Playing in the sandbox: Thing #16

This was my first experience with editing pages in a wiki. It was a breeze with PBWiki!

In the Learn & Play @CML wiki, I was able to add my blog to the Favorite Blogs page, list my dog as my favorite animal (and link to his photo), describe one of my favorite websites, and list a favorite quote from my grandfather. I may just go on and on, listing my favorites of everything!

It was also fun to read everyone else's favorite things and share opinions. The sandbox is fun!

Photo by thawizard

Wikis: Thing #15

I enjoyed exploring wikis today. A wiki seems like an ideal way to share knowledge and do collaborative work. There were loads of great examples!

I especially admired a couple of library applications. Wikis would really work well in place of our usual subject pages (e.g., business and job seekers). The librarians who specialize in these areas could easily add or modify content. A good example is Ohio University's biz wiki (http://www.library.ohiou.edu/subjects/bizwiki/index.php/Main_Page) .

Another great example is the Michigan Libraries Wiki (http://mlcnet.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page). It was so easy to browse the pages to find and compare, for example, library policies on Interlibrary Loan. A similar collaborative effort for Ohio libraries would be really useful.

I think that our customers would also love the chance to add content to our website in the form of discussion--about books, local information, reviews, or just about anything. A great way to get their opinions and input.

Photo by cogdogblog.

The long tail: Thing #14

As I am working my way through the 23 things, I am having a wonderful time but keep finding myself thinking about whether our customers will really use these 23 things. I help customers every day who are not even proficient with a mouse and keyboard, let alone Flickr and Twitter.

However, after reading the five perspectives in the article "Web 2.0: Where will the next generation of the web take libraries?" as well as the Wikipedia article and its references, I started thinking about this "long tail" concept mentioned in the article "Library 2.0: Service for the next-generation library" (http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6365200.html). (I also looked at an earlier article, "The long tail" (http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html?pg=1&topic=tail&topic_set= ). As the Library Journal article explains, "the demand for movies or books that are not hits far outnumbers the demand for those that are hits. Match those nonhits with the people who are interested in seeing them, and suddenly you have a group of constituents equal to or greater than those who want to see and read the hits."

So, which customers are we currently underserving? Maybe we will hear new voices as we begin to join in these social web spaces. Maybe we will find ourselves serving a whole population we didn't know existed.

Photo is by J Pride.

Delicious: Thing #13

I have used Delicious in the past to set up our Division bookmarks (http://delicious.com/sciencebusinessnews). We used these bookmarks primarily when we had Internet access but our web page was down, in order to access databases without the links from the website.

My supervisor (http://sbnjck.blogspot.com/) had initially recommended Delicious for this purpose. I had maintained our bookmarks previously on Yahoo! Bookmarks, but we were reluctant to access our bookmarks account on public computers because we had to log in and thus leave the bookmarks vulnerable to "editing" by the person using the computer.

Delicious worked perfectly for our purposes. However, since we were not particularly interested in the social aspects of bookmarking, I hadn't bothered with tags. Now that I have been introduced to the benefits of social bookmarking, I am starting to add more tags.

Meanwhile, I have created my own Delicious account in order to have quick access to things that have taken me a long time to find. I started with a collection of sites for government sales of real estate, property, and vehicles on various levels (federal, state, local). My bookmarks are at

http://delicious.com/largesse.

It's interesting to see that many people (94) have bookmarked the Government Sales and Auctions site, yet few (9) have bookmarked Govsales.gov, the official site to purchase federal government property. And almost no one seems to be interested in the vehicle auction sites. Maybe someone will notice, now that I've bookmarked--and tagged--some good sites!

Photo is by Donnali.

I've got followers! Thing #12

Twitter has turned out to be more fun than I thought it would be. It's fascinating to log in and see what the people I'm following are up to. It's a little strange being followed, too, but I'm getting used to it! My Twitter name is largesse.

I also noticed that Twitter can be a useful way to keep up with library events, as some tweets today filled me in on which locations were open and at what time. Very important to know, in the aftermath of the storm.

I liked the advanced search features, too, and got interesting results by searching for columbus library or columbus weather. I even tried searching just for everything "near" columbus.

I think the Twitter news services might be real handy. It's kind of like getting scrolling headlines. I liked http://twitter.com/googlenewsus, for example.

Photo is titled My Twitter Class of '08, and it's by mallix.

Sharing books: Thing #11

I used Library Thing to list a few of my very favorite books. My catalog is here: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/largesse.

I was intrigued by the recommendations that appeared as a result of my selections, and I've added a couple of these to my reserve list.

I also like the concept of sharing thoughts about books in an online community. However, I might have trouble finding many who share my taste in books, considering that NO one on Library Thing besides me has added Always Home and Other Stories, by David Ely, and few members have Harvest of Stories: From a Half Century of Writing by Dorothy Canfield (whose picture appears with this post). I can see how our library users would benefit by participating in Library Thing's community.

Newspaper headline: Thing #10

I have had a great time playing with some online image generators!

I made an avatar, created posters, made billboards, wrote things in the sand, and...

made this newspaper headline! The Newspaper Headline generator came from http://www.imagechef.com/.

Feeding happiness: Thing #9

I tried out all three of the feed-finding tools for Learn & Play: Topix, Syndic8, and Technorati. I found useful feeds and added them to my Bloglines feeds.

In Topix, I found a great source for updates on research on hypertension, Hypertension News.

In Syndic8, I found a feed for low sodium recipes from Recipezaar.

In Technorati, I found a blog called HighBloodPressureConnection.com.

I think I was most taken with this blog I stumbed upon in Technorati, called the Happiness Project, http://www.happiness-project.com/happiness_project. This blog is chock-full of tips and advice for...staying happy! I added it to my "misc." category in my Bloglines account. I also added a Happiness Project feed to my blog!

Photo by docbertus.

RSS feeds: Thing #8

Today I set up my own Bloglines newsreader account. It's so convenient to have a single place to look for the latest news, weather, and--best of all--postings to all of my coworkers' blogs! Now I can see what everyone else is accomplishing with the 23 things without searching through the participants' list every time.

I'm also really happy to have the latest weather reports in my feeds, because my dog is terrified of storms and I want to have as much notice as possible.

Thanks to everyone who has voted in my poll so far. Looks as if most of you hope that I win the laptop. :-) Good luck to all of you, too!

Here is the URL for my public Bloglines account:
http://www.bloglines.com/public/largesse

Photo by finepixxler.