Flickr fun mashup

Montagr has many mosaics from photos, i was looking at a topic of sailboats and many interesting art type mosaics appeared. The topic of graffiti had others of interest too, you could change the colors of the pictures by clicking on various shades. The mosaic is a perfect example of a mashup, where data is combined from more than one source into an integrated unit.

Tags are essential

Tagging is important, because it gets back to the basics of Librarianship, it is essentially cataloging/indexing. Without which you can not find anything, tagging brings order to Flickr.
As people look at what you have posted they add comments, and then others add their comments and a community develops.

2.0 Awards list- Travel

I found the Real travel interesting, you have links to things to do, forums, special deals, and compare prices. All these items are of interest to the travelers
Farecast gives the user prices for flights, and has updates of knowing when to fly deals.
Kayak has all types of travel infor, from renting cars to hotels. Also has a sign up for various alerts.

Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=williamsburg+va

i enjoy williamsburg and always like looking at pictures of it.
On flickr you can organize, map and share photos. Make photos into a slide show, or create postage stamps. You can have private photos, photo dictionary, the photos help messages come alive.

Technorati

Technorati has various blog posts, tags, and blog directory. from what i can see they are postings of peoples opinions, small bits/pieces of information. at the bottom of the blog you find the tags, these seem to be key words about the blog posting, the blog directory seems to be a blog finder for people that have favorited your blog.

tagging, del.icio.us, folksonomy

this is becoming more confusing as we go along, i'm not sure if i really know why I need del.icio.us, i thought the RSS was giving you links to things you are interested in. An account had to be set up for that. Now other accounts are needed? This is making life more difficult not helping to be simpler.
all this might be good for some, but I'm starting to lose it.

social networking

I feel VBPL should use social networking to reach out to teens, in the 21st century. MySpace has 50 million accounts. Most are young people 25 and under. MySpace has more page views per day than anysite on the web except yahoo. The benefits for socialization outweigh the risks. They have music, photos, & video. Profiles are personalized, network allows people to link to a friends network through the profile they create. checking messages and getting comments is what brings people back everyday. Youth have asynchronous messaging needs MySpace complements that practice. Identity production plays out on MySpace, profiles provide opportunity to craft expression through language, media, & imagery. It is a form of cultural currency. Youth want to be popular, it is a new way to hang out, you build relationships. Youth lack mobility and access to Myspace encourages them to be online. It is controlled space. Most teen space is controlled by adults, so hence the attraction to MySpace, they need private space. They interact with a broader peer group. Youth are exploring identity formation, it is not meant to attract adults. Restricting youth to controlled spaces results in rebellion and destruction of trust. Parents should be the one restricting use. Library profile on MySpace should be useful to users not a cheesy place. We want feedback from students, we need to create a library portal within MySpace to be current with a new form of social networking.

Entry to VBPL reader advisory wiki

I added my entry to the wiki, for the first time. I had to ask someone for help, when i went to the readers advisory list, i was looking for a form to make my entry on. Then found out we just clicked where I wished to add my entry and begin typing away. It was smooth sailing after that!

Learning Wiki's, Innovative ways library can use a wiki

A Wiki is quick to build, easy to edit a website. It can be rewritten by members/users of the site. Wiki pools knowledge, anybody can write an entry. This can be good and bad, Wiki is updated by enthusiasts w/interest in the subject. Wiki is subjective influenced by opinion, one opinion on Wiki's mentioned that users should just go to a reliable source to begin with.
HTML language is not needed for a Wiki, it involves the user in an ongoing process of creation. They can be disorganized, and include spam. Wiki allows collaboration between the library and it's patrons.
A wiki is self organizing group behavior in action.
What the library can do witha Wiki:
updating subject guides, doesn't put the burden of finding websites on the librarian, annotate the catalog, patrons can add reviews to entries the library has made, libraries website becomes hub of the community & becomes one stop shopping for community info, collaborative group work, organizing group effort, and it is easy to edit anything.

how is VBPL using IM

VBPL would like to be on the cutting edge of this new technology. We have started offering IM in reference, at various hours of the day. Different locations sign on to answer any questions that come in at various times. When I sent a test question in, the response was fast and I was satisfied.
The benefit of IM is that you are going to attract a younger patron, and keep them interested in the library, this is important for any libraries future.
People that do the IM, seem to like it. IM has been slow to catch on with patrons so far, but this is probably due to the "soft" start of this service at the library.
Meebo was listed by PC World as one of the best 100 products of 2006.

IM and Libraries

Why should libraries use Im? This is one of the most up to date technologies, if libraries want to be on the cutting edge, they need to use this format of reaching people, especially making contact with young people.

How is IM different from traditional communication? We can email articles from subscription databases and get immediate patron feedback. Im is less formal form of communication. Staff can update each other with missed messages. You can have a webcam with IM. You do not get any spam as you do with email. Im is also instantaneous.

How many IMer's are are customers and why should we care? More and more people are IMing each day, many of the young are doing this. If libraries do not IMing there may lose the young patron, and this is the future market.

rss items

Feedster was not working.
Topix did not find any hits on a search for "retirement options" ?
Technorati was able to link to items with my search for reitrement and local news information.
I do find it confusing to post the links, having to utilitze several tools, google reader, blog site, technorati etc.
It is nice to have just the type of stories under a certain topic come to you, via the RSS feeds.

RSS

1. the advantages of RSS would be that the information is coming to you, you do not have to hunt for the information. You must have a newsreader, such as google newsreader, then you go to your favorite websites and subscribe to receive the news via RSS.
2. the disadvantage would be you are not looking at all the news, only the items that would be of interest to you would be sent via RSS. you are not browsing.
3. what I like about RSS is that it can make your life somewhat simpler, by having articles sent to you without hunting for them. however you might be receiving too many articles and can not read them all.
4. I could use RSS in my life, to get informative articles about hobbies or things I like to read.

7 1/2 learning habits

learning is acquiring a new skill
the habits you need to have are
1. begin with the end in mind
2. accept responsibility for your own learning.
3. view problems as challenges.
4. have confidence in yourself.
5. create your own learning toolbox.
6. use technology to your advantage.
7. teach/mentor others.
7.5 play

ideas of the new world of librarianship

librarian 2.0
this is the strategy guide for helping users find information. Decisions and plans are discussed in open forums, and comments are answered. new services are enhanced by the read/write web, a climate of collaboration is in the making. technology is put to the test, is it meeting the users need in a new improved way? does it create a useful sevice for putting users together with the information and experience they seek.
the librarian reconizes how quickly the world and library users change with advancing tecnology. project timelines that stretch for months, do not work in library 2.0 thinking.
users create their won mash ups, remixes and original expressions, and should be able to do so with library resources. the librarian will help users become their own programming director.
it no longer makes sense to collect information products as if they were hard to get, they aren't, it may no longer make sense to collect. librarians must eliminate the barriers that exist between patrons and the information they need.

library 2.0 blog

I have been reading the various "things", and keeping up with the work. Now we start posting to blogs.