#15 Library 2.0 and Web 2.0

I looked at the Discovery Resources a while ago and found them quite interesting but I've been putting off this blog post. I don't feel like I have much to add to discussions that hasn't already been said.
Here's a random thought that may or may not be relevant: one of the few amusing moments in the recent "The Librarians" premiere was the shot of the front door with the sign with all the modern jargon for what the place was and a blu-tacked notice underneath saying "Library". It seems like a bit of a metaphor for not getting so carried away with the latest and greatest that we forget to deliver what real people need and want to know.
Web 2.0 is a brilliant tool. It is changing the library world as we know it. But it is going to take some effort to sort out what's going to be of the most long term benefit. And it's going to need some top-level commitment and cooperation to get the best results for our users. We can introduce elements of what we learn at all sorts of basic levels but it still takes staff time and technology that we may not have.
It is impossible for me to keep my moral/political views out of this and I probably don't have to seeing it's my blog (and very few people will read it anyway!). Perhaps its just the election, global warming etc. etc. but I'm feeling very anxious about the huge divisions in our society and if Web 2.0 can't help deliver equity of access, empowerment to those most in need, global co-operation and understanding, then it ain't much use to us.

#14 Technorati

I had a look around Technorati but don't have much to say about it except phew!!! that's a lot of blogs to search. I'm certainly not ready to take the "claiming" step.
I've added a couple of green blogs to my deli. bookmarks (couldn't see the point of setting up Technorati favourites at this stage - just one more place to remember to go).
In my blog travels I discovered 24th November is "Buy Nothing Day". http://www.buynothingday.co.uk/I will try to observe this day and combine it with "Kick Howard Out Day". The two are not inherently incompatible: unless they have a fund-raising sausage sizzle at my local polling booth.

Are we lemmings?

Beware: rant follows

I'm getting a bit sick of humankind's obession with knowing what is the coolest, latest, most popular thing on the internet. Ok so tag clouds and "saved by x number of people x number of hours ago" and "most popular" listings may have a legitimate role to play but they also feed our inherent competiveness and/or conformity.

So what if millions of people have clicked on the You Tube video ad of the i-pod blender? Does that make it important? profound? vital? Am I a lesser being for not having gone there - or worse, gone there too late, when it's old news?

Jeez, get a life people! So what if you miss something? Or, heaven forbid, visit a site that only 2 other people have tagged. Popular doesn't necessarily = good.

Excuse me now while I go change out of my hair-shirt.

(Actually the i-pod blender could be kind of funny)

#13 del.icio.us

This time it all came together in a fairly textbook fashion. After creating my own del.icio.us account I explored some sites tagged as "storytelling", followed the thread to someone elses's bookmarks and stumbled across the "K12 Online Conference 2007: playing with boundaries" which is running right now. http://www.k12onlineconference.org/

It is "a conference by educators for educators around the world interested in integrating emerging technologies into classroom practice. A goal of the conference is to help educators make sense of and meet the needs of a continually changing learning landscape." I found it interesting to look at teachers' perspectives on Web 2.0: they have a lot in common with us librarians (particularly the C&YS brand). I found the "Attendr" mash-up tool they use to map conference participants and their knowledge of one another interesting.
I'm wondering if there is or could be a library equivalent of the on-line conference?
I think I probably will use del.icio.us as a research tool and as a convenient other place to park my bookmarks. However, looking at the "Favorites" on my home computer (one which admittedly is used by 6 people) I can see that del.i (i'm getting sick of typing out the whole damn thing with all the dots) will only be as useful as the time I'm prepared to put in to keeping it neat and tidy. Otherwise I'll still have the clutter of sites like "that B&B we stayed at in New Zealand two years ago", "Sound effects search results", "footy tips", "bell flowers by Yurii Shumakov" etc. etc.

#12 Rollyo

Has the cyber world been waiting for a search roll on all things Moomin? I doubt it, but now we've got one anyway.
I added some other people's search rolls on YA things and green technology. I found it quite hard to find search rolls on the topics I was after: several times nothing was returned for my search terms or I had to go too broad and got a lot of dross.
I kind of get Rollyo but to be honest I think I'll find myself opening Google in the time it takes me to remember to hop on over to Rollyo. I just don't have the passion to pursue particular topics that other people seem to have; I guess I'm more of an intermittent eclectic grazer really.

#11 All about LibraryThing

I like LibraryThing! It has a warm and fuzzy community feel to it. And it will be good for finding new things to read. What more can I say? PS That's Tove Jannson with some of her characters above.

Just About Blogging with Blogger

So I've spent a little time trying to make my blog look a little more bloggish (ok it was a lot of time but you wouldn't know from looking at it). Is it just me or is the template really rather rigid and not so user-friendly?
I tried to make a pictorial blog header using a blog-header generator but it looked awful when I uploaded it. And I'm having real trouble getting images to go where I want them to - why can't I just drag and drop?
One thing I do like is the colour choices for fonts that are shown in Settings.
I'm going to change some colours and fonts when I get around to it.
And I might ask some of my colleagues how they manage to get the thing to do what they want....