Most people who listen to or read the news have heard of Facebook or MySpace. But have you heard of ListenToYourWife or AlternativeEnergy? If people are interested in it then somewhere out in cyberspace there is a social network for it (or in the process of being launched). I think it's great but I hesitate to join anymore. I'm probably a member of at least five social networks. I probably visit one regularly (and I have links to the other four on it). But I visit the others maybe once every couple of months. I often wonder if one day I will find that one of my accounts is disabled because of lack of use (I think at least one should be-I haven't gone past registering for it).
Networking is important for work, learning and relationships. But how much is too much? Will the social networks keep growing until several come up with so many awesome apps the others can no longer compete? Or will new ones keep appearing everyday? Will my Facebook account still work when I'm 60? It better! Just think of all the friends I could collect over several decades. Would you want to lose all that contact information? No way! But how long will this go on (and for free!) ?
Friday, December 7, 2007
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Wiki, wiki, wiki (Week 7: #16)
Wikis are great ways to work together. Some are easier than others to work with. I think wikis are great for collaborating on papers, books and creating a list of ideas or activities. Most wikis allow you to create a clickable table of contents to navigate. Just like blogs, you can include links, files and photos. Wikis usually notify the administrator and the moderators about changes and allow you to change them. Since everyone sees the same thing online and that makes it easier discuss to ideas or changes.
Library 2.0-Why Our Customers Still Need Us (Week 6: #15)
Dr. Wendy Schultz's article called "To a Temporary Place in Time" was very good. I think her statement about tour guides is important to remember. It may seem that librarians are no longer needed but that may be more media hype than fact. It appears that many teens, twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings know about some online tools and services. Usually, they know a enough to get whatever they want done. Those wonderful blogs, websites, podcasts we see online are created by a small number of people who really understand a certain tool, have an idea and combine both. There are millions in this country and billions of people in this world. Compare those numbers to the number of Second Life users or Facebook users and you will see that most people are barely involved. That will change-especially if someone takes the time to inform people about what's available and what meets their needs. The library offer information services like some companies offer their products. Instead of giving the same book or website to answer a certain question, we should help customers to tailor the information to their needs..
Think about an ordinary reference interview, a customer in the seventh grade asks for a book or a website about energy. It's an assignment several of the schools in the area give every year. You give the customer the same book or website that you have given twenty other customers in the seventh grade that day. What's wrong with that? Nothing-except why is the same book or website appropriate for all twenty customers? Among those twenty, one may be visually-impaired, another may read on the level of a third grader, and one may attend a magnet school for engineering. The format of the information needs to be adapted to the specific needs of the customer. What if you could suggest a library database or website that had an avatar that was interactive. The avatar could ask the customer the type of format they would like-audio or visual. The customer could specify how loud the audio is and whether a female or male voice is used. The customer could also change the text color, size and font without messing with toolbars or having to use the Accessibilty Options in Windows. What if the customer could tell the avatar that the information is hard to understand and click on every word they want defined. A small pop-up would appear above the word with a simple definition or synonym. Tagging, embedded video, podcasts and visual search engines would help those would want more information. Many of these things exist as separate tools now. But what if one day, when you guide a customer to information that all of those tools are automatically a part of the package. That would really be something to see!
Think about an ordinary reference interview, a customer in the seventh grade asks for a book or a website about energy. It's an assignment several of the schools in the area give every year. You give the customer the same book or website that you have given twenty other customers in the seventh grade that day. What's wrong with that? Nothing-except why is the same book or website appropriate for all twenty customers? Among those twenty, one may be visually-impaired, another may read on the level of a third grader, and one may attend a magnet school for engineering. The format of the information needs to be adapted to the specific needs of the customer. What if you could suggest a library database or website that had an avatar that was interactive. The avatar could ask the customer the type of format they would like-audio or visual. The customer could specify how loud the audio is and whether a female or male voice is used. The customer could also change the text color, size and font without messing with toolbars or having to use the Accessibilty Options in Windows. What if the customer could tell the avatar that the information is hard to understand and click on every word they want defined. A small pop-up would appear above the word with a simple definition or synonym. Tagging, embedded video, podcasts and visual search engines would help those would want more information. Many of these things exist as separate tools now. But what if one day, when you guide a customer to information that all of those tools are automatically a part of the package. That would really be something to see!
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