I love the Slammin' the boards inititative - what a wonderful way to market our skills! It's really important that the effort be maintained, for the librarians to continue to spread the word widely and not just locally.
There are lots of ways to make it local as well. I envisage a wiki for our customers to post questions and answers to - why limit it to the librarians when there is so much knowledge out there in the community? Of course there would be librarian input - but let's make it truly social, not the 'us and them' mentality in a different form. For those who aren't so computer literate, we could have a paper based system in the library branches, librarians could then post the questions/answers to the wiki on behalf of the customer - my experience is that most reference queries come up again in some form.
This could also be an excellent way for customers to 'vote' on our collection - and a really good way to gather suggestions for purchase and suggestions for research guides. Just a couple of thoughts...
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Social Bookmarking
I have used Del.icio.us before, but then kind of gave up - but now that I have read a bit more I think I will make the effort to continue using it. I particularly like the way the AskNow service is utilising it - this is a really good example of how libraries can harness the technology and provide more value-added services for our customers.
Not too sure how I feel about Technorati, I can see that it could be useful, but I'll have to do a bit more research to see how I could use it myself.
I also already had a LibraryThing account. I had noble ambitions about 6 months ago and thought about adding my own bookshelf, but then I got lazy. Now I just use it to sticky beak about what others are reading and talking about. I think LibraryThing is doing good things for reading in general. It's a great tool for book-clubs and could be used to create online book-clubs - stretching beyong the physical limitations. Of course it's also an excellent readers advisory tool for librarians.
Not too sure how I feel about Technorati, I can see that it could be useful, but I'll have to do a bit more research to see how I could use it myself.
I also already had a LibraryThing account. I had noble ambitions about 6 months ago and thought about adding my own bookshelf, but then I got lazy. Now I just use it to sticky beak about what others are reading and talking about. I think LibraryThing is doing good things for reading in general. It's a great tool for book-clubs and could be used to create online book-clubs - stretching beyong the physical limitations. Of course it's also an excellent readers advisory tool for librarians.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
The Machine is Us/ing Us
One of my favourite YouTube moments - an effective look at Web 2.0 and how it is changing the world and us
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Video Worlds
So I was having a look at some of the suggested videos on YouTube this week. Monty Python and the Holy Grail in Lego is fantastic - really funny. I can't believe some people have enough time to come up with stuff like this.
A good example of how libraries can harness the technology is with Olive Riley Returns to Broken Hill. I have been looking at doing something very similar in my library for a while now, as soon as I get the time...
I thought that the PLCMC New Employee Orientation has great potential, as long as it doesn't replace face-to-face interactions with management.
My immediate thought was that student orientations could also be done this way, and I found one in Reference and Research Assistance.
The showcase of ArtExpress works also has potential, if done properly it could become a really professional presentation.
A good example of how libraries can harness the technology is with Olive Riley Returns to Broken Hill. I have been looking at doing something very similar in my library for a while now, as soon as I get the time...
I thought that the PLCMC New Employee Orientation has great potential, as long as it doesn't replace face-to-face interactions with management.
My immediate thought was that student orientations could also be done this way, and I found one in Reference and Research Assistance.
The showcase of ArtExpress works also has potential, if done properly it could become a really professional presentation.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Collaboration
Wikis are another technology I feel relatively OK with. I think they are an ideal way for organisation's procedures manuals to be published - particularly well suited to location-specific procedures rather than formal policies.
I quite like the SJCPL Subject Guides wiki, this is another excellent way to apply the technology to libraries. Wisconsin Heritage Online doesn't feel like a wiki at first (purely a design thing), but I can see the collaboration at work. I didn't really like the design of the Mint Museum wiki (they really need to shrink the fonts), but the idea is nice. A quick browse through showed that there hasn't been much collaboration on the pages - the 6 I checked had all been created by the Museum staff with no subsequent editing. I guess it could be a work in progress.
Library Success has a lot of good information on it for us librarians, I will definitely explore this one a bit further. I really like BookLovers wiki by Princeton Public Library - I think a wiki is a much better way to organise a readers advisory site than a blog, because it is inherently more organised (and organisation is, of course, incredibly important to me).
Montana History wiki also looks great. There is certainly a lot of information in there. The only thing that I think needs to happen is the resources lists need to be subdivided by topic, as some of them are way too long to be useful.
Finally, Wookieepedia is just cool, and testamount to the fact that people will always contribute much more readily to pop culture collaborations than anything else.
I quite like the SJCPL Subject Guides wiki, this is another excellent way to apply the technology to libraries. Wisconsin Heritage Online doesn't feel like a wiki at first (purely a design thing), but I can see the collaboration at work. I didn't really like the design of the Mint Museum wiki (they really need to shrink the fonts), but the idea is nice. A quick browse through showed that there hasn't been much collaboration on the pages - the 6 I checked had all been created by the Museum staff with no subsequent editing. I guess it could be a work in progress.
Library Success has a lot of good information on it for us librarians, I will definitely explore this one a bit further. I really like BookLovers wiki by Princeton Public Library - I think a wiki is a much better way to organise a readers advisory site than a blog, because it is inherently more organised (and organisation is, of course, incredibly important to me).
Montana History wiki also looks great. There is certainly a lot of information in there. The only thing that I think needs to happen is the resources lists need to be subdivided by topic, as some of them are way too long to be useful.
Finally, Wookieepedia is just cool, and testamount to the fact that people will always contribute much more readily to pop culture collaborations than anything else.
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