick Anderson states in his piece. Library 2.0 is something that needs to be undertaken with serious thought as to what would most benefit us and not rushed into just b/c someone else is doing it. I believe that Library 2.0 is not just about the technology aspect but also about the welcoming environment of the library and the staff that serve the public. We need to create an environment that one the one hand retains the traditional library atmosphere while on the other hand creates a new space that will appeal to a wider audience.

Del.icio.us

With some help from Sam I understand Delicious now. (Much thanks) I don't know that I would use delicious myself. I think that it would be useful for the library to use to develop a readers advisory system for patrons to access but also for us to use. If I was on the computer more at work as a browser I could see myself using it to tag some favorites, so I could then access them from home.

Library Thing & Rollyo

I have to say that I loved adding things to my blog, all the little add on's really personalized it for me! I love my library thing, I am not as faithful as I should be to it. I believe the last time I updated it was in March. I will work on that today, if I can remember everything that I have read since then.
I love creating the animated me. I wouldn't normally be carrying a purse around at work but anyway.
This was a great week!

I do have to say that I didn't like rollyo and I'm not sure what we could use it for. It seems difficult to use.

RSS and Bloglines

It's true the most difficult thing to figure out about the exercise was how to make the blogline public. So I did do that and it came out as; http://www.bloglines.com/public/heilandcoo
Another triumph in the 23 things world! I like the idea of the bloglines feeds. I will attempt to use my dictionary word of the day in my conversations. I think it would be extremely beneficial for the library to have a blog to connect with the "Internet" universe. These are people that are constantly on the computer or the people who would rather have it brought to them, in their inbox or on their feed. Those are the people who the library needs to reach out to, in order to have continued success. Just the little pop up to remind the people that the library is there and reaching out to them would help our success!

:)