Exploration 8: Del.icio.us

It's easy to understand the appeal of creating an account on del.icio.us, saving web pages that catch your fancy, and using your own tags to describe them. The pages are all in one accessible place. You know that you can retrieve them there because you're the person who put them there, along with your own helpful memory jogs.

Personal contribution is a key advantage. In this Exploration and the 23 Things exercise, I had fun looking at the various library systems that use del.icio.us, but for library purposes I don't think it's as useful to access an account that someone else set up. I found lots of really cool things through random browsing, but unless I already knew that the link was there, I wouldn't choose this as the first way to find information. I spent a lot of time scrolling through each library's selected web pages listed in no apparent order, scrolling through long lists of tags in alphabetical order (or choosing the tag cloud option for a non-linear burst of possibilities), and putting various terms in the search box to see if I got any results. I could grasp the one library's Dewey Decimal organization of bookmarks, but I have to admit that I was amused by this approach, because who but a librarian would find this helpful? The real advantage of del.icio.us and other bookmarking/tagging sites is that you don't have to think like a librarian to access information.

When it comes to staff uses in our library system... Our Recommended Sites list is well organized, but sometimes it's difficult to recall the exact site you're looking for or even what category it's under. Maybe we could make a del.icio.us or equivalent site for staff members to create their own tags to help with their own retrieval. Not to replace the existing arrangement, mind you, but to supplement it with a homegrown index of sorts.

And I'll share this from my random browsing of the library sites. One of the libraries had a tag for "Barbara", which I clicked on out of curiosity because it was too vague for my mind. That led to the intriguing Batgirl was a Librarian site. Why? Because Batgirl's first name was Barbara. The Batgirl site in turn had a link to www.ironfrog.com/catsmap.html, with a map of libraries that have resident felines. Someone in our library system is on the ball, because WST's resident cat of a few decades ago is listed on this map. Cool!

Exploration 7: Wikis

Wikis in Plain English gave the example of participants listing "what we have" and "what we need" to coordinate a camping trip.

So here are two list-based ideas:

We could use this approach on a branch basis when coordinating in-house events (volunteer appreciation, going away parties, etc) or on an area-wide basis for the PTH recognition event.

Or how about a craft supply wiki, where branches can list items they need help in accumulating. Right now we solicit supplies in a variety of ways (faxes, programming blog, etc) and one branch doesn't always know what another branch is sending, which can result in some poor crafters being totally inundated with, say, paper towel rolls, until they send out another desperate message that says "Thanks, we have enough." Branches could also list any excess supplies that are up for grabs, perhaps saving another branch a trip to the craft store. A wiki would make it easier to have a central point of communication, although because this application isn't centered around a specific project, the trick would be to remember to check it routinely.

And another idea:

The collaborative aspect of wikis might also be useful for our branch staff meeting minutes. At the moment we take turns being the recorder and we scribble down notes while different staff members talk about their areas of concern. Did the recorder catch everything? Is there something that the speaker would like to clarify after the fact? The wiki approach would make the document very easy for more than one person to edit. We'd just have to decide at what point we were finished editing, and remind everyone to read the final version.

Importing from Zoho

Happier Blue

June 19, 2008

Scary Polymer Clay Cat!

Here are some of the blog names I considered:

• Happy Enchilada
• Cow Pattern Clothes
• Two Bananas and a New York Times
• Sociable Amoeba
• What Was I Thinking??

Here's a table of the books I've read this summer:

Young Adult	Mystery	Non-Fiction
13 Reasons Why Jay Asher	Fearless Fourteen Janet Evanovich	Quiet, Please Scott Douglas
Skulduggery Pleasant Derek Landy	Dirty Secrets Club Meg Gardiner	Free for All Don Borchert
Raising Cain Derek Landy	Book Stops Here Ian Sansom	Ethel the Aardvark Goes Quantity Surveying

Exploration 6: Zoho Writer

I decided to save time by using the Zoho account that I set up for 23 Things...and there it was waiting for me, right where I left it last August. All the documents that I created back then were neatly listed. However, before I could access any of them, I got one of those pesky "Internet Explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close" messages. Then I got the same message again.

I thought the problem might be with this old account, so I created an entirely new account and did the entire Exploration exercise as outlined. Justified left, justified right, added a cute photo, made a list, used different fonts, created a table. Everything was very easy to do. But when I closed out of Zoho and went back later, I got the same error message and was unceremoniously thrown out of the program.

So, for a product whose main advantage is access, this is disconcerting. I'd hate to recommend these web tools to patrons and then witness their anguish if they can't work with their files. Just for the record, I did try again later on another computer and didn't have any problem, but I'm still a little leery. Has anyone else had any difficulty? I'm hoping my experience was just a fluke.

Optional exploration: Social Networking Sites

When I think of "social networking sites", I think primarily of MySpace and Facebook. The PC World article was enlightening because it put the term in a much broader context. For instance, it highlights Pandora as a social networking site. I love Pandora and use it frequently as a personalized online radio station, but I never thought about the social aspect. You can indeed find people with similar tastes in music, and get recommendations by scanning their lists of favorite artists, but that hasn't been my current purpose.

However, I would have absolutely loved this possibility back in my teen days. Music was my main passion (still is, for that matter) and I was always thrilled when I connected with someone who listened to my favorite under-the-radar artists. In the 70's I sent my name to the pen pal columns of music magazines and checked the bulletin boards at local music stores. In the 80's I went to a lot of concerts and chatted with people during intermission. In the 90's I joined many performer-related listservs and received messages via email. I still belong to those listservs, even though this newer social networking phenomenon makes them seem so, like, yesterday.

And I think this is a prime appeal of the social networking sites--to find people who share your passion, whatever that passion might be. It's also interesting that it's not necessarily a solitary pursuit, a lone person sitting at home staring at a computer screen. Our library teens love to look at MySpace in large noisy groups, showing off their creativity in person and laughing hysterically at various photos, until we politely remind them of proper library behavior and they go away.

At the Info Desk we get a fair number of questions from patrons trying to track down long-lost friends and relatives, and I wonder if the social network sites will become routine places to look. The nice part about having photos is that you can say "yes, that's her!", as opposed to finding name matches on Switchboard and not knowing if you have the right person. So far I haven't had any success searching for specific people on Facebook...but with 60 million users, that's a powerful database.

Optional Exploration: Twitter

Just by coincidence I tried to register with Twitter on the same day that CNN ran a story about someone using sending a tweet from a jail in Egypt, thus alerting his friends that he needed help. I kept getting a message that said "Twitter is over capacity. Too many tweets." I figured this overload was due to the extra publicity that day, but I've gotten the same message several times since. Finally I was able to register, and I signed up to follow two of our fellow bloggers who are already happily twittering away. I was thwarted once again, however, when I tried to add a picture to my Twitter profile. I got another "too busy, try again later" message. I'm glad I wasn't in jail in Egypt at the time.

Obviously this is a hugely successful service, but I can't think of many applications for our present day library responsibilities except to facilitate one-on-one communication between particular staff members. And that could be fun, like the tweeter exchanges that are currently going on.

And hmmm... If the vehicle for Shared Collection communication was tweets instead of a blog, I could send out updates every hour (too many cookbooks! take some!) and be as annoying as a gnat. :)

Optional Exploration: You Tube and Podcasts

I experienced a first earlier this month. A teenager motioned me over to his computer and asked "Can you show me how to put something from YouTube on my MySpace page?" My initial thought was that this question HAD to be a ringer (is it DLDS unobtrusive survey time again? Or maybe the Web 2.0 Exploration committee doing a surreptious check of my skills?), but no, it was a real patron asking a real question with the real expectation that I would know how to do this.

Wow. This was the first time in my experience that a teenager chose to ask a librarian such a question rather than turning to one of his peers. And thanks to doing 23 Things last summer, I was able to help him without too much floundering around. I hadn't been to YouTube since August 2007, and I was pleased that it's even easier now to share files.

So far there aren't many aspects of the Web 2.0 training that transfer from the library world to my largely non-technology-based home life, but podcasts are the exception. I've enjoyed having access to various author and singer/songwriter interviews, a nice change from reading the transcripts. And my favorite Spanish instruction site now has podcasts available, an obvious advantage when learning a language.