April 23, 2008 at 6:10 pm (Uncategorized)
Otis Gospodnetic called me on the my remark that Delicious searching works better than Simpy searching– so I went back and checked. The difference I perceived initially isn’t there. Both sites offer a vanilla search box that retrieves whatever the users have saved.
I feel a little creeped out having been spotted so quickly by Gospodnetic, who manages Simpy. But that’s the web environment too.
April 23, 2008 at 6:03 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: future, library 2.0, thing 16
I like the word perspective used in the context of Library 2.0. It reminds me that I have a perspective, one that was shaped by the MLS years ago and by 30 years work as a librarian. Rick Anderson’s remarks resonate with a virtual presentation I heard from the MidAtlantic Library Futures Conference. Check out the audio presentation and PowerPoint given by futurist Joan Frye Williams.
Information customers, who are also library customers, aren’t as picky as librarians about what they find for sources. We’re still saying “make sure that’s a reputable document”– the customers are happy to find a blog/ story/ user group and go with that for the answer.
Two points Rick Anderson made:
1. Put library services and content where the customer goes, which is now on the web. Integrate them into the customer’s “daily patterns.” Quite a challenge for Vermont’s places filled with books!
2. Make sure library services are usable without training. Make them “user-centric.”
Both of these points make more sense in Anderson’s academic environment than they do in mine. The public library environment I know includes many tuned in, blog-reading, Google-using customers– but it also includes my young hairdresser who knows e-mail but not much else on the web. And how about the seniors, the largest demographic in New England? Eager to learn– but taken as a group, not yet on the web.
I’m paying attention, I’m recognizing how fast change comes, but I’m not convinced we should jettison the habits of the past and switch our attention to IM now. Unless (thanks, Michael Stephens) our customers are truly demanding that we do so.
April 19, 2008 at 8:21 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: blogs, Technorati, thing 15
I had a good time in the Blogosphere, by which I mean Technorati. Checked out Vermont, National Library Week, Jessamyn West, my town, and of course my consuming interest, Middlebury Quidditch. Turns out there are lots of people around using blogs to comment on the world.
The take-away for me is probably another way to identify up and coming topics. Will I use Technorati regularly? No, probably not– but I might jump on to check out a Vermont story and see whether it made headlines in the blogosphere. My preference is still to look at a few blogs that I’ve found keep tabs on what is new– rather than looking at the tool that counts what is hot.
Claiming my blog turned out to be pretty straightforward. I wasn’t tempted by the Watchlist (well, not on this visit anyway), but I did enjoy another feature of Technorati: Today in Photos. Why did I see so many photos related to video games, iPods or i-commercials, and superheroes? Looks like a youth-driven culture to me.
April 19, 2008 at 2:06 am (Uncategorized)
Tags: Del.icio.us, Simpy, thing 14
I’ve been dragging my feet on this week– the old remember the password problem. For some reason, I initially picked Simpy to do my social bookmarking. But the help has not been as helpful as the Del.icio.us site– and now I’ve proven to myself that the search function on Del.icio.us works better.
Is password management one of the 23 things? It probably should be for me.
Both Simpy and Del.icio.us are great for keeping track of my websites– ADA, interesting library pages, topics from workshops. I think the public aspect of dangling those bookmarks out there makes me a little nervous– but that’s why we’re fooling with the new technology, right? To get over the nerves and feel out the advantages.
Next challenge: to log in from a different computer and see if I can still get to my new bookmarks. The sceptic isn’t sure….
April 17, 2008 at 1:23 am (Uncategorized)
Tags: LibraryThing, thing 13
What I like about LibraryThing: the attractive visual images of the covers, plus the links to what other people are reading. I stuck in a bunch of different books and found lots of paths away from them to similar reading.
On the other hand, it’s lists that I prefer. Give me an old fashioned annotated bibliography any day! Perhaps it’s just that I haven’t created a library web page– that’s where I expect LibraryThing would shine. I also found it a little frustrating scoping out the LT and WordPress relationships– until I realized that the blogs that showed me LT book jackets were not WordPress.
Another tiny reality: when I’m really busy as I have been lately, new technology is way down the list. Cooking, reading, talking to friends– they all come much higher than figuring out how to make code work or how a new tool interacts with the old stuff.
On to the next thing, I say!
April 11, 2008 at 1:36 am (Uncategorized)
Tags: Go Fish, library cards, library visits, McDonalds, National Library Week
I’m tickled with the ALA-created videos for National Library Week, especially the one that compares visits to the library with visits to McDonalds. Someone really had fun writing these spots! And they’re free for embedding in your blog, site, etc.– great idea for celebrating online. Almost as clever as the McDonald’s spot– Go Fish.
The Good Ship Beagle 