Library 2.0

I read all 5 perspectives under the discovery resources. But the two that stuck in my mind the most were "Away from Icebergs" by Rick Anderson and "To a Temporary Place in Time" by Dr. Wendy Schultz. I found Anderson's analogies interesting. He compared the librarian profession to a boat with three icebergs that threatened it. The three icebergs being the "just in case collection", "reliance on user education" and the"come to us". Anderson states we must eliminate barriers and find new ways to bring services to patrons without insisting they come to us (us being the physical place, the library). He believes we need to find ways to service them outside the physical library. I agree, we need to find new ways to service users and eliminate any barriers. As librarians, we need to embrace change. But I also agree with Dr. Wendy Schultz philosophy that we must have a library renewal within current trends. We need to "re-package" some ideas and ways. Not necessarily re-invent them. As stated by Schultz, libraries are not just documents and books, they are conversations, people, ideas. I believe we need to find a happy medium that will mold the two perspectives. Whatever way we go I do agree that all this new info in print and online will put a premium on service, tailoring information to the needs of a patron/user. Our relationships with users should not change, maybe just the way we go about it.

Del.icio.us

For this assignment, we needed to view a 12 minute tutorial on del.icio.us and then take a look around (using the sachblog account that was created for this purpose). As with some of the previous assignments, I found this one a bit confusing.
From the tutorial and my del.icio.us exploration, I learned that del.icio.us allows you to bookmark a web page and then add tags to categorize them. You bookmark something you will want to use again someday. The analogy I created for myself to understand this concept is: I am reading a cookbook, and I find a recipe I like, so I fold the page over (don't worry it's my own book :) ) or I stick a post it on the page. I then write "dessert" on the post it. Dessert would be the tag. I tag it knowing I will want to use this recipe someday. My "tag" in my recipe book is private, it's my book. But, if I was on del.icio.us, it is social bookmarking and anyone can see it.
When exploring with the sachblog account, I discovered that articles were on the left of the page (these were the articles that were tagged) and the actually tags (words) were listed on the right. I liked how it let you know how many people tagged the article. Could definitely see the potential use of tagging. Reminds me of a very unstructured type of cataloging. Can see the use in the academic world, best suited for those who work intensively with computers. Was not up for the challenge of creating my own account. I feel like I have created so many accounts as it is that I will probably never use again.

Technorati

So, for this exercise, I explored, Technorati, the leading search tool and authority for blogs. I was surprised to discover that Technorati is only three years old, or should I say young. "Young" is what keeps popping into my head as I explored this site. I feel Technorati is geared toward the younger set. Most of the popular blogs dealt with music, movies and making money.
I did a keyword search for "Learning 2.0" in the three areas and came up with very different results in each. I explored popular blogs and took a look at Boing Boing (found it very strange), Techcrunch and youtube. Did not find much that interested me. The most interesting article I found was in a popular blog called Thinking Blog. The title of the article was "Being a Good Parent". The article was well written and interesting, but after reading the article, I wondered, does the writer have children. Since most of Technorati and the popular blogs are geared to the young, who besides me is reading this article. In summary, Technorati did not interest me , I was not interested in the optional task and I felt "old" after this assignment.

Rollyo---now I think I got it!!!

Thanks to Laura, I think I have the current link to my Rollyo account!



http://rollyo.com/littlemonstermom/scrap_happy/

Rollyo

I think I completed this task, but I am really not sure. I found the idea of Rollyo and creating your own search tool interesting. But, acutally doing it, another story. I went into the link for creating a searchroll and did it. I think it was successful, but it is not appearing on my post as others have. Somehow I managed to do the optional part of adding your searchroll to your blog uisng a searchbox tool. But, that wasn't really what I was trying to do.

I guess the whole idea of having all your websites in one place to search may be interesting concept for some. But I think, do I really need my own search engine? I don't think I am advanced enough for this. Nor do I spent that amount of time on the computer for it to be useful on a personal level.

See above post for correct link to my Rollyo account.

LibraryThing

Enjoyed checking out LibraryThing. I started a list of books. Most are books I have read recently. You will notice most are romance or childrens books. I will add more as I go. I liked the book suggester and non-suggester. You type in a book you enjoyed and it will suggest a book you might like or not like. I thought the non-suggester was quite original.

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/kdesimone71

Image Generator

Loved this assignment the best. It was so much fun playing around with the different generators. This one is from the sketch generator. Also played around with the Romance Novel Cover.

Finding Feeds

Loved the first line of assignment #8, "You've heard of RSS?".

Well, I hadn't, glad to hear that I was in the majority though. Made me feel a little better to know I wasn't the only one out there. So, now that I completed the assignment, am I in the minority since I know what it is now? Now I understand that it is a way of getting up to date info off the web. But, instead of looking all over for it, it can be found in one place. I had seen newsfeed icon before, but never knew what they were. I just figured they where another advertisement of some sort.

Checked out the search tools for finding feeds. Liked Feedster and Topix the best. They were the easiest to use and seemed to be more for a beginner or novice like myself. Did not care for Syndic8 or Technorati. I found them very confusing and were not as easy to use. They appeared to be much more technical. I enoyed Feedsters " Feed of the Day". The "Feed of the Day" was "One Sentence". Loved it, most were quite humorous. Liked how Topix could be modified to the area in which you live.