Week 8 Thing #19 Library Thing

The library thing is a neat thing, as are many of the things that consitute the 23 things. The thing about this thing is that it is a thing that does lots of things. It serves as a book search, an on line community about books, topical forums, just thing after thing after thing. What a thing this thing is. My books were a wide spread in popularity. One was a very popular books and another had only been added by, I thingk 9 people only had one of the titles.

My Library Thing is http://www.librarything.com/home/Elphage

I did find comments on books on my list.

Zoho Week 8 Thing #18 Done

This is going to put Microsoft out of business. There is no reason to buy Microsoft Office or many other programs. In addition many many other programs are made unnecessary by these on line programs. Another thing that I liked was the presentation application and the web page one. The online notetaking also kind of interesting. Infact, there are so many things to learn on this site I don't know if I will ever have enought time to learn all of the apps. At any rate I created this with Zoho writer.

Thing 17 Week 7

Wiki Wiki Wiki everything wiki. I can see that wikis have potention for teachers and students from the examples I saw on the sites I visited. I see that the potential for collecting organizing and presenting large amounts of invormation and keeping up to date is great with wikis. This can be done with almost any group. I saw suggestions and examples of students, teachers, parents and administrators. For example, students can brainstorm a topic and compile the information ovcer a long period of time with a multimedia information on the subject. This record can bewritten, photos, video, and audio. Furthermore, it can be corrected, updated, edited or expanded at any moment and as long as desired. I really liked the tips on how to organize and construct a wiki. I found this helpful because so many really disturbing wikis that are just a big mess of stuff that is very difficult to follow. Those kind really bugged me. The hurt to look at them. However, I really like the ones organized like wikipedia with a table of contents and bibliography and so on. I can also see how it would be great to use wikis to use as study guides for exams. The information could be complete and available for all, even those who lost their notes. In fact, I am going to think of a way, an appropriate way to start and use one in the library.

Thing Number 16 Week 7

I didn’t know this but:

A wiki is a page or collection of Web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content, using a simplified markup language. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites. The collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia is one of the best-known wikis.[ Wikis are used in business to provide intranet and Knowledge Management systems. Ward Cunningham, the developer of the first wiki software, WikiWikiWeb, originally described it as "the simplest online database that could possibly work". "Wiki" (/wiːkiː/) is a Hawaiian word for "fast"."Wiki Wiki" is a reduplication. "Wiki" can be expanded as "What I Know Is", but this is a backronym.

I looked at the Wikis listed on library learning and found their uses to be illuminating. I had only thought of wikis as encyclopedias like in Wikipedia. Stupid of me, but I never thought that they would apply to nearly any body of information that is need to be kept complete and up to date. Now, after having explored the various pages list I see that any body of information can be benefited by putting it into wiki form.
In the sites I visited I saw that procedures for a task, books read, best practices, notes of a meeting, lists of any sort and virtually any body of knowledge applies to the wiki form. The only thing to decide is a. who can entry and modify and b. how it can be accessed. Aside from that, it is almost totally libertarian. Like open source programming or share ware. And, it take the profit motive out of the information if it is open to anyone. How egalitarian.
In schools and school libraries wikis could be used to compile study guides, list of resources, recommended books and reviews loads of stuff. The possibilities are endless..

Thing Number 15 Completed

Away From Icebergs

The first “iceberg” mentioned by Mr. Anderson is the “just in case” collection. This has always been one of my pet peeves. When I was first working in a library I always wondered about those librarians who wanted to keep books that were never checked out and/or in no way corresponded to the curriculum. I remember that my first library had several copies of Dr. Doolittle from the 1920’s. Besides being horrible books that no one wanted to read, the were racist. They were still in my library. It was even worse in New Orleans. I had five copies of a book published by a vanity press that extolled the virtues or slavery on plantations in Louisiana. At any rate, the point is that unless a book will definitely be used on a regular basis there is no reason to have the book, just in case. The internet is what should be used just in case.

User Centric Services

Electronic resources offer great potential in making it easier for anyone to find information. Think about the progress may in the last thirty years. Think back to the card catalogue. When cataloguing a nonfiction book how many “tags” or subject card did the average book have? Five, six, and the time involved? Computers have the potential of making the entire information seeking process totally independent of any help. Of course, there will always be the need for some supervision, but the entire process can be streamlined greatly and result in a far more efficient process of information location.

Come to Us

Lastly, the internet has liberated information from the tyranny of the librarian. Now, the patron does not have to rely upon the librarian as gatekeeper. Pathways to information can be readily available throughout the user’s environment. Links on homepages, imbedded instructional powerpoints and video allow access and intstruction to resources in all places and at all times. In the not too distant there will be no contact between librarian and patron aside from the resources provided remotely.

Library 2.0 Means:

Library 2.0 allows far greater access to patrons for librarians and greater access to resources for patrons. The potential for helping patrons is great with Library 2.0. No longer is it necessary to get patrons to get to the library. Now patrons can access information from a variety of access point. Both direction and instruction can be planned in advance and allow patrons to obtain information in a more timely and efficient manner. With this the librarian will spend more time planning and implementing the structures required to assist patrons in all aspects of information location and also structures to assist and instruct in the planning, formulation and completion of projects. On the other side of the equation, patrons will be able to access information with minimal help from a information specialist. Just tag alone assist in finding information without much prior knowledge, but even more important the information needed to access information can be mad available at the point of access. In the future we will be as much concerned with a surplus of information rather than a shortage.

Thing # 14

1. I searched in the three ways specified. The first yield only two results. The second, tags, got one entire page of results and the search of blogs from list yielded two pages of results. So, to answer the last question. Yes the results were different, but I am unclear on why.

2. I explored the tags, blogs and searched and and a little concerned about, in the time of war and the beginning of a depression that people are concerned about cheat codes and celebreties. But that 's life. I was encourged that the Huffington post was one of the most popular blogs. Although I am not sure I understand what they mean by "authority" Do they mean it in the same way as librarians us it?

3. I discovered two things: a. The most popular site in the world is one I have never heard of. b. Some people are very interested in people I have never heard of. Jennifer Garner?

Tags
Tags can be very helpful in getting blogs exposed to others. A well tagged blog will allow it to shoe up on searches. On the other side of the coin however, this same ability will allow people to tag blogs with words that have nothing to do with the subject at hand and us them for nefarious purposes as well.

Thing #13 Done 10 To Go

I did Thing 13. The entry is below with the Delicious Logo.