Library 2.0

I found a few of the passages in the OCLC newsletter to be most relevent to Web 2.0 and libraries. The user-friendliness of instant messaging, blogs, and wikis are great in that it permits patrons to assess their needs and convey them to librarians as they say fit. For example, a patron may require some economic facts about about a particular country for a paper. That information may need to be very narrowly defined with economic formulas or fairly general, such as an economic snapshot. The ease-of-use and flexibility offered by certain Web 2.0 applications not only helps the patron determine what information they require and how much, but it also lets the the librarian know the same information therefore aiding them in their research.

This flexibility is of special interest to me, because as you all know, I'm a distance education student. Fortunately, I have the advantage of working at an academic institution where as most of my classmates do not. In lieu of face-to-face librarian interaction, most of the other distance education students must rely upon the IM a librarian feature that the Joyner Library offers. I and my classmates are perfect examples of Web 2.0 in action.

Rollyo

I created a Rollyo account and I did a search on sunscreen because I'll be hitting the beach next weekend. I wanted to find a little information about recommended spfs, brands, etc. I love finding this kind of information on blogs because of the tagging element. Sometimes it's easier finding this kind of information and navigating through blogs and Rollyo helps me accomplish that. Juanita gives this one two very enthusiastic thumbs up!

Library Thing

I really like this site, I had heard about it before but never checked it out. I think it's cool that the reviews are available and that you have your own personal library and have the ability to link with other people's as well. Check my newly added widget out at the bottom on the blog, I've got some eclectic tastes. Also, I really like that idea of linking "regular" people together and having a place to express their ideas and opinions about books instead solely relying upon the word of the literary gods at the New York Times.

Image Generators

I've seen kids use this on Myspace and Facebook, but I've never done it to my page. But I found this really cute one, so here goes.

RSS Feeds

Well, I gotta say at the moment, I'm not happy with my bloglines subscription. There's something wrong with the database, so...none of the feeds I tried to add were added and I'm a bit annoyed. I may try feed demon instead if it's not fixed by tomorow. I read the post about blog searching and I must admit as a music fiend and celebrity trashaholic, I was already familiar with topix and technorati. The google blog search works pretty well too.

Today.....

This is my reaction when I think of shelfreading the GovDocs area. But I got over it and decided to tackle it one section at a time. It's rather tedious for obvious reasons, but it's a necessary evil in the library, so I can accept it, but I don't have to enjoy it. *wink*

On a better note, I learned something new today. I was on Worldcat today for a totally unrelated reason and discovered that they had revamped the layout of the site. Also, you can create bibliographic lists and they've had a search feature that you can add to your Firefox homepage or your Facebook, which is really cool. I knew that you could add the search box to your blog, as I've done it before, but the Facebook thing is just something unexpected.

Flickr Pix

These are random photos of some of the places I'd love to visit someday. There are so many more; see which ones you can recognize.