Other Web 2.0 Tools and Final Thoughts

After looking through the list of winners of the Web 2.0 awards, I was surprised by how many of these tools I've actually used.  I especially like Picasa over other photo applications like Flickr, as the editing possibilities seem endless.  I used this program all the time during my time abroad to upload, edit, organize and share the thousands of pictures I was taking during my travels.  The winners of the music category surprised me as I've never used Lastfm before, but have used the other websites such as Pandora, until I discovered Spotify, which I mentioned in my first post.  Another tool that I was happy to see on this list of awards, was the second place bookmarking award for Stumbleupon.  I discovered this amazingly fun and entertaining website a few years back, but haven't used it in quite some time, so I decided to set up a new account and see what had changed.  While I could probably spend my life stumbling on this website, as it's set-up is geared completely to personal interests, and the content is limitless, I tried to remain slightly focused, as I noticed some differences from a few years ago.  I definitely understand why this won an award for bookmarking, as you are now able to search for topics of interest just like Delicious.  If I remember correctly, the overall set-up of the site use to be much simpler and didn't include a search bar as it just allowed for you to select from a much shorter list of interests and then simply stumble by hitting the stumble button, and also liking or disliking a page.  The website now has the fun aspect of randomly stumbling, combined with all the other aspects of a bookmarking site such as sharing with others, saving, sending messages, adding comments, and building a profile.  I love this Web 2.0 tool as it serves several purposes, but specifically enables people to simply discover something new.  Some tools I hadn't used before and explored were the retail tool, Etsy, and the book tool, Lulu.  I signed up and created accounts for both of these sites as I was interested in the publishing aspects of Lulu, and drawn to the uniqueness and all of the small creative businesses associated with Etsy.  Overall, I'm overwhelmed, but excited by the world of Web 2.0 and it's endless possibilities.  I really enjoyed exploring so many of the Web 2.0 tools included in the awards list, and realizing ways to utilize tools like Delicious and RSS into my profession in the future. 

Library 2.0

After reading through the perspectives on the future of libraries, I was most struck by the first perspective, "Away from Icebergs," and the last perspective listed, "To a temporary place in time."  I thought Rick Anderson's views were the most blunt and brutally honest of the perspectives, especially in his discussion of the future of collections.  I must admit, although I agree with most of what he had to say, I always find myself feeling a little sad at the thought of diminishing library collections.  While more and more sources of information are available in formats other than print, and we may not need to collect as many print resources, I still believe things need to be available in print to a certain extent.  I know Web 2.0 and all it has to offer needs to be embraced, but I don't think we should ever let the traditional library just slip away, as it seems Anderson is suggesting.  The "Reliance on Education" section was also interesting to consider as Anderson suggests, libraries need more of a focus on eliminating barriers, rather than on educating users on how to properly use research tools and learn research skills.  At first when I read this, I seriously had a tough time with what he was saying as it seemed he was arguing for librarians to stop spending so much time teaching information literacy; however, after I read it again, I don't think he was actually quite that harsh.  There are many barriers, confusions involved, and necessary trainings for acquiring the proper research skills that do seem a bit excessive, and if more effort was put towards creating easier ways to operate services then yes, maybe some of these research problems students regularly encounter could be solved.  However, teaching is a major aspect of librarianship and will always involve the teaching of information and research skills in some way.  I think there is a happy medium that can be reached between devoting time to teaching students research skills, and also improving the actual services themselves.   

Zotero

http://www.zotero.org/mw519671

This is the link for my Zotero account.  I actually really love Zotero, as I discovered it at the beginning of the semester and used it frequently to save articles for research, especially during my literature review process for LIS 505.  My library has many articles regarding Internet filtering in schools, and the Google debate. 

Delicious

As I explored Delicious for the first time, I was a bit confused as I'm not sure I still even realize it's full capabilities.  During this past semester, I took the course 524, Field Experience in School Library Media Centers, and during my time working at Casey Middle School, I watched as the library media specialist there explained to a class researching Mesopotamia how to utilize Delicious.  She showed the class how Delicious could be a very helpful research tool, as it's really useful for finding popular information on a topic, and leading you to other areas through the related tags.  As I walked around the library after the lecture and observed the students researching, many of them were using the Delicious website.  So when I was given the opportunity to explore this website tool, I decided to conduct my own Delicious search on Mesopotamia to see what I could find.  I immediately found endless information, much of which was age appropriate and specifically geared toward school age children.  I can see how such a tool could be utilized in school libraries, and among teachers and librarians collaborating, as I immediately found several stacks of links for middle school students created by Delicious users.  It seems like a very easy way for a teacher or librarian to collect sites on a specific topic for student, and is definitely a main way I could see myself using this tool in the future.  I also appreciate the social aspect of Delicious in that people can follow you and you have to ability to share the stacks of links you created.  It's similar to RSS and bookmarking, but better in my opinion as anything can be saved to your Delicious account, and shared for collaboration purposes.  Overall, I think this is definitely a research tool that I see myself using in the school library setting. 

RSS and Newsreaders

I don't think I have ever really used RSS feeds before this assignment, or ever even really encountered them until this past semester.  I'm really glad I discovered this tool, as I love tools that involve ways to store information for later, and allow the creation of your own personal library in a sense.  Other applications from the past that remind me of RSS are the favorites or bookmark tool, and Zotero, which I use on a regular basis to store articles and other information for research.  I particularly like that the RSS feeds keep the updated information available if you haven't had time yet to check it, but the website has already updated it's site or changed it's top story.  I like that you can often subscribe to certain sections of a particular website, and receive all of the news and updates just from that section, such as a job section, or an arts and culture subject.  I also like how through Google Reader, you're able to see which articles are still new and unread by the subscriber.  As I subscribed to feeds through Google Reader, I particularly was drawn to all that the Library of Congress and LibWorm had to offer in terms of resources and job opportunities.  I literally could spend hours if I had the time, going through all of this information, so subscribing to an array of different categories from the websites is especially helpful in supporting my professional as well as personal interests.  Some more personal areas of interest that I subscribed to was Pitchfork, one of my favorite music review websites that I visit frequently for updates.  Through the search engine, Topix.net, I stumbled upon the NPR RSS feeds, which include numerous categories, such as Arts and Culture, which I subscribed to as well.  I thought the search engines recommended to use such as Topix, were useful as I'm not always sure what websites offer RSS, so I thought this was an interesting way to discover websites for this tool. 

Wikis

This was probably the most informative part of the individual project so far, just because wiki's are something I have of course seen and heard of on countless occasions, and even been offered to utilize in classes this semester, but still have yet to really understand the full wiki potential.  Since this is an area that I'm more apprehensive about, I spent a significant amount of time perusing through the links LIS 506 Web 2.0 page.  I found the "other library wiki examples" link to be particularly useful and clicked on several different categories, including the "Intranets" section as my eyes went straight the Albany Public Library's wiki.  I naturally was drawn to this as I graduated from SUNY Albany, and lived in the Albany area, and used their public libraries for several years.  This was a wiki created specifically for their library staff and communicated manager and staff meetings, as well as strengths and weaknesses of different areas of the library such as Children's services.  Overall, it seemed to be a good source of communication for the library staff.  I also took a look at the San Diego Librarians Wiki, which provided a place for librarians to post ideas and information on a variety of subjects such as book clubs crafts, and story time.  I also found the ALA Wiki: What I learned and what I’m doing with it link to be extremely helpful in understanding the purpose of a wiki, and what makes a wiki successful.  The author of this article is also the creator of Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki, which takes her article to the next level in explaining and providing resources for successful wikis in libraries.