S.J. Learning 2.0 is in Fun Over-drive

#13 - I had a blast with del.icio.us and have set up my list of favorite Web sites on my del.icio.us account. The fact that my favorites list is now web based and can be used on any computer with internet access is a great feature. The tagging aspect of del.icio.us is a valuable and important part of the usefulness of this site. I can see how this feature can be useful in organizing my favorites and a way to keep things uber-organized. The "social bookmarking" is another very interesting capability of this site in that you can use another person’s web expertise to help better utilize and navigate the Web.
#14 - Exploring Technorati has been a mind-boggling experience. There are many intriguing features regarding the various ways one can mine this huge treasure-trove of information. Interestingly, I noticed that FoxNews.com uses Technorati as their main search engine tool for organizing their subject tabs and access to the viewer comments, suggestions and complaints (always fair and balanced no doubt). I found the SJLibrary's del.icio.us page to be very informative and helpful - Great Job!
#15 - Perspectives on Web 2.0 - Future of Libraries - The description of the characteristics of the Web 2.0 sites was aptly described in the introductory page when it stated "sites that embody Web 2.0 principles of simplicity, rich interactivity, user participation, collective intelligence, self-service, novel and remixed content—Flickr, MySpace, FaceBook, del.icio.us, YouTube, LibraryThing—to name a few." The Internet's penetration into everyday life for an increasingly larger portion of the population is growing at a staggering pace. Librarians, administrator and all staff have to take a sober look at the new realities we collectively face. We must adapt to the new information technology or perish! Rick Anderson's article "Away From the Icebergs" was thought-provoking ... the paragraph entitled "The 'come to us' model of library service" was dead on accurate. Libraries that think only in terms of collecting expensive printed resources are no longer in-sink with the dramatic trends that are sweeping our information-based digitized culture. Libraries have to rethink and reinvent themselves to be responsive to this massive and mind-boggling technological sea-change. His concluding paragraph is so germane to the new realities it should probably be committed to memory: "No profession can survive if it throws its core principles and values overboard in response to every shift in the zeitgeist. However, it can be equally disastrous when a profession fails to acknowledge and adapt to radical, fundamental change in the marketplace it serves. At this point in time, our profession is far closer to the latter type of disaster than it is to the former. We need to shift direction, and we can’t wait for the big ship of our profession to change course first. It’s going to have to happen one library—one little boat—at a time." Hopefully our first steps in better understanding the Library Web 2 will be the springboard of us becoming increasingly well-versed in the new technological realities. I appreciated Michael Stephens' article, "Into a New World of Librarianship" and especially his concluding thoughts on content: "Librarian 2.0 gets content. This librarian understands that the future of libraries will be guided by how users access, consume and create content. Content is a conversation as well and librarians should participate." I enjoyed Chip Nigles' and John Riemer's articles and particularly liked John's statement on broadening relevance rankings when he stated: "Relevance ranking techniques should be driven by much more than the mere prevalence of keywords in the bibliographic record and be fed by a wider range of metadata, such as circulation activity, placement of materials on class reserve lists, sales data, and clicks to download, print, and capture citations." The article by Dr. Wendy Schultz, "To a Temporary Place in Time" was amazing. I particularly liked it when she stated: "Libraries are not just collections of documents and books, they are conversations, they are convocations of people, ideas, and artifacts in dynamic exchange." Her description of the Library 3.0 and Library 4.0 world was eye-opening. George Bishop's article "Ripple Effect" was interesting. To me his most important suggestion was to: "Ingrain your services into your patrons’ world so that they cannot live without you." If libraries can successfully do this, we'll always have a role in the information delivery business.

The remarkable journey through S.J. Library Learning 2.0

#8 (Week 4) - This was quite an adventure ... the concept of the RSS feeds and the Bloglines site in particular is very powerful and potentially time-saving. I set it up so that I could keep tabs on the weather forecasts for my hometown (Capitola) and I am sending news feeds to my account (based on my zip code). The Feed Me tutorial was well structured and very helpful. This technology has many powerful tools and I'm looking forward to getting to know it better as I try out the various features of the site.
#9 - I checked out a number of the news feeds and I found Topix.net particularly helpful and relevant to my library related inquiries. I did get some useful hits using Feedster, Technorati and Syndica8. It was interesting to see the various types of information and the breath of topics that can be found utilizing these sources. I haven’t quite determined how you evaluate the accuracy and validity of some of the sites posted, but I do see this as a valuable tool for information gathering.
#10 - The various image generators were pretty amazing. I really had fun with the Comic Strip Generator. The Fd Toys and Image Chef have both have useful features. So far I haven't been able to cut and paste any of my creations to my blog but I'll keep on trying (or better yet, get some help).
#11 - I checked out a few of the sites listed on the short list of Web 2.0 but the one I spent considerable time with was "Last.fm" ... this is a very interesting site for a musician. My interest is mainly in classical music (oboe music of course) and they do have some interesting biographies on classical composers and selections of their best know works available for listening. A very interesting feature of this site is that you can check the listening records of those currently on the web and listen to what they have heard. This is a unique way one can expand his/her musical tastes and gain greater appreciation of music from diverse cultural traditions. There is a huge amount of very interesting ethnic, innovative, cutting edge music. There are many vocal and instrumental selections to choose from.
#12 - I really like Rollyo. This is a fascinating and very fun site to interact with. I set up two search rolls "News-Are-Us" and "REFERENCE IS MY GAME." With these two sites I can do pretty comprehensive current news and politics searching and then on the second one, general and some specific reference inquiries. To fashion these search rolls, I used some of the existing rolls as a guide and then I modified them with sites that I thought would give additional debth to my searches. This is a highly recommended tool.