23.

Well, this is the final thing.

I am certainly more familiar with web 2.0 than I was before I started the things. In particular, I know more about RSS, social media, productivity, and alternative social networking. I think I appreciate some of the more practical applications of these tools than I did before I saw them in use in the library setting. I tended to think of most of these tools as rather frivolous before.

One of my favorite things is probably RSS, because I can get a feed of information on a range of topics. It could lead to a lot of interesting information.

I am also very excited about my flickr project. Flickr is great because it has so many amazing images, and you can find things through tagging that you would not normally think of. The application of flickr for archival photo collections is exciting because it allows the community to fill in knowledge gaps for archivists.

My biggest issue with the 23 things is that there is so much out there. I think the 23 things could make some people feel like their insitution needs to adopt all or most of these technologies in order to maintain relevance. While this may be true for some of the larger things blogs, social networking, and other useful user-contributed services, it is certainly not true for all. In particular, things like online gaming are largely frivolous pursuits. They are too labor intensive to benefit the vast majority of institutions. Technology is a great thing to augment traditional library and archival services, but it should not be the entire focus of institutions' efforts.

22.

I think I may continue to keep this blog, but I am considering converting it to a cooking blog. I could also use it as a blog for work related issues. I already use igoogle, google docs, google calendar, and gmail. I really enjoy RSS and may continue to use the google reader. Hopefully my project with flickr will lead to a broader project for OHS on the flickr commons. I also am very intrigued by delicious, so I may start to use that. I am not such a big fan of social networking for personal use, but I am beginning to see that it has a professional application, so I may eventually reactivate my facebook.

This site has a ton of links to blogs related to libraries, but none related to my primary interest - archives. I may follow some of these library blogs anyway, since web 2.0 applications for libraries and archives are often very similar. I have gotten a better "feel" for web 2.0, and shouldn't have any trouble locating archives blogs. I have already found several on RSS, which will be a nice and easy way for me to keep up.

21.

I am not a member of any online communities, but I found several of these very interesting. I am very into food, so "Open Source Food" was pretty nice. I don't know that I would actually join, as I am more of a "creeper" in terms of social networking than a contributor. This is why I don't have a facebook or myspace.

As far as applying these to the library setting, I think they would do well. There are obviously many people out there who are very willing to contribute. It is very similar to the broad social networks, but appeals to a smaller group of users. An institution's facebook page could be a gateway for users to discover its presence on a social network like shelfari.

20.

I have used both facebook and myspace in the past. I do not maintain an active profile on either at the moment. I have considered reactivating my facebook profile for networking reasons, but I don't know if I will. As for myspace, I won't be going back. I prefer facebook to myspace because the interface is much better and it is a lot faster. Myspace allows users to add tons of pictures and colors and themes (oh my!) to their pages, and it bogs things down quite a bit.

Rather than reactivating my own facebook, I used my girlfriend's as a guinea pig. The group I foud was called Fighting for History: An Archivist Group. This seemed to be a decent archives-related group, with links to a few archival professional societies.

I found it interesting that the Denver Public library myspace was geared mainly toward teens. I understand that social networking has an image of being big among the younger demographic, but it has become very common among adults. I found it quite humorous that the profile picture was the myspace stereotype "emo kid," with the trademark swoopy bangs. As far as usefulness goes though, using social networking for publicity and for allowing patron input is a great idea and should be taken advantage of.

19.

I find podcasts very useful. I especially like being able to listen to npr stories on my ipod when I don't have access to a radio. I have subscribed to podcasts before through itunes. One very useful podcast I have found has been news in French, to help me improve my language skills.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to find any archives-related podcasts on podcast.com. This may have to do with the fact that "archive" is a commonly used term to describe back issues of podcasts. With RSS, I was able to get creative with my search terms and find several good ones, but I haven't had such luck yet.

This tool is a great way to talk about projects and new events at institutions. Obviously they can be listened to on any computer, but ipods are nearly as ubiquitous as computers. So, they have a broad appeal.

18.

17.

This thing has been particularly frustrating. I am not a Minnesotan, so I can't use the ELM. I have been able to do everything with EBSCOhost. It seems pretty useful, but also seems to fall under many of the same uses as tools such as iGoogle. I guess it might be easier from the standpoint of frequently using a database, but even then it depends on what you and your colleagues prefer. I would think that a service like igoogle would be more popular based on ease of use and hassle. After all, we all prefer the law of least effort. Perhaps this would all make more sense if I could access this ELM business.

16.

This is the second thing that I had no previous experience with. On one hand, the research project calculator seems unnecessary. People need to learn how to plan for themselves. This is probably one of the most important things you learn as a student. On the other hand, if you have these skills and are simply wanting to make them more efficient, this tool seems like it would be pretty useful.

The potential applications for this tool are pretty broad. The most obvious use would be for students as an aid in planning research projects. As I said before, hopefully they have some experience doing this on their own. However, this could help a student conceptualize a framework for planning a project. This tool could also be used in a library setting to help effectively manage projects. Again, hopefully library staff have experience in planning, but this could provide an aid to make things go more smoothly.

15.

This is the most interesting Thing so far. I am just starting the thing and my initial feeling is that this won't be very useful for libraries, even to the point of being a distraction. Video games are an excellent way to waste time. Maybe once I'm through reading about the use of these games in libraries, my mind will have been changed...

OK, so after watching and reading a few of the ideas on Second Life, I am a little more well-disposed to the idea. In particular I found the book discussions and art exhibits compelling. I hadn't even heard of Second Life (I'm 22 so you'd think I might have), but I guess it's pretty popular? This seems like a pretty innovative way to interact with a younger audience, as well as those adults who are very into video gaming.

That being said, the challenges for something like this are very big. For one, these types of games are extremely time consuming (my roommate last year failed out in his last semester before graduating because of World of Warcraft, and had been a very good student before). They also have a learning curve. These are really big issues for libraries that are already likely dealing with funding and staffing cuts. Do we really have the resources to devote to something like this? These resources could certainly be diverted to more useful things, in my opinion. This is not to say that things like this shouldn't be tried, but I think that this would be a waste of energy for most institutions.

By the way the First Life parody site is pretty hilarious. This brings up the issue, should we be encouraging kids to play video games? I know that games have some useful functions, I play games fairly often myself. I also read the "8 myths" and agree completely with all but the one about social interaction. I think the type of social interaction you get playing games is fairly limited. The biggest concern for me is that encouraging kids to play video games will keep them from actually getting outside and getting exercise, which they definitely need.

14.

Library Thing is a great interactive way for people to organize and share their book interests. In a way it is like itunes meets facebook for book nerds. I think the interface is nice because it allows you to see the covers of the books, an experience that is missing in the digital realm. Again this is a lot like itunes or any other music organizer.

I really like the idea of using library thing to highlight new books in a library's collection. It could also be a way for patrons to compare their book interests to the library and find new books. Another idea I liked was adding a library thing feature or link from a library's OPAC. This could draw patrons who generally go straight to the catalog into a library's 2.0 efforts.

As far as archives go, this tool is fairly limited in use. Archives deal with unique materials rather than published materials, so there is no equivalent. The closest thing I can think of is something for pictures, like flickr, where an archive could upload its photo collections and users could find similarly tagged photos.

13.

I started using iGoogle 3 or 4 months ago. What really attracted me to it was the fact that I already had a gmail account. It is already my permanent homepage. I like that I can get my email inbox, news headlines from multiple sources, weather, maps, and translation on a single page. I can also quickly access my calendar, documents, rss feeds, and this blog from iGoogle.

The calendar is nice because it can be synched with ical or outlook, and it emails me reminders for homework deadlines. I wish there was a bit more functionality in terms of being able to bold, italicize or highlight things in the calendar. Of course the ability to create color coded calendars is very nice.

The to-do tools seem to be a way to fill in a gap that I dislike in the calendars. Google calendar emails me reminders but I wish there was a way for me to "cross out" what I've already completed. I currently use a physical calendar (shocking, I know) to do this. I may end up adding one of these to-do tools to my productivity repertoire.

Backpack seems really useful. It has so many features that it might be a bit overwhelming. However, it seems much more well suited for productivity within an organization like a library or archive. It could allow for communication among the staff, and perhaps between divisions branches. Honestly after taking the backpack tour I feel like the google productivity suite is a bit weak.

12.

This thing has a special, funny significance for me. A friend of mine recently met someone through the social aspect of Stumbleupon. They met through their shared interests and really hit it off. They decided to get married about two months after meeting on stumble, and have been living together for several months. I think its a bit crazy but it makes for a good story.

These sorts of tools could be useful for a library to promote content and increase patron participation (seems to be a common theme here). A specific network for the library could be created using one of the sites, and then the library staff could submit interesting articles. This would allow the users to rate how interesting or useful they are. The users could also use this as a way to show a library an area of interest that should be addressed.

The big problem is that just because things are popular does not mean that they are good or valid. The most popular things on these sites often seem to be lowest common denominator material. Also, I think they are excellent ways to waste time. Several of my friends are digg or stumble users, and they always talk about how much time they waste using them. These tools can be used to find some very interesting things, but a lot of the time it is just funny or interesting fluff.

11.

Delicious seems like it could be very useful. Not only does it allow users to organize their bookmarks by multiple categories, it allows them to be accessed from any computer with internet connectivity. This seems especially useful to me as I can be on three or four computers throughout the day. The tagging would be very useful for research, especially when articles address multiple topics. I may end up using delicious to help out with my research projects this semester.

In addition to research, this could would obviously be very useful for personal bookmarking. What comes to mind immediately for me is all the recipes I bookmark. Rather than just having something organized under seafood, I could have it under seafood, pasta, and tomatoes.

I'm a bit unsure about the potential of something like this for library-patron interaction. The problem would be if a library used one social bookmarking utility, it would be much more useful for the patrons who used that utility than patrons who used another. Perhaps there is a middle ground. This doesn't mean a library should abandon something with so much potential. Like wikis, this could point patrons toward useful information they might not otherwise find.

Also, it seems that this would be a great way for inter and intra-library communication. Useful library-related articles, websites, and other things of that nature could be shared this way (the same could be said of archives).

9.

I already use google docs regularly, but I had not even heard of zoho prior to this exercise. From what I gather, Zoho has a few more processing features that make it more functional than google docs. However, google docs seems to be more well-suited to collaboration. This is especially evident in the edits of the DI, where the google doc is much more heavily edited. This seems to me to demonstrate the greater collaborative abilities of google docs. As I mentioned in the last post, I use google docs for group work in my LIS 5033 class. This works very well, as we can edit in near real-time.

That being said, the two utilities seem to be very similar. The main reason I would prefer google docs is that I use google for mail and calendars as well. I guess this means the internet has turned into wal mart. Perhaps I'm settling for an inferior product because I can find all these utilities under google's "cloud."

I have a feeling the founding fathers would be pretty appalled by the edits of the declaration of independence (unless the collaborative utilities were open to educated, white, property-owning men). Maybe they would appreciate the input from the commenting feature on zoho. If they had been using it amongst themselves, it might have been a powerful tool. But it would also likely have led to a great deal more bickering over details. My 5033 group has not had this problem, but I'm guessing the founding fathers were a bit more egocentric.

8.

Picturetrail seems as though it would be a useful way to display pictures of goings-on at a library. I suppose it could be used to highlight photos from an archives collection, but a tool like flickr seems much more powerful for this.

It was very easy to use, perhaps slightly more so than flickr. However this comes at the cost of less functionality. The tagging option in flickr makes it miles ahead of a tool like picturetrail.

I have used photobucket to share pictures, which is similar to flickr but probably less functional. I also use google docs to share documents and do group work for one of my other LIS classes. It is very useful. I could see it used in an institutional setting as a way to share documents, especially to access them outside the institution's network.

7.

My work (Research Division at OHS) uses email fairly frequently, although I would prefer if it was used more frequently. I regularly communicate with my coworkers in the archives through email. I find it more effective than speaking on the phone in most cases because it allows more detail and less "uhhs" in conversation. Speaking on the phone is generally quicker, but I don't like voicemail. Voicemails tend to leave me thinking "what on Earth were they talking about?" So, if I'm away from the phone (which I am more often than not) I certainly prefer an email.

Unfortunately our library reading room (where patrons come and ask questions about archival materials) does not communicate effectively with us through email. Always being by a phone is not realistic for my particular job, but I am almost always on a computer. The obvious solution is email, but I guess if you have a patron breathing down your neck the phone is much more attractive.

I also use chat in gmail to communicate with my coworkers. Once again, I prefer this to the phone because it allows for a real time conversation without distracting from other duties. Its nice because if I step away from the computer and log out of gmail, the messages will still be sent to me in an email.

I do not use facebook or twitter, although I used to have a facebook. All of my coworkers under 50 have facebooks though. I am not aware of any twitter users in our offices. I fail to see the usefulness of twitter for most anything (especially if you have a facebook with a status). I really honestly can't see how twitter would be useful for a library or archive. That sort of real time communication between institutions and patrons doesn't seem necessary. Maybe if a library had a facebook where patrons could comment, but why a twitter?

Although I abstain from facebook, I am an active user of text messages. I send thousands per month. This is mainly for personal use rather than at work. No one else at my work seems to be a big texter (the next youngest person I work with is 9 years older than me). In all honesty it is probably more of a distraction than anything. But it is ridiculously useful when you're trying to plan dinner or set up a game of tennis after work.

6.

I feel like this tool is fairly limited in potential for a library or archive. It seems to be more of a "fluff" tool that is fun to play with but of little use. One thing I could see it used for would be to create a trading card for a book, with the book's title, cover, and catalog information. That would be a creative way to present catalog information digitally. I suppose it could also be used to present bios of staff members (if anyone would be interested). As for a license plate with the name of a program... I don't really see the usefulness of that. Maybe as a way to identify your program with its state? That's a bit of a stretch...

5.

These tools would be useful for a library or archives in a number of ways. They could be a creative way to increase exposure to library 2.0 efforts. These would be similar to non-digital promotions that libraries and archives carry out frequently. Something like the tool above could also be a way for an archives to highlight certain images in a photo collection.

Sharing photos online is very useful, especially as a way for archives to increase the visibility of their photo collections. It does bring up several questions about copyright though. The amount of labor required for such endeavors is probably their biggest drawback. Digitization already diverts resources from other worthwhile activities, so the question has to be raised, is it worth it?
This sort of thing seems ideal for those elusive tech savvy volunteers.

4.

Flickr is really fun to play around with. I am not much of a picture taker myself, so I have never made an account. A friend and I went through an obsession with dams and scary things of that nature, during which we consulted flickr extensively.

A few months ago, a coworker told me about the Library of Congress Commons of flickr. I find this very interesting and potentially useful for the OHS photo archives. We have already established an interactive map for one of our photo collections, and this could help expand our interactive digital presence. My final project will be based on adding a collection (or more) to flickr, to be viewed and tagged by the public. I registered OHS with the LC Commons, but have yet to get a response. I may just do an individual OHS flickr.

As far as privacy concerns go, I would not have many in regards to flickr. Anything I was concerned about for privacy reasons, I would not post on flickr. Seems pretty simple to me.

3.

I enjoy RSS because it allows me to skim through a range of potentially interesting topics quickly. There are also many RSS feeds that I can find through the Google reader that I might not normally have found. This is especially true for all the archives/library feeds I have subscribed to.

This will help me keep up with topics related to school. I might even find something I would consider for a paper topic. In my personal life I can subscribe to a bunch of food related blogs, and potentially find some tasty recipes.

I would have tried blogline, but Google already consumes my life. So, I figured it would be easier just to stick with the google reader. From the igoogle page I can easily reach my mail (including school and work), my calendar, documents (which I use quite a bit for school), and the reader.

2.

Stephen Abram video:
The online video is another web tool that I am somewhat ambivalent about. I can't dispute that it is very useful and has enormous potential for libraries and archives. My problem is with these web cam videos that have proliferated in the past few years. I'm sorry Mr. Abram, but I don't really want to look at your bald head. It's distracting. At least he's talking about something interesting though, unlike the people on Youtube who post their own commentary on issues or film their reaction to ridiculous videos. Honestly, if it's just someone talking, I'd rather read it.

The point about finding the time really struck a chord with me. I could work on my 23 things at work. But, unfortunately blogger is a restricted site at OHS. Fantastic. Way to let our employees get involved with this interactive experience.

Abram's point about the "wall of books" is interesting. I agree that it would encourage browsing, which might otherwise be lost in the OPAC setting. However, that does raise the issue of a new technology merely emulating an existing information form, rather than being truly innovative. I don't know that there is a problem with that, as long as other technologies are being innovative. I certainly do enjoy browsing, but part of the browsing experience is the sensory experience of being in a library. That can't be replicated online, even if you add a "book smell" interface.

Blyberg's post raises some interesting points. I think it is unfortunate to think of things in terms of shifting funds from a reference librarian to a coder. In my opinion, the expertise of a reference librarian is greater than that of a coder in a library setting. A more useful approach would be to hire new candidates that have strengths in librarianship and coding. In an archives setting, someone who is entering metadata with a knowledge of the subjects in the collections would be much more effective than someone who was simply hired for their computer skills. The computer skills are still an important consideration, however.

I don't know that I would agree completely that library 2.0 is revolutionary. I don't think these technologies will turn libraries completely on their heads. I think that it is important for institutions to adopt library 2.0 technologies, but that doesn't mean they will lead to revolutionary change. For instance, 2.0 may keep libraries relevant with younger to middle aged patrons, but may alienate older patrons. For an archives that deals heavily with older genealogy patrons, this is an important consideration. A balanced approach is necessary.

I would say my knowledge of web 2.0 is intermediate. I am 22, so it is expected that I would have a decent knowledge of these things. I am a bit obstinate though, so I have resisted some or forsworn others (facebook).

I think as far as people at my archives (OHS), I have the best knowledge of anyone. This is kind of unfortunate, but hopefully working on this project will help me incorporate some web 2.0 technologies into our archives.

1.

Well, this is my blog and avatar.

I was a little miffed that the avatar options didn't include a beard. Perhaps I just couldn't find the beards. I think web 2.0 is very useful and has a lot of potential for libraries and archives (I'm an archives man), but I think that the avatar is a bit silly. Very few blogs I've encountered use avatars. Unlike most other web 2.0 tools, it seems that they are mainly just a small amusement.

This is not my first time using a blog, although I do not maintain one at the moment. My girlfriend and I have been considering making a cooking blog though. I do read blogs on almost daily basis.

Hello

This is my first post