For this exercise I had a look at Delicious, Technorati and Library 2.0.
Delicious- This was my first experience with Delicious. I had viewed the site before, but never really used it. For this exercise I created a Delicious account and bookmark list for our library staff. This is a great tool for me because I have long ago lost the ability to manage the bookmarks that I find useful AND I needed a way to efficiently organize and develop a tool that is easily accessible to our staff. So far, I have imported some Reference and Readers'Advisory bookmarks I like. I won't make the list public until I have a more complete list. I experimented with one bookmark and created tags I think will work for the staff and other users, once it is made public. When I have more time, I will create additional tags for the remaining bookmarks and further streamline the list. But, for now I am impressed and optimistic on the ways I will be able to use this tool in the future. Keeping lists on paper and in hard copy files just wasn't getting the job done. So, I think this will be great.
Technorati- I was already familiar with Technorati as a RSS feed for News and Political blogs. I really like this site because of its design. It's tabs and tags are really effective navigators. I also like the "rising news stories" and "rising blog posts" sections. But, before this exercise, I hadn't really paid much attention to the tag cloud before. This time I used the tags to navigate the site. Very interesting!
Library 2.0
This is truly one of the most exciting aspects of this lesson and course, so far. The #15 article on Library 2.0 sums it up perfectly : a term that can be used to describe both physical and mindset changes that are occurring within libraries to make our spaces and services more user-centric and inviting. That says it all!
Especially for small libraries without much staff, some of these 2.0 initiatives allow administrators to increase access to resources for staff and patrons in a much more organized and user friendly fashion. But, as this quote suggests, it does describe (and require) changes in mindset and services that will increase the accessibility or usability of library and reference resources. The mindset must change from relying on 1.0 or even paper resources to these types of resources that take advisory to the next level. Quite exciting indeed.
One of the articles I read was Into a New World of Librarianship by Michael Stephens. He aptly defines Web 2.0 as the “strategy guide' for helping users find information, gather knowledge and create content." Users and staff don't just want access to information they want to interact with it. 2.0 provides a strategy and opportunity enabling them to do so in ways that allow the user to contribute their knowledge to the interaction. He also outlines some of the most effective methods for librarians to utilize in promoting 2.0 technologies to staff, users and the communities they serve.
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