Public Library Youth Services Musings
I’m finding I’m even less social virtually than in real life! This is one of my weak areas – I need to explore a bit more. I wonder how different are blogs from pages on facebook/myspace….something to look into.
I think a network on ning or someplace would be a great thing for library staff – we could share concerns, problems, etc. A nice discussion tool. Maybe Pittsburg could have one for staff meetings (since we are never all here at the same time).
I think Meebo and other IM is great for on-the-fly simple reference questions. As I think about it, I often get questions over the phone to see if we have a certain book etc. Then, I start thinking, if people are iming, they can just look that stuff up themselves – why bother with the instant message thing. However, I guess several people can do this through their phones as well, right? Plus, some people may not know where to look for information… Anyway, I’m sure it has several uses. One thing – if the widget is on a blog, someone can get an instant answer about a question regarding the blog. Questions to explore: Is a log kept of the conversations? How would a library staff this? Would it create extra work, or is this something someone could handle at the desK? I had fun iming myself!
I have used Google Docs before this exercise, and it has gotten us out of some jams at the library. For example, I’ve had people use it when all the machines with Office were full, and the people needed wordprocessing. I’ve also used it to help my sister who is out of state work on her resume (she was using a computer that didn’t have Word, so it came in handy as we collaborated on her resume. I took the tour and watched the video (which I didn’t do before). Great tool.
The other day, I finally learned how to add a widget to my blog that would let me log in on my page (instead of having to go to wordpress.com and log in). So many little ins and outs to learn – just about blogs not to mention all of the other web 2.0 technologies out there. Oh, if only I had more time!
Okay – I am in love with del.icio.us! Patrons often ask for a list of kids websites (particularly games). I used to give them a piece of paper with a list of sites, but you know how painful it can be to type in some of those URLs! Now, I can give them one site, and there they can click away to their heart’s content to find some games and other sites for children. I love to bundle tags – it makes me feel as if I’m accomplishing something. Here is my URL:
I enjoyed the Flickr exercise. I tried the embed option from Flickr, and this is the result I got from copying the html code and pasting it into the HTML tab portion of the blog post. However, here is the link from flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9827037@N05/2490305893/in/set-72157605047085795/
I’m so glad Gina & Anastacia included the wiki vs. blog portion of their assignment. I’ve been so confused about when to use which. I’ve enjoyed looking into this, and I appreciated the tip to search “wiki vs. blog.” I’m glad to know I’m not the only one with confusion on this topic, and I feel a little better after reading more. However, I’m still no expert and still muddle about a bit. One hit that made sense to me was http://www.ikiw.org/2006/03/30/wiki-vs-blog/. In my mind, I see blogs as useful tools for posting announcements, events, etc. Blogs rely upon chronological order. There is an option for people to leave comments, but to me, blogs are to get information out there. To me, wikis are a great collaborative tool where people work together to build something. There is give and take and lots of information exchange. I also think wikis more mirror “traditional website” in a navigational sense with main pages, links, etc. I suppose it all could be done with blogs as well, but it doesn’t seem as easy to me to do with blogs as it is with wikis (of course, I do need to learn a lot more about blogs).
P.S. I posted a review to the wiki, but I will never admit my secret identity – even though I know it is easy enough to discover!
So, here is my blog. Now I just have to figure out what to write….
