Thing 23 Done and Undone

Good project. Would I do it again—probably. I do feel much more knowledgeable about current topics and trends. I have a better sense of the way in which more technologically oriented people work and entertain themselves on the Internet. As time passes, I am sure I’ll find ways to use some of the tools I’ve experienced. How can you make this learning experience better? My concerns are very branch specific so I need to address them at that level. Thanks for bringing Learning 2.0 to LCPL.

Thing 12 Rollyo

At last, I'm doing #12. What I really wanted to do was to be able to search several library catalogs at one time. If I could search one time for a title and have the results from Fairfax, Loudoun and Frederick (MD) Counties together, that would be great. I couldn't figure it out. Perhaps someone else can do it. However, I did put together a search for artists supplies from a half dozen internet catalogs.

http://rollyo.com/1beeannie/artists_supplies/

This could be fun!

Thing 22 EBooks

I help the public use NetLibrary and Overdrive all the time. So there isn’t much new here for me. It will be nice to experience the audiobooks download so I can explain that part of the process more exactly to the patrons who ask.

Thing 21 Podcasts

It’s not that some of them aren’t interesting—it’s that some people have full lives and don’t really have time to sit in their chair and listen. There’s some really creative work on the internet. There’s a lot of people just passing other people’s creative stuff around and that makes me sad. I’d rather have a two sentence message from a friend than a forwarded “thing” from the internet, no matter how interesting/creative/surprising it is. So, here’s another category of internet thing.

The podcast from the Chicago art museum sounds good and the aggregation of book reviews and author interviews from a variety of NPR programs is a great idea.

Thing 20--Video Smideo

Videos—OK, OK, the cute cats and funny dogs are fairly entertaining, if there’s nothing else to do, if I’ve read every book in the house, if I’ve run out of all my art supplies, if there’s nothing in the kitchen to bake, if there’s not even a dirty bathtub to clean. What can I say—I’m just not taken with the whole video thing. Sure, I can image that making one yourself is interesting, but just sitting around and watching a few gets real tiring, real soon.

None the less, I did find the following video from a museum that shows a model of a Da Vinci invention—a good way to show what would normally have been a stiff, silent, immobile object in motion.

Leonardo’s Automobile, Institute and Museum of the History of Science. Florence, Italy

Thing 19 Millionmasterpiece.com

This is a visual equivalent to the Farm Aid concerts and the money raising events that followed. Millionmasterpiece.com was an Honorable Mention in the Visual Arts category of the Web 2.0 awards for 2007. The creators are from Great Britain and their intention is to raise money for three children’s charities and to enter the Guinness Book of world records. Everyone, artist or not, is encouraged to register and create a graphic square using simple drawing/painting tools at the website. Obviously, the creators hope to put a million little images together and make one enormous picture. The result will be 81 meters wide by 30 meters high and will be exhibited in London in 2008. People may make one image for free. For a donation, one may make numerous images and gain other benefits. Not particularly useful for libraries, but an interesting project for schools and church groups.

Thing 17 PBWiki

This could be a great time saver for coordinating and communicating with two groups in which I participate. I like the easy ability to grant access to a select group of people. What's next?

Thing 16

I really loved Princeton Public Library's Book Lovers' Wiki. Now that the Discussion Group Leaders have a Blog, I would enjoy a venue for the public to write reviews of their favorites. Perhaps this could happen in conjunction with Summer Reading. Yes?

Thing 15

The article that I found really useful in thinking about Web2.0 and Library 2.0 is—

“What is Web 2.0, Design patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software” by Tim O’Reilly Published on O’Reilly http://www.oreilly.com 09/30/2005
http://www.oreillynet.com/lpt/a/6228

Perhaps I needed to understand Web 2.0 first before I could think about Library 2.0. I am struck by the democratization of the information/research/publication/communication world that Web 2.0 represents and all the ways in which the public, the lay person and the non-expert are enabled and encouraged to participate. One of the seven principles that distinguish Web 2.0 from Web 1.0 that O’Reilly lists is the “Harnessing [of] Collective Intelligence—The central principle behind the success of the giants born in the Web 1.0 era who have survived to lead the Web 2.0 era appears to be this, that they have embraced the power of the web to harness collective intelligence.” Examples of this process include wikis, blogs, Amazon customer reviews and lists, data gathered as a customer uses an application whether they intentionally contribute information or not.
The article by Michael Stephens, “Into a new world of librarianship” begins with “Librarians 2.0 plan for their users…This librarian bases all planning and proposals for services, materials and outreach on user needs and wants…This involves users from the get go in planning and launching services based on their needs.” Stephen continues to list the ways in which Librarian 2.0 involves the user in planning and decision making-a process that makes the user a trusted collaborator. I wonder how LCPL might gather and use more public input from all of the diverse communities in Loudoun County.

Thing 14 Technorati

I’ve claimed my blog and I’ve created a watchlist. That’s seems a little like an updating service or an RSS feed that you have to go to Technorati to see. I tried all the search modes—the blog directory is the most focused search or at least it returns the smallest number of hits. I really like the URL search. It’s similar to the (Science…) Citation Abstracts, for blogs instead of for article citations. That search deserves more investigation. The tag search seems to be the same search as the search box on the home page. The blog post search is most broad and hardly seems useful. I’ll use Technorati from time to time. I found a great design/creativity blog—check it out http://www.core77.com