Montagr

I had a lot of fun with this mashup. It took a second to get the gist of it. It was fun searching for different tags and then controlling what image was silhouetted in the collage of photos.

How Flickr is Different

Why is tagging important? Tagging allows you to organize your own photos. It is especially important if you have a ton of photos and are looking for one in particular. You can just do a keyword search, instead of having to browse different folders (and trying to remember which one you put the photo in).

What does it allow users to do? Flickr allows you to not only enjoy your own photos, it allows you to share. I can send my Flickr photos to other people who have Flickr accounts and even to people without an account. If I choose to make my photos public, I can share my photos with everyone. I can get feedback on the photos and even meet people with similar interests.

How does community develop on Flickr? Community develops through the sharing of photos. By being able to search the tags of public photos, I can find photos that are similar in theme to the photos I take. For example, I take lots and lots of photos of my pug. I can easily find other crazy people that do the same. They can enjoy my photos and I can enjoy theirs. Community is also built through self monitoring. One of the articles that I read mentioned that someone had posted a picture of a nude woman and used the tag: library. Librarians quickly saw the problem, reported it, and the picture was removed and the account deleted.

Exploring Flickr

Here is a photo of my pug that I took.

I had a lot of fun exploring Flickr. I had some trouble getting the photo into my blog, but that is because I skimmed the directions. Oops!

43things.com

This tool was very different. You could create a to do list of 43 things. When you added something to your list, it would show you the entries of others that had put the same thing on their list. It was neat being able to tag the entries, and at the same time see what the most popular tags were for that subject matter. I don't know how useful this would be in a library setting. It is great to be able to write down your goals, see how others who put down the same thing are progressing, and get reminders about achieving your goals. I did not put any work related goals on my list, so I don't know if others have. Also, what you write as a description is public, so you could get into some city privacy issues.

Technorati

Using Technorati was definitely an experience. I ran a search for Learning 2.0 through blog posts, tags, and the blog directory. Each search yielded a completely different set of results. It was interesting exploring popular blogs, searches, and tags. Some of the more popular searches were a bit of a surprise to me. In fact the most popular blog was a little surprising, since I thought it would be about pop culture, and it seemed to be more about politics.

Del.icio.us

I have had an account with del.icio.us for several months now. I really enjoy being able to acess my bookmarks from any computer. It is expecially useful on work computers, since I never know which computers I will be using over the course of the day. I had never clicked to see the tags/descriptions that others were using for the same link, so that was definitely interesting.

Myspace

Does it look easy? Yes. It can't be too hard, if so many people are successfully posting to it.

How do you feel about MySpace? I have mixed feelings. I think t is great that people can network so easily, but I don't like the fact that it takes away from personal face to face interactions. Myspace has great potential for reaching massive numbers of people, but at the same time it is open to abuse. I thought it was interesting that in the FAQ there was a section on reporting profiles that were of you that were not made by you.

Did your opinion(s) about MySpace alter after your exploring of the discovery resources? Only slightly. I had no idea that Myspace was getting more hits than Google. I knew it was a popular site, but I didn't realize just how popular.

Why is MySpace so popular with so many different people? You can meet a lot of people quickly. You can tell them only what you want them to know about you. The interaction feels safer since it is online and not in person.

Do you want to try it now? Not particularly. I like living my life in reality, not virtual reality.

VBPL and Social Networking Sites

I think it would be awesome if the library had its own myspace account. It woul definitely be an interesting new way to communicate with teens. Maybe it would be best to test having a myspace account by setting up accounts for the different library teen volunteer groups first. That way you can safely explore how to use it before going totally public.

Wiki

I had some trouble posting to the wiki. I had no trouble adding text, but I could not get the bold button to work. Eveything I wrote was in bold. Not cool. So I ended up writing my staff pick in Word. I then cut and pasted it into the wiki. I think using wiki's could be a really useful way to work on projects as long as the bold button behaves :)

Exploration of Wikis

The Library Success wiki has suffer from vandalism, which shows that wikis are vunerable to abuse. However, I did find by looking at examples of several wikis that wikis can be a great way to collect/post information collaboratively.

Instant Messaging and Libraries

I think IM and libraries are a good mix. I think it take some practice to get used to doing virtual reference via IM, but it is a way to reach people that are completely technology dependent. Younger people are used to getting information fast, even if it is the wrong information. Ths is one way to fulfill their needs while ensuring that they get accurate information. It also a way to keep them interested in using libraries, even if they never or hardly ever actually set foot in one.

Libraries and IM

How many of the IM population are our customers and why should we care?

IM was huge when I was in college. I think just about everyone had an IM account. People would compete to have the most interesting away message. I think that if you were born in the 1980's or later, IM is a part of life. I think it is great that we offer IM VR because we are able to reach those who have been exposed to computers all their lives and are used to getting information quickly via the internet.

Newsfeed Search Tools

The two newsfeed search tools that I explored are Topix and Syndic8.com

I really liked Topix. It neatly displayed the top news stories, not only locally, but nationally. I could even see what the current weather forecast was for VA Beach.

Syndic8.com was OK. I liked being able to search for feeds on a variety of topics. Since I was mostly interested in local and national news, it wasn't as helpful as Topix which automatically searched for all the information that I was interested in.

RSS

I have never used RSS before. I can see the handiness of having it, but I can also see how it can become cumbersome if overused.

Here is my RSS
http://www.bloglines.com/public/LibraryExercise

Library 2.0

I thought the articles on Library 2.0 were very interesting. In the Iceberg article, I thought the comment that if you need training to use a program, then the program needs to be changed. That is a very different view from what a lot of vendors of electronic databases have, since to use their products effectively we have to teach patrons. It will be interesting to see if vendors change the way they do business in response to Web 2.0 and Library 2.0.

The 7 1/2 Habits of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners

The easiest of the habits for me is the playing! I love tinkering with new things to find out how they work.
The hardest of the habits for me is accepting responsibility for my own learning. It is very easy to sit back and let things pass you by. It takes much more work to find out about what is new and hot, and then pursue finding out more.