#15 On Library 2.0 and Web 2.0

When I was studying Librarianship back in 1996, the buzz was all about the Internet, and its potential to make Libraries, and Librarians, redundant. At the time I thought it was all a storm in a teacup. The Internet would simply change the way we Librarians did our work - even make our work more valuable. I believe the same of Web 2.0 - and beyond. The world is changing, just as it always has (even though the change does seem to be becoming more rapid). We need to change with it. We can change with it. We are changing with it.

Rick Anderson's article "Away from the icebergs" makes a good point. We need to loosen our grip on certain "truths". In addition to the three icebergs he discusses, there are others that could be added. Our love for, and reliance on, a controlled vocabulary for instance. I find this one particulary hard to let go of. I was initially appalled at the thought of users being able to tag pages with whichever term they chose! But then I realised that, although it wouldn't result in a beautifully indexed world, a lot of people would still be able to find a lot of information. Perfect - no. Acceptable - yes!

#14 Technorati

Browsing around Technorati today. Did a search for Pontipines - nothing! Not sure I'm too upset about that.

A search of the terms Learning 2.0 and Australia led me to an interesting article that asserts it is Gen X not Gen Y which is leading the charge in bringing collaborative technology into the workplace. Something to think about... Have a look at it here: http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2009/09/forget-gen-y-gen-x-is-making-r.php.

A search of the blogoshere for eLibrary and tax was disapointing - only two relevant entries! One from one of our very own LIS bloggers, and another from eGov AU. A search of tags found nothing about our eLibrary. Let's get blogging!

#13 Del.icio.us

Have spent a while exploring Del.icio.us today. This is a wonderful tool with great potential for making web-life easier. My one concern, which I'm sure is shared by many, is the potential to lose all that wonderful organisation if it all goes "belly up"! This could be my own pessimism speaking, but relying on a website to organise so much of our important information is a bit like putting all our eggs in the one proverbial basket. However, having said that, I have set up an account and played around with it a little. I bookmarked and tagged a number of Web 2.0 sites and experimented with renaming tags (web20 to web 2.0). I also created an RSS feed into bloglines to see how that would go.

#12 Rollyo

I have been exploring Rollyo and have found it very interesting. It seems such a simple idea. Of course I've used Google to search specific sites before, but need to enter them in each time, so I can really see a great use for Rollyo. I've set up a very "vanilla" Australian News searchroll http://rollyo.com/pontipines/australian_news/. Just the basics, but I can come back to it at another time.
I like the tag at the end of the Learning 2.0 entry on Rollyo. "Rollyo - You just never know when this little tool might come in handy". So true! I'm thinking of getting a trampoline for the kids for Christmas - might set up a searchroll for ebay, trading post etc... so I can quickly check them for tramps!

#11 Library Thing

Library Thing is great. I think I will be checking here regularly for member reviews etc... before any more purchases! One criticism - it took me a while to work out that I had to edit the books to include a review (or review when adding the book). I love being able to see other members with similar libraries to my own.

#10 Image Generators

I've had lots of fun playing around with various image generators. This one is from http://www.imagechef.com/ic/make.jsp?tid=Newspaper+Headline. I used the Auto Posting tool to add the image to my blog.
There are a lot of fun image generators out there. I discovered my husband and my celebrity couple name is jojoe thanks to http://www.namemasher.com/. And thans to the good folk at http://rumandmonkey.com/widgets/toys/namegen/10619 I, strangely, found that my Harry Potter name is Harry Potter - I still don't fully understand that one!
I could go on for hours, but will force myself to stop here. Cheers, until next time.

#8 RSS

Wow, it's been a long time since my last post, but I've been so busy that Learning 2.0 has been a little neglected. Now that we're coming into the quiet time of year, I hope to do a big catch up!

I've been using a bloglines account that someone else had set up for an eAlert for a while now, but it was great to set one up from scratch. I think the hardest thing is to be selective. I can imagine that I might end up adding so many feeds that the information overload will get worse rather than better. I couldn't resist adding the Daily Dilbert cartoon!

Bloglines has already helped me in my work with the eAlerts. It's funny, but I can't imagine having to routinely check all of those websites individually, but that is exactly what we used to do. Maybe one man's lazy, is another's efficient!