Friends and other things

As a librarian, moderating appropriate behavior in the library is simply a facet of my job. Patrons, be they any walk of life: adults,teens,or pre-teens for example, may easily have what I will call a social networking obsession. Facebook is one of these social networking tools that may cause such an obsession.

As part of a different Web 2.0 class, we had several exercises including signing up for Facebook. I completed that exercise with great trepidation. I found my best friend from Library School. That was fun! I invited her to join Facebook and now she has tons of friends. See, I am only a teeny bit jealous. I also have been able to keep in touch with library cohorts who have had the audacity to move away from the Sunshine state.

Like many people, I lead a busy to very busy life. I also am not a good letter writer. Facebook allows me to touch base with family and friends as well as entertain myself with cool time-wasting applications with very little effort. This week, for example, I was reassured that Kristen arrived safely for her vacation and I was able to throw several purple octopi at my friends with great glee.

Sometimes I love Facebook. Sometimes I wish I had enough time for Facebook. Sometimes I have to repeatedly remind patrons about appropriate behavior while using a social networking site. Standing on the chair leg and leaning over your friend while breathing on the neck of the person at the next computer is not appropriate library behavior. Laughing even while covering your hands if your voices carry more than half-way across the library is not appropriate library behavior. And running across the library to tell your other friends something funny is also not appropriate library behavior. Finding a balance between moderating patron behavior and providing good customer service is also simply part of my job.

Facebook is wonderfully web 2.0 interactive. You can add all sorts of foolish and not-so-foolish applications to your facebook account like worldcat and superpoke.

Favorite things.....pbclswiki

Wikis are like many other web 2.0 things we have tried....The hardest part is to gather up the courage to click on the edit button! The pbcls wiki like the blogs is a great way to get to know your co-workers.

Zoho, ho hum

I posted the last post with Zoho. It looks all right. Having access to a document from whatever computer you are sitting at could be convenient. I am, however; pretty attached to my laptop. If my daughter begins confiscating my laptop again, I will try to remember this option.

 

EOS vs. Library 2.O

 

EOS or End of service is what I call a computerized library without internet and/or power.  In the old days, whether the Internet connection worked or not did not impair library staff from providing library service.  We still had books, magazines, and librarians able to assist in the search for knowledge. 

 

In the Library Web 2.0 future, we will not have big bulky Reference books or hidden stacks of old magazines to assist patrons.  Hence, the arrival of EOS.  We have already had days that mirror this future during a few hurricane seasons in the recent past.  Patrons walk in the door, peruse the circle of computers, note the out of order signs, occasionally inquire how long the computers will be down and assume the library has nothing further for them.  This is a library future I am not yet ready to embrace.  Call me resistant to change.  Call me an archaic.  Call me anything but EOS. 

 

If we could somehow still have both, a Web 2.0 library and shelves with books, magazines, and dvds, as well as librarians that know how to find information in both paper and electronic sources, that would be my first choice.  Living in a world of paperless resources creates the potential for moments of EOS.  Determining which resources are important enough to retain in paper in a library world of ever tightening budgets creates hard choices and the limiting of access to information for some. 

 

Just this week, I helped an independent business consultant decide that "yes, he would have to drive to North Miami" to access an International Reference source that was too expensive for our local university libraries to purchase this year.  It was interesting that the other two libraries that he visited discussed the difficulties of choosing what not to purchase with him but did not offer to search other libraries for a newer edition or to print him out directions on how to get there.  Sometimes listening and determining how to assist in solving a patron's problem (even when we do not have the resources) defines customer service.  The use of Internet resources to increase customer service always reminds me of the power of the Internet.  Knowledge is power; down with EOS.

Technorati Tags     library,internet,service,2.0,customer

Wikis, wikis, wikis

Wikis for Libraries is not a new idea. Librarians love to organize information and wikis fill this need. Topics for library wikis that I have consulted in the past vary from library instruction wikis to reader's advisory wikis. I have always thought librarians should participate in wikipedia at a local level providing information about our communities. Finding local information that is not already organized into a wiki is really the challenge. I do wish the formatting of wikis was more visually attractive and that wikis were more compatible with other software. But the potential for group collaboration can't be beat!

Technorati

The concept is good for Technorati. The application of the tool is not so good. I searched for a topic that all of us have blogged about (webfeat) because it is a relatively unique blog topic. I found catmajick. I did not find my blog or mangosarewe who I know have claimed and tagged our blogs. I even did a specific search for one of the tags added by Dan and still no results. How much time passes before your tags are searchable? Or is there another technical hurdle needed? However,I did find some blogging librarians from Singapore.

Web 2.O: To more powerful ways to cooperate

In entertaining thoughts on the value of Web 2.o, I remain cautiously optimistic. Michael Stevens remarks in his article Into a New World of Librarianship that "techno-worship does not exist here." He stresses the importance of technology having functional use and customer service value. This is one of my mantra's regarding public libraries. Technology needs to add value and content to the patron's library experience not create chaos and frustration.

Many of our library specific databases have different interfaces requiring knowledge acquisition with each database's use. Webfeat is supposed to simplify this search process but technology is only as relevant as the information that is found. Federated searching is the way of the future but it is still a work in progress. OCLC's WorldCat is a good example of the effective application of Web 2.0 technology.

So if you haven't looked at their new interface, check it out! http://www.worldcat.org

Michael Stevens mentions that the Librarian 2.0 "never stops dreaming about the best library services." Now we just need to adjust our "structure is best" library mindsets to an open source, constantly moving target of Library 2.o services.

Del.icio.us things

Organizational tools are used based on their convenience and usefulness. Any tool that is duplicated by another tool is easily forgotten.

Unfortunately, Del.icio.us falls into this category. "Oh, yeah, I could've saved that deliciously." Del.icio.us for me also falls into the category of wandering aimlessly on the web. I searched some topics of interest to me. I found some "kind of similar" web sites that might be useful and might be too far off topic.

I found one really great site that was worth sharing about web 2.o sites:
www.go2web20.net

I saved a few more for whenever I get that spare moment to just explore. Now onto other things.

Generators and other things

I added a jigsaw picture of the Sanibel Lighthouse and put some Florida books in a Librarything account. It is helpful to have a good imaging software like Paint Shop Pro when playing with image generators to tweak your pictures. I have tried Webfeat in the past and the more complex your search, the less successful is webfeat as is true of all meta tools. The Florida Electronic Library offers Powersearch from Gale as another metasearch option but it was not authenticating today or yesterday.