Google.docs

Applications like Google.docs further add to the convenience of the Internet and the ability to access needed information from anywhere, provided one has an Internet connection. The different software applications available through this program - while they obviously lack all the functionality of the Microsoft Office applications - also expand the power of the Web to perform tasks that were once only possible on a stand alone computer. Whether or not such programs will eventually eliminate the need for storing files on separate computers remains to be seen. But I expect the convenience that they offer to continue to increase their popularity.

PBWiki

Nothing very exciting to report here. I added my blog to the SPLS Learning 2.0 Wiki and very brief posts to the favorite vacation spots, music, and movie pages on that site. The interactive features and ease of use of the wiki, however, reinforce its role as a collaborative learning tool.

Wikis

The most interesting thing to me about wikis is that they provide a collaborative, non-hierarchical method for building a web site. They're the most extreme example of a web application that I can think of that does this. One hopes that the collaborative, egalitarian spirit that underlies their design would permeate other avenues of decision-making - at least in those situations where it's appropriate. But on this point I'm probably engaging in another idealistic fancy.

As for what types of library applications might work well with a wiki, these have already been succinctly delineated in the post, Using Wikis to Create Online Communities, an article linked to the Learning 2.0 site on wikis. I'm afraid I can't yet think of any other suggestions beyond what the author mentions. Save it to say that all the examples she mentions - using wikis as subject guides, annotations to a library's catalog, as an online hub for community information, and for collaborative group projects between librarians sound appropriate.

Library 2.0: Ideal librarianship and the real world

My post is in response to two of the articles on this topic, Away from Icebergs by Rick Anderson and Into a New World of Librarianship by Michael Stephens.

Few can fault these commentators with a list of ideals to guide librarians due to ever changing information technologies and the paradigm shift they've forced on us. As benchmarks to aim for, they're sound proposals. But as soon as one returns from the realm of airy philosophizing to reality, one is confronted with the staff limitations that make implementing many of these proposals difficult. Along with limited staff, many librarians face funding shortages that further compound this problem. For instance, it's easy to encourage a greater reliance on user education, but anyone who's worked in a public library realizes that many users require staff assistance - and at times substantial amounts - to use computer equipment effectively. Likewise, while many support outreach activities as a way to make libraries more visible to their communities, such undertakings often entail a heavy investment of staff resources. So while the ideals the authors encourage are admirable - and, perhaps, to a certain degree essential, they're only partially obtainable.

Technorati

Like Delicious, Technorati also has the capacity to be a research tools for libraries, if for no other reason that it is one additional resource one can turn to be fine lots of information on a seemingly infinite variety of subjects. This is particularly the case if one wants to see what the most popular blogs are at any given moment, the most popular searches in the blog universe, and the most frequently tagged blogs. Unfortunately, Technorati suffers from the same drawbacks as Delicious and arguably most of the Internet - a plethora of irrelevant information. So I don't expect under most circumstances that a librarian would turn to this as a first search for information. On another level, Technorati could be one more vehicle by which libraries market their services. By creating their own blogs and claiming them on this site, libraries could potentially increase their visibility on the web.

I did the "Discovery Exercise" in Technorati's blog posts, tags, and blog directory using "Learning 2.0" as a keyword search. The results were different both quantitatively and qualitatively as one would expect. For example, my search resulted in 7,765 blog posts, 902 blogs and 758 tags. But what I don't understand is why the total number of blog posts and tags changed with each page of search results that I clicked on. So when I clicked on the second page of search results for blog posts, the number changed from 7,765 to 9,633 and on page seven it decreased to 9,624. Similarly, with tags, the number increased to 965 on the second page of search results and decreased to 757 on page six. Apparently, the first page of search results doesn't reflect the total number of results as it should.

Delicious and social bookmarking

Yes, sites like Delicious definitely have the capacity to serve as a research tool for those looking for information, particularly if searchers come across bookmarks by people that are authorities in the subject they're investigating. The open-ended tagging process helps facilitate their use as a research tool. Unfortunately, like so much of the Internet, it could be another case of trying to find a needle in a hay stack as searchers may have to wade through a plethora of irrelevant or poor information to find something useful.

MySpace and social software

The rapid growth of social software sites over the past several years has demonstrated their capacity to build new types of communities. Libraries have the opportunity to participate in these communities by establishing a presence on social software sites. Hopefully, by doing so, they'll find another venue for marketing their services, expanding their user base, and becoming part of already existing online communities. From a more pessimistic perspective, however, social software sites like MySpace appear to be primarily entertainment oriented. One could waste colossal amounts of time on these sites without engaging in any education oriented activity. I hope as libraries establish a greater presence on these sites that they will attempt to offer more educational activities. But with the increasingly hedonistic direction of our culture, I'm probably being naive.

Below is a link to the Hennepin County Library's MySpace site:

http://www.myspace.com/hennepincountylibrary