THING 20

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1seGlhCSGJs
You Tube is too much fun. I can really see how kids can spend hours on this site. There is just so much to see and look at. Of course, in keeping with a theme I looked for Colin Firth videos and was not disappointed. I am a little curious about the copyright issues raised by this site. For instance, this link connects to a slideshow of pictures. Have these photographers released permission for publication of these shots? It seems like a hazy and unpoliced arena.

THING 17

Frustration! Tried to add my blog to the favorites blog at the Maryland Sandbox, but for some reason I just couldn't get it. It was fun to look at the different blogs and wikis and I did peruse them and added my 2 cents on the favorite dogs wiki. Will seek help tomorrow to try to get my blog added correctly. I'm sure I'm missing something very basic.

THING 16

I have used wikipedia, always with the knowledge that the authorship can be unknown and unreliable. However, I think generally wikis are a great concept an allow for multiple users to comment and add information to topics. While the potential for vandalism and error is there, I noticed in my exploration that some wikis, like the Library Successes, A Best Practices Wiki now requies e-mail verification before permitting posting. I think wikis should definitely be utilized by a public library for a variety of purposes -- such as readers' advisory or book club support as used by the Princeton Public Library, or to promote a specific event like the ALA did for its 2006 conference. Perhaps we could use a wiki in some fashion to enhance the Summer Reading program.

THING 15

I was worried about this assignment, because I thought that some of the discussion would be talking about things which I didn't know about and didn't understand. That is why I found Rick Anderson's article about the icebergs in library 2.0 to be so interesting. Even though he is in an academic environment, his language and presentation was simple and down to earth. Further, the icebergs he cautioned about are things that I think we are facing currently in the public library environment. The "just in case collection" is something which is on the minds of some BCPL librarians as floating collections becomes a reality. This kind of mental change is difficult, but librarians need to embrace these new ideas in order to continue to be relevant. I enjoyed reading Dr. Wendy Schultz's vision of the future of libraries. I think her ideas are fun and important, but the idea of meditation and relaxation in a public library seems quite unlikely! To me Library 2.0 means embracing all ideas for the future of the library. Thinking about the library as a repository for print material is a stale way of describing the library and all ideas should be discussed and all technologies incorporated to better serve more demandig and aware customers.

THING 14

Explored technorati and found it interesting. The searches definitely changed depending on which search used -- blog posts, tags, or blog directory. It seemed that the blog posts was the least useful, but that was a very preliminary observation so I could be wrong about that. I was surprised to see what were some of the top favorited blogs, top searches and top blogs were. When I was looking at these it looked to be very technology heavy as far as the searches and favorted blogs. Did try a search for someone's blog using technorati, but was unsuccessful.

Found an interesting blog all about Colin Firth and was able to post the link on my blog!

THING 13

Explored Del.icio.us, watched the tutorial and checked out the PLCMCL2 account. It wasn't that thrilling, but I think mainly because the content bookmarked was not very interesting to me. So I decided to create an account for myself. It couldn't have been simpler (after finding a user name that wasn't already in use) and then I got to have some real fun. I think this is a good tool as a "bookmarking anywhere" option. My understanding is that I should be able to access my account at any pc, which is what separates this from traditional bookmarking. The second reason this is good is because you can spy on what other people are looking at and check these sites out. This kind of access can keep us current with information needed to perform our jobs better as it gives another opportunity to find out what "people are talking about."

LIBRARY THING

Was able to add the link to random books on my Library Thing bookshelf. I'm really enjoying checking all this stuff out and getting a sense of accomplishment when something actually works.