Wikis

I think Wikis would work well for internal applications. I know that Christie used a Wiki for the Teen Reading game instructions. I think this would work well for the Children's Summer Program Instructions, too.

When we were discussing Wikis at a Youth Library Managers' meeting last fall, some libraries used Wikis to develop procedures for a variety of things.

I liked the idea of a Best Practices wiki, but the one we looked at was a few years old. It would seem like there are always a lot of good ideas out there, and for the purposes of determining "Best" Practices, shouldn't there be some sort of control of the type Wikis lack? Maybe the wiki should be named "Good Ideas" instead.

I thought the St. Joseph library adult reading club Wiki was another good use. I don't think it would work for a children's program without alternatives to publishing on a Wiki. Children who are still learning to write might find this too much of a chore to participate, otherwise. Though, it might encourage others, for the chance to be "published" and use the computer, the opportunity to practice their writing skill. I don't know how much other kids would be interested in reading the reviews of others, particularly if they are poorly written. (Sometimes it's a challenge making sense of children's writing when they are still learning, and I'm not talking penmanship, either.)

I added a restaurant to our ELL Wiki and it was very simple to use and I think my favorite use of Wikis had to be those communities having a Wiki of just this type of information. Restaurants, Things to See, Things to Do. I wonder, though, if a community or library hosts this type of Wiki for the public, what happens if someone posts something negative about a local business. Could a business take legal action if they perceived an impact on business?

I think some of the personal issues I've had with so many of these interactive technologies have to do with my own personal control issues. I never considered myself a control freak, but I think I'm discovering that I kinda am one.

Libraries 2.0

These are exciting times for libraries, I think. Can we keep up?

Again, I'm enough of an "old timer" to still appreciate the value of information, subject heading, and even opinions of people who have some expertise. I'm not such a fan of the opinions of the unvetted masses. So it's hard for me to say, "Hooray!" to the big changes that are coming.

But, on the other hand, I do like change. I get bored easily. I used to just change jobs, but now I just wait for the change to come to me.

I think that all of these new, interactive technologies the future generations of users will want libraries to include them in there services, so we should be learning them and looking for ways that they enhance our services. They certainly make it possible for libraries to reach new or different target audiences.

Children's departments around us are already taking advantage of things like blogging as a way to reach parents and, perhaps, older children. I'm not convinced that too many kids younger than Middle School age are going to read a library blog. They might be interested in getting in learning and using the technology, but finding ways to use this new technology to grab their interest and keep them as library users. We have challenges ahead and the better I understand and keep up with all this the more we can avoid the "icebergs" that Rick Anderson referred to in our readings. Full speed ahead!

LOL Kitties!

Okay, okay, so this has nothing to do with ELL (even though I'm falling further and further behind..)

One of the Library RSS feeds I've been following had this link posted and insisted readers would have to turn in their MLSs if they weren't wasting some part of the day here. How could I resist?

Twitter

I have to confess, Twitter wasn't as user-friendly for me as some of the other things I've tried as part of ELL.

I could see enjoying this if I were one of those Must Be Connected folks. I also could see using it, if my sisters, nieces, nephews and great-nieces and nephews were on board. For people I'm close to this would be great. I'm just not into the minutia of the lives of people I don't know.

Again for the right audience for libraries, I suppose, it would be like a Facebook or MySpace page, in that you could promote library services, programs and collections in more personal way than just a website. I'm not sure how that would work.

Mary just forward an invite to an Adult Reading Round Table program for Reader's Advisor's in Chicago that's right up the ally of all of us ELLearners. It's going to talk about using all these Web 2.0 technologies for Reader's Advisory. Sounds really fun, but I figured I see if anyone else from Children's is going. MamaWitch is going so I think I'll let her represent us at this one.

Back to my frustrations with Twitter. How do I enter a profile? Make my posts private? How do I search for anything other than other Twitter-ers from Evanston? That one I did figure out on my own and I'm currently following the "trend" of season premier of Heroes.

Actually this Heroes "thread" is both idiotic and fascinating to me. I am a watcher of Heroes and I'm taping tonight's premier, since I'm working, but really there are hundreds of comments already of folks just saying, "I can't wait," "I'm so exited," "Tacos then Heroes," and on and on. Also many that are counting down. Tweets are appearing now saying they are watching the show. I guess part of me is "geeky" enough that I find this an amusing way to feel as if I'm part of the premier excitement even though I can't watch it until I get home.

I did try looking at the top 10 librarians on Twitter. I can't say I found anything to follow in their minute to minute musings. In fact I find the "individual" pages difficult to follow and understand.

The Heroes thread is a lot more like eavesdropping on a conversation and now with the season two recap finishing and the actual premier about to start in 10 minutes it's incredible to see how fast the Tweets are posting!

del.icio.us

I enjoyed the opportunity to learn a bit more formally about del.icio.us. I have to say the 8 minute tutorial was very helpful. It showed me some uses I wouldn't have considered.

I could see if I was ever teaching, or a student again, it could be a big help to be able to create a shared reading list or suss out resources by using what others had found.

I still have to admit, however, that I liked the old MyBookmarks account for the EPL Reference bookmarks much better. Give me a formal taxonomy over a folksonomy any day.

Tag clouds may be cool looking, but I prefer an outline. I like to see the organizational structure. I like categories and sub-categories, not infinite tag combinations. It just seems so chaotic to me.

I like the idea of bookmarks that follow me from work to home on various computers so I may give it a try at some point in the future, but just not now.

Thing #12

I liked poking around on Hennepin County's website and Ann Arbor's, too.

While I don't think Library Thing's for me, I do think it adds value for a great many people, so having the option for library website users to add tags or comments or create reading lists would probably draw more folks to a library's website.

I know that CCS is exploring adding Library Thing to IBistro. That would be great if they can make this happen.

I wonder a bit about the "virtual communities" that are created. For example, it looked like there was book added in Hennepin by an HNorborg. Is that our Evanston librarian H. Norborg? As a selector here at Evanston Public Library, it would be interesting to see what our taxpayers were saying about what books they were reading, but it really loses it's usefulness for me as a selector if I'm looking at comments coming from across world. I'm not selecting for a virtual community, I'm not selecting for a real community of users and I'd love to know what they were thinking. I'm not so interested in selecting for the whole world.