Week 7, #17 Technology

I think technology is wonderful! There are so many things we can do that were impossible a few years ago. I sometimes worry, however, about our vulnerability as individuals and as a society. So much of what we do depends upon computers and internet access, and we must be vigilant to safeguard personal information to discourage identity theft and protect our personal privacy. However, I believe that an even greater danger exists for society as a whole. As we have seen several times, virus attacks can bring major portions of the internet to a standstill. Banking transactions, airline travel, utility services, government, and other vital portions of our infrastructure, rely increasingly on internet transactions. The more dependant we become upon computers, the greater the impact such attacks may have. It is frightening to think that a highly intelligent, but mentally imbalanced terrorist sitting at a PC in a third world country could bring society to a standstill with a few strokes of a keyboard.

Week7, #16 Wikis

I think this idea is great for sharing ideas and general information, but is not a good source for factual information. If accuracy of information is critical to the project you are researching, you should not rely on Wikipedia or other similar sites. I experimented with the ihcpl wiki and added to the favorite board games and favorite books pages. This is a fun way to share information about things like this. I have used Wikipedia for general information on subjects of interest, but would verify information elsewhere if the accuracy was critical.

Library 2.0 continued

I didn't have time last week to read and comment on the Wikipedia article on Library 2.0 last week, so I wanted to revisit that issue today. The article gave some good information about the origin of the term and about Michael Casey's intent in coining the phrase. His ideas about involving library users and requesting feedback from them when evaluating and updating services are the essence of what we should do and of what HCPL is trying to do. Too many times, changes are made based upon the opinions of a few library administrators, or based upon what other library systems are doing. What Library 2.0 encourages us to do is to find out what our library users need and want, and to attempt to meet those needs. HCPL has made a great effort to do this in recent years with our comment cards, focus groups, and customer surveys. I believe we are on the right track to providing excellent customer service.

Week 6, #15 - Library 2.0

Rick Anderson's article, "Away from the Icebergs" aptly summarizes many of the issues facing libraries today. I am not convinced that every library is experiencing the declines in circulation that are occurring in his library, but there is no doubt that libraries are changing, and must adapt. Harris County's circulation still constitutes a major part of our business, but I do agree that it is reasonable and necessary for the make-up of the collection to change in response to the internet resources available today. I think, however, that we must remember that many people are not comfortable with technology and still want books. We must also remember what happens when the computers fail, as they inevitably will do. Mr. Anderson makes a valid point when he states that we rely too much on user education. Making databases and websites simple and intuitive should be the goal, making training unnecessary in most cases. This will become less of an issue as our society becomes more computer literate.

Dr. Wendy Schultz expresses her vision of libraries, past, present, and future in "To a Temporary Place in Time...." She expounds upon all the technological innovations and advances that have occurred or could occur in the future, but surprisingly comes back to a vision very similar to the traditional library of the past. I believe that it is important and even necessary to keep up with technology, but with all the emphasis on the future, we cannot forget that the library has an important place in the community. It is up to us to find a way to remain relevant and vital in our communities. Library 2.0 is an attempt to keep the best parts of the traditional library system, but to also move into the future and embrace it.

Week 6, #14, Technorati

I have been playing around with Technorati searching as suggested in the assignment. When I searched for "library 2.0" under keyword search, exact phrase, I found 1,034 hits for the search. When I did a tag search for the same phrase, I found 484 hits. The blog directory search yielded only 145 hits. Obviously, the keyword search results in the most information being found, as would be expected. There are many posts which have the phrase somewhere in the article, but it is not used as the tag or blog name.



Under the popular search, I could see that it is possible to search for the most popular music, videos, games, DVDs, news, or blogs. This option yields some interesting results, especially in the news section. It looks like this would be a very quick and easy way to zero in on the most important news stories of the day

Week 6, #13, Del.icio.us

I have been looking around on the del.icio.us site today, and can see a lot of potential for reference use. I added an entry for www.preciousmoments.com, using "collectibles" and "gifts" for tags. Since there is no category for this, the tags are still at the bottom of the list under unbundled tags at the moment. We will create a category for this later. One of the librarians told me that she really likes being able to access her delicious account when she works at another branch. Since I am not usually doing reference, I won't use this as much, but it is nice to know it is there. I can see why it is a valuable tool for sharing bookmarks with everyone in the system.

Week 5, Library Elf

My Library Elf account has been created. I'm not sure I need this, since our system does a good job, and I usually keep up with things pretty well. However, it is nice to know it is available, and the information appears to be displayed on a nicer format than Horizon. It is amazing what we can do on the internet these days. Hurray! I've caught up with what I missed on vacation last week, and finished this week's assignments, too! I wasn't sure I would make it!

Week 5, Library Thing

I have now completed the registration for Library Thing, and added 8 books to the list. This looks like it will be a pretty nice way to keep track of books I have read. It was very easy to use. I haven't tried to use the tags yet, but I think dividing up the listings by series or subject will make it easier to keep track of things. I didn't know that anything like this was available.

Week 5, AVATAR

I went into Yahoo Avatars and created my "Library Lady" avatar. She has been posted on my blog, in an appropriate library setting. I like her outfit, but I would NEVER work in those shoes. OUCH!

Week 4, Tasks 8 & 9, Part 2, RSS Feeds

I think I have finally finished with the activities for this week's assignments. I have been looking for library paraprofessional blogs on the search engines, but have not yet found any valuable links. I don't think there is much available in this field that I hadn't already found. I will work on this again as time permits. I like the functioning of Feedster and Topix better than Syndic8. Technorati is also nice to use, but did not produce as many hits as the first two.

Week 4, Posts #8 and #9 RSS Feeds on Bloglines

After being on vacation last week, I am finally trying to catch up with the program. On Saturday I created my Bloglines account and loaded 11 feeds from the list on the site. It will be fun to have explore some of these when I have more time. Today (Thursday) I added feeds for 6 library blogs that I like to read sometimes. I have had these sites written down on a slip of paper, which stays on the computer at the circulation desk. It will be nice to be able to access these through Bloglines, so the paper copy is no longer necessary.