Thing #17: Playing Around with PBWiki

Well, cool! Since my project for this class will be setting up a wiki, this is pretty cool that I can access the Learning2.0 wiki and add to it.

Well...I don't have an invite key, so I cannot add to this wiki...I'll "play around with PBWiki" as I try to set mine up.

Instead I randomly clicked through blogs on the list with interesting names.

Thing #16: Wikis

I am especially interested in this exercise because as my final project for this class, I am going to create a wiki of YA resources. I already have a wiki name picked out and registered at pbwiki, but I'm not quite sure of where to go from there. I've looked at other librarys' wikis and have been intrigued. I would love for the library I work for to have a wiki that staff could use to access information that is located in several different binders.

I particularly like Grand Rapids Public Library wiki because of all the resources for teens in it. I'm hoping I'll be able to use a number of the teen resources in my own blog! Looking within each of the teen resource sections, I see how time consuming this could be and see now what Charlet meant when she said I didn't need to do quite so many sections.

Thing #15: Web 2.0, Library 2.0, and the Future of Libraries

For this exercise I read several sections of OCLC's Next Space report, as outlined below:

Away from Icebergs:
Rick Anderson talks about the "just in case collection." While I agree that many of the items we collect that may have been harder to get in the past no longer are, there is still validity for some print resources. He mentions his library has had a 55% drop in circulation...well, mine has not; in fact, it has steadily increased. I think you need to take into consideration your population and what it is they want. He works for a university, so it's more likely that more people will be computer savvy, and will be more database and online-information inspired. My branch at the public library, however, is more interested in the hot DVD and latest fiction.

I wholeheartedly agree that we need to move away from expecting our library customers to know and learn research skills. We need to cut the barriers that prohibit our customers from getting the information they need. Why is a cookbook categorized with the subject term "cookery" instead of "cookbook?" It's crazy.

I also agree with Rick's last point that we need to give the customer what they want and where they want it. If they want to be able to download a book from home, we need to allow them to do that.


Into a New World of Librarianship
I love Michael Stephens. I subscribe to his blog and love to read what he has to say. I aspire to be the librarian he describes in this article. Even more, I hope there's a library out there that will recognize the Librarian 2.0 in me and embrace me and my ideas.

Thing #14: Technorati

I was aware of Technorati, but wasn't exactly sure what it was. It's essentially a place where blogs go to be noticed. It's a pretty overwhelming site just because of all the information it holds. I like the "authority" rating that is attached to each blog which shows the reader how accurate the information in this blog is.

I did not claim my blog because I don't want this one to be something that a lot of people look at - it's essentially just a school assignment. But, I've been playing around with the idea of creating a blog that I will market to the masses (don't we all want a little notoriety?!), but I haven't figured out the particulars yet: like what to call it or whether or not I want to be anonymous.

It was interesting to watch the tag clouds for each category move around as the tags in them became more or less used. I also liked how, within each category, there were several subcategories, such as under Lifestyle I could go straight to blogs pertaining to Green living.

Thing #13: Delicious

I already blogged about the wonders of Delicious earlier, so I'm not going to do it again. Instead, I'll talk about the importance of tagging. When I first started on Delicious, I didn't tag anything. Then I thought to myself how it would be great if I could have different pages so that I could get to the topics I wanted to quickly, without sifting through all of my bookmarks. Well, duh, that's exactly what tagging is!



The most important thing to me about tagging is for me to use tag terms I'll, 1) remember and, 2) mean something to me and what the website is about. here's a picture of my current tag cloud (using the 164 tags I've indicated):




If you'd like to check out all of my bookmarks, click here: Tattooed Librarian's Delicious

Thing #12: Rollyo

This should be interesting, I've never heard of Rollyo. This is a site where you can create lists of websites you use under a particular subject. You can also browse other users' search rolls.

Okay, so I added a search roll...it took me to automatically back to the main screen, and now...nothing. I have no idea where my Reference Websites search roll is. I found it to edit it, but I cannot find it to access it. This is dumb.

Okay, so apparently I had to go back to my Dashboard in order to access it. Even there it's not intuitive as to what I'm supposed to do or where my list is. I found it, finally, but I cannot access the websites that are on my roll. It's just giving a listing.

I don't like this website. I'm going to stick with Delicious.

Thing #11: Library Thing

I used to have an account with Library Thing, well, I'm sure I still do, but I don't remember my user name. For quite some time now, I've used Good Reads to catalog my personal library and the books I've read. My sister-in-law is on that site, so we can see what we're both reading and make recommendations to each other.

The thing I like most about Good Reads is that I'm keeping track of what I'm reading and what I have already read.

If you'd like to add me on Good Reads, you can click this link to find me: http://www.goodreads.com/profile/amybyrne'>Check out my books on Goodreads

Thing #10: Online Image Generator

I thought this would be an exercise where I'd upload my picture to a website and it would do funny things to me. Nope. There are all sorts of things I found to do, and hardly any of them required my own picture!


The Generator Blog: This is a really cool blog, of which I am now subscribed!, that posts different image generators like this:


Upside Down Writing


Amy Byrne is amazing!


Looks like this upside down:


¡ƃuızɐɯɐ sı ǝuɹʎq ʎɯɐ


Eternal Life Coupon:

Thing #9: Locate Library-Related Blogs or Newsfeeds

I have a large number of blogs I follow on my Google Reader, and many of those are library-related. Here's a list of some of my favorites:

Free Range Librarian: K.G. Schneider’s blog on librarianship, writing, and everything else, since 2003.
Librarian Avengers: Want to be a librarian? Got chutzpah? This is the blog for you.
A Librarian's Guide to Etiquette: A polite librarian is a good librarian.
Annoyed Librarian: Whatever it is, I'm against it
In the Library with the Lead Pipe: The murder victim? Your library assumptions. Suspects? It could have been any of us.
Librarian in Black: Resources and discussions for the "tech-librarians-by-default" among us...
Miss Information: The desperate life of a tormented library clerk.
Stephen's Lighthouse: By Sirsi-Dynix's Vice President of Innovation Stephen Abram
Swiss Army Librarian: or, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Fear and Loathing at a Public Library Reference Desk
What I Learned Today: Web 2.0 and programming tips from a library technology enthusiast, What I Learned Today… covers blogs, rss, wikis and more as they relate to libraries.

P.S. This is not the full list of library blogs to which I subscribe...that would have taken me a loooong time to list here!

Some non-library-related blogs I enjoy:
Passive Aggressive Notes: painfully polite and hilariously hostile writings from shared spaces the world over
Blogography: Blogography is a place to learn and grow by exposing yourself to the mind of David Simmer II, a brilliant commentator on world events and popular culture (or so he claims).
Mashable: All that's new on the web

My Delicious Bookmarks in a Cloud

If you look to the left, under About Me and What I'm Reading Now, you'll see a tag cloud of my bookmarks on Delicious. It's not quite how I wanted my Delicious bookmarks to look on here (I wanted there to be an automatic blog posting each day of the bookmarks I created that day), but it's still pretty cool!

If you click on one of the tags, you'll be taken to my Delicious page where you'll see all the websites I've saved for that particular tag.

TattooedLibrarian's Delicious Bookmarks

For the past week I've been playing around with getting my Delicious bookmarks to automatically upload to my blog each day, to no avail. There's an area in Delicious where you can do this, but it's asking for XML-RCP code - and I don't know what that is. I searched the Help files and thought I had it...nope.

Next I searched the gadgets in Blogger to see what I could add directly to my blog page. So, you will now see a very lame box with my most recent Delicious bookmarks. There were all sorts of gadgets for Delicious you could add, but none of them would work. This is the only one that would.

I'm going to keep searching for something better. If you have any ideas for me, let me know! In the meantime, if you'd like to check out my Delicious bookmarks, I'm TattooedLibrarian. You can also click on the title of this post to get to my bookmarks.