Saturday, November 24, 2007
Flickr Photos
Well, you can see I had fun playing with the photos on Flickr. I ended up blogging the whole page of each photo and the page with the thumbnail as well, rather than just the photos themselves. I imagine that someone can tell me what I was doing wrong. At least they are pretty photos of the coast of Maine so you don't much mind looking at them multiple times in different sizes.
Friday, November 23, 2007
Wikis
I like the concept of Wikis, especially for the kind of information as set up on the 10 Things site. It's fun to see everyone's favorite movies and restaurants. The site becomes more valuable as more people add to it. While I appreciate the entries in Wikipedia and have used it on occasion for basic information on a topic (especially in technology), my Reference training leads me to respect the authority of a credentialed individual authoring an article on a subject. Of course, in many cases, the authors of Wikipedia articles do have credentials for what they are writing. I enjoyed seeing some of the other Wikis out there such as the Biz Wiki at Ohio University or St. Joseph County Business Wiki. These have ideas that could be useful to Skokie's business community.
Tuning in
OK. This thing on Podcasting and online multimedia was great fun. I had listened to some podcasts before eg from National Public Radio, but this was amazing to see the range of content that is out there and the sheer amount of it. I could have spent a lot of time on Learning Out Loud. It's a listening/viewing library that has something for everyone. I listened to a piece on disruptive technologies from Penn State, to a book review of The People of Paper from Grand Rapids Public Library and to a videopodcast about oysters in the Chesapeake Bay. This audiovisual material is rich and would definitely be appreciated by folks in Skokie. We could have podcasts of some of our programs (that are not taped for cable), book reviews by staff, tips on searching or using reference tools, stories for kids and greetings/news of Library events in different languages. There are wonderful opportunities for outreach programming and time shifting ie making Library offerings convenient for everyone.
Instant Messaging
I discover that this communication mode isn't always so instantaneous. I have tried several times and find the 10 Things Team offline. To me, this is more like a committee meeting where you need to make arrangements for people to be online at a certain time. Once achieved, different people could have an interesting conversation and perhaps make some decisions collectively. So far, I still find e-mail preferable because each participant communicates in accordance with their own time frame and picks up messages relatively often, if not in real time.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Yummy
I moved on to Thing 6 re social bookmarking. I like this one a lot. I can see where it would be very helpful to see what other staff have bookmarked. I contributed two sites---one related to data and its analysis and the other related to privacy. Both may be helpful to other staff. It was interesting to see what's popular---not surprisingly a lot of the recommended sites relate to technology. Staff sites seemed to be all over or at least the tags are. Nothing is too prominent in the cloud. I gravitated to the food sites, whether because I was on del.icio.us or because I am anticipating dinner tomorrow......
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Moving along
I read up on Instant Messaging, but didn't find anyone online at the moment to connect with so moved on to Social Networking. I signed up for Eons, but don't see myself looking for friends this way. I have some friends from high school and college with whom I sometimes communicate as well as friends from previous jobs. In addition, I have siblings and other relatives. I can barely keep up with all these folks, so why would I want to go out there looking for people I've never met to start communicating with? I did have a big high school reunion recently and they started a list of classmates. It has been fun to hear from some of them occasionally re who is doing what, who is a grandparent, etc. However, I know that some people spend hours in communicating on these sites. I would only do that if I were planning an event or had some specific purpose. As far as the Library is concerned, I see the ratings and reviews as being more helpful than general chat.
Picking up the Thread
Wow! It's been almost four weeks since my last post. Where do the days go? I have just finished Thing 2 re RSS feeds. I love the concept. Without having to go out and look for things (often a waste of time), you can get interesting news and articles delivered right to you. There is that serendipity of discovering something you wouldn't have gone looking for. The only problem is that each feed still gives you a bunch of stuff you could care less about. So much to sort through....a bit like the mail at home with one interesting thing for every seven pieces of junk. I liked the Henepin County use of RSS to give a variety of information---even things like catalog tips. I wonder how many people subscribe. Maybe with SPL's "New@" RSS people will discover some services and programs they wouldn't have known about otherwise. I like the SkokieTalk site. Keeping everyone in touch with what's happening locally is a good idea. Our weekly community newpaper can't really fill that role. I discovered several sites that would be of interest to local business: Elance, an online marketplace for small business to hire web designers, writers, admins and other freelancers, Duct Tape Marketing podcasts and Brian Clark's Business Pundit.
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