Week 10 #15 Mashups

Mashups, Basically they are hybrid web applications that take features from one application (like Flickr) and mash it up with another (like a map). In this example, you get Mappr
Like many web 2.0 sites, Flickr has encouraged other people to build their own online applications using images found on the site. Through the use of APIs (application programming interfaces), many people have created third party tools and mashups* that use Flickr images. Here are just a sampling of a few …
Mappr - allows you to take Flickr images and paste them on a map
Flickr Color Pickr - lets you find public photos in Flickr that match a specific color.
Montagr – create a photo mosaic from photos found on Flickr. Discover more mashups, web apps, and Flickr tools.Discovery Exercise:Your discovery exercise for this “thing” is to:
Explore some of the fun Flickr mashups and 3rd party tools that are out there.
Create a blog post about one that intrigues you. Personally one of my very favorite tools is FD Toys’ Trading Card Maker. And there’s a ton of librarians out there that have created their own Librarian Trading Card.So have some fun discovering and exploring some neat little apps. And if you're up to the challenge while you’re at it, why not create a trading card of your own. :)* Mashup Note: Wikipedia offers some great articles that explain mashups. Basically they are hybrid web applications that take features from one application (like Flickr) and mash it up with another (like a map). In this example, you get Mappr (http://mappr.com).
Record your thought in the comments section of Week 10 # 15 Mashups.

Week 9 #14 Library2.0

14 On Library 2.0 & Web 2.0 ... easy week this week...
Listen to this podcast [1:37]-->powered by ODEOLibrary 2.0 is term used to describe a new set of concepts for developing and delivering library services. The name, as you may guess, is an extension of Web2.0 and shares many of its same philosophies and concepts including harnessing the user in both design and implementation of services, embracing constant change as a development cycle over the traditional notion of upgrades, and reworking library services to meet the users in their space, as opposed to ours (libraries). Many have argued that the notion of Library 2.0 is more than just a term used to describe concepts that merely revolve around the use of technology; it also a term that can be used to describe both physical and mindset changes that are occurring within libraries to make our spaces and services more user-centric and inviting. Others within the profession have asserted that libraries have always been 2.0: collaborative, customer friendly and welcoming. But no matter which side of the debate proponents fall, both sides agree that libraries of tomorrow, even five or ten years from now, will look substantially different from libraries today.Discovery Resources:OCLC Next Space Newsletter – Web 2.0: Where will the next generation of the web it take libraries?Five Perspectives:
Away from Icebergs
Into a new world of librarianship
To more powerful ways to cooperate
To better bibliographic services
To a temporary place in timeWikipedia – Library 2.0Library 2.0 Discussions (list of great references from Wikipedia) Discovery Exercise:
Read two or three of the perspectives on Library 2.0 from the list above.
Create a blog post about your thoughts on any one of these? Library 2.0 - It's many things to many people. What does it mean to you?

Week 8 #13 Sandbox & PBWiki

Playing around with PBWiki
Listen to this podcast [1:53]-->powered by ODEO"Sandbox" is the term that wikis often use to describe the area of the website that should be used for pure play. For this discovery and exploration exercise, we’ve set up a whole Learning 2.0 Favorites wiki* that’s for nothing but play! For this “explore-and-play-with-wikis” exercise, you are asked to add an entry or two to the PBwiki Learning 2.0 wiki. The theme of this wiki is simply “Favorites” : Favorite books, favorite vacation spots, favorite restaurants, favorite anything …all you need to do is play and add your thoughts. To mark your adventure on this site, you should add your blog to the Favorite Blogs page. Discovery Resources:
PB Wiki Tour - Find out how this collaborative tool can be used
PBWiki Video Gallery - Short videos of PBwiki features
PB Wiki Tips Discovery Exercise:
Access the PLCMC Learning 2.0 wiki and create a login account for yourself.
Add your blog to the Favorite Blogs page. That's how we'll know that you've been there. It’s easy to do if you follow this simple syntax:
Example:[ URL Title of blog][ http://plcmclearning.blogspot.com Learning 2.0 ]With brackets [ ] and just a little typing, you’ve added a link - yup, it’s as easy as that!OPTIONAL: Add a favorite or two to a few other pages (Favorite books, favorite vacation spot, etc). And, if you feel up to the challenge, you might even want to create a separate page for book review or short travel essay and link up to that.
Create a post in your blog about the experience.* NOTE: The PLCMCLearning Wiki was created using the free version of PBWiki, a tool that lets you create webpages that anyone can edit.

Week 8 #12 Wikis

A wiki is a collaborative website and authoring tool that allows users to easily add, remove and edit content. Wikipedia, the online open-community encyclopedia, is the largest and perhaps the most well known of these knowledge sharing tools. With the benefits that wikis provide the use and popularity of these tools is exploding. Some of the benefits that make wikis so attractive are:
Anyone (registered or unregistered, if unrestricted) can add, edit or delete content.
Tracking tools within wikis allow you to easily keep up on what been changed and by whom.
Earlier versions of a page can be viewed and reinstated when needed.
And users do not need to know HTML in order to apply styles to text or add and edit content. In most cases simple syntax structure is used.As the use of wikis has grown over the last few years, libraries all over the country have begun to use them to collaborate and share knowledge. Among their applications are pathfinder or subject guide wikis, book review wikis, ALA conference wikis and even library best practices wikis. Discovery Resources:Use these resources to learn more aboout wikis:
Wiki, wiki, wiki - from PLCMC's own Core Compentency blog
Wiki’s: A Beginner’s Look – an excellent short slide presentation that offers a short introduction and examples.
What is a Wiki? – Library Success wiki presentation
Using Wikis to Create Online Communities – a good overview of what a wiki is and how it can be used in libraries.Discovery Exercise:
For this discovery exercise, you are asked to take a look at some library wikis and blog about your finding. Here’s a few examples to get you started:
SJCPL Subject Guides – a pathfinder wiki developed by the St. Joseph County Public Library system
Book Lovers Wiki - developed by the Princeton Public Library
Library Success: A best practices wiki

Extra - If you want to create a wiki then go to pbwiki http://ltxserver.unitec.ac.nz/~thom/offline/PBWiki.htm

Week 7 #11 Getting not-so-technical with Technorati

So now that you’ve been blogging for awhile, you might be wondering just how big the blogosphere is. Well, according to Technorati, the leading search tool and authority for blogs, the number of blogs doubles just about every 6 months with over 51 million blogs currently being tracked by the site. If the blogging trend continues, it is estimated that Technorati will have tracked its 100 millionth blog in just 5 months.Yes, these numbers are astounding, but as you’ve already seen for yourselves, blogging is so easy that these publishing tools are being taken advantage of by almost every industry, including libraries.So how does a person get their blog listed as part of the blogosphere and how can you tag your posts with keywords to make them more findable through a Technorati search? The answer to the first question is that your blog is probably already being captured by Technorati due to the fact that you're already using Blogger, the most popular blogging tool. But if you want to join the party and have your blog officially listed on Technorati and also take advantage of the watchlist and other features, you’ll need to claim your blog yourself. As for tagging posts with Technorati tags? This is easy, too. All you need to do is add a little bit of HTML code to the bottom of your post (see my example below) and Technorati will pick up these tags when it spiders (or web crawls) your site. There are a lot of new features that have been added to Technorati this past summer, including new ways to search for blogs. You can search for keywords in blog posts, search for entire blog posts that have been tagged with a certain keyword, or search for blogs that have been registered and tagged as whole blogs about a certain subject (like photography or libraries).Discovery Resources:Technorati Tour – videocast of new features & new lookTechnorati Discover & Popular featuresDiscovery Exercise:
Take a look at Technorati and try doing a keyword search for “Learning 2.0” in Blog posts, in tags and in the Blog Directory. Are the results different?
Explore popular blog, searches and tags. Is anything interesting or surprising in your results?
Create a blog post about your discoveries on this site.OPTIONAL: If you're up for a challenge, learn how to tag your posts by with Technorati tags so they can join tag searches. Create a post about something. It can be anything you want and add the HTML code to the bottom to tag it as “PLCMCL2.” You may also want to consider claiming your blog and creating a watchlist.NOTE: When adding HTML code, you'll want to make sure you're in Blogger's Edit HTML window.

Week 7 #10 Tagging, folksomonies & social bookmarking in Del.icio.us

Tagging is an open and informal method of categorizing that allows users to associate keywords with online content (webpages, pictures & posts). Unlike library subject cataloging, which follows a strict set of guidelines (i.e.Library of Congress subject headings), tagging is completely unstructured and freeform, allowing users to create connections between data anyway they want. In the past few weeks, we’ve already explored a few sites – Flicker and LibraryThing to name two --that allow users to take advantage of tagging. This week, in addition to exploring Technorati tagging, we want to also take a look at a popular social bookmarking site called Del.icio.us (typed in as http://del.icio.us).Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking manager which allows you to bookmark a web page and add tags to categorize your bookmarks.Many users find that the real power of Del.icio.us is in the social network aspect, which allows you to see how other users have tagged similar links and also discover other websites that may be of interest to you. You can think of it as peering into another users’ filing cabinet, but with this powerful bookmarking tool each user's filing cabinet helps to build an expansive knowledge network.For this discovery exercise, you are asked to take a look at Del.icio.us and learn about this popular bookmarking tool. Discovery Resources:
Otter Group Del.icio.us tutorial (8 min video) - Highly recommended!!!
Us.ef.ul: A beginners guide to Del.icio.us
Several Habits of wildly successful Del.icio.us users Discovery Exercise:
View the 8 minute Del.icio.us tutorial to get a good overview of its features.
Take a look around Del.icio.us using the PLCMCL2 account that was created for this exercise. Note: In this account you will find lots of resources that have been highlighted or used throughout the course of the Learning 2.0 program.
Explore the site options and try clicking on a bookmark that has also been bookmarked by a lot of other users. Can you see the comments they added about this bookmark or the tags that they used to categorize this reference?
Create a blog post about your experience and thoughts about this tool. Can you see the potential of this tool for research assistance? Or just as an easy way to create bookmarks that can be accessed from anywhere?
Don't forgot to log you experience on this bloog in the comments section under Week 7 number 10.

Week 6 #9 Rollyo

#9 Roll your own search engine
Listen to this podcast [1:32]-->powered by ODEODo you have a group of websites that are your favorites? Or a set of online resources that are similar that you frequently use to answer homework or reference questions? Well Rollyo may be the tool for you. Rollyo allows you to create your own search tool for the just the websites you know and trust. Take a look at some of these search rolls that have already been created:
Public Domain e-Books Search
Rare Book Library Search
Free Photos
Quick Quotes
Explore other rolls here.Here’s a searchroll I created to search ten of PLCMC’s family of websites:Try a search for broad terms like "homework” or “history” to see results listed from multiple sites.Discovery Exercise:
Explore Rollyo and create an account for yourself.
Create a search roll for any subject you like.
Create a post in your blog about your experience and link to your search roll. Can you see a potential use for tools like this?

Week 5 #8 LibraryThing

Are you book lover or cataloger at heart? Or do you enjoy finding lost and forgotten gems on the shelf to read? Then LibraryThing may be just the tool for you. Developed for booklovers, this online tool not only allows you to easily create an online catalog of your own it also connects you to other people who have similar libraries and reading tastes. Add a book to your catalog by just entering the title -- It’s so easy that you don’t even need MARC record training to do it – or connect with other users through your similar reading tastes. There are lots of ways to use LibraryThing. You can even view your books on a virtual shelf, add a widget (see sidebar for sample) to display titles that are in your catalog or install a LT Search box on your blog.So why not join the ranks and create your own library online. With over 65,000 registered (BTW: LibraryThing also has group forum for librarians users and over 4.7 million cataloged books, you're bound to discover something new.Discovery Resources:
About LibraryThing
Library Thing tour
MoBuzzTV Review (3rd story in the 5 min broadcast)
LibraryThing blog (updates & news) Discovery Exercise:
Take a look around LibraryThing and create an account.
Add a least 5 books to your library.
Blog about your findings and be sure to link to your LibraryThing catalog.

Week5 #7 Online Image Generators

Thing 6. Online Image Generators
Most of us don’t have the time or the artistic talent to create specialized graphics or logos for projects. Enter the Online Image Generator! These handy-dandy tools let you create many types of images – framed pictures, slide shows, comic-style captions, trading cards, calendars, and much more.Why use this tool?Create trading cards of authors, scientists, historical figures, or even concepts you’re trying to teach or promote. Media specialists can support teachers by helping students create images around astronomy, algebraic equations, historical figures (“I’ll trade you two Ben Franklins for an Eleanor Roosevelt!”). Students and staff can create trading cards of themselves to help them get to know each other. Other possibilities include creating a calendar with an image related to what you’re promoting that month, or a mosaic with multiple images related to your books, videos, or other resources. Use the images generators in summer reading programs, book clubs, training, and more. Librarians at Carleton College are using trading cards as a way to reach their students. The possibilities are endless! As is the time you can spend playing around with these sites—beware!
1. Go to Big Huge Labs.
2. Choose Trading Card from drop down list.2. Create a trading card and save it to your computer.
3. Create another image or two to illustrate your 23 Things.
4. Upload the your trading card and images to your blog to share with others.

ResourcesBig Huge Labs Image Chef Toon Doo Graphics are a great way to convey information and can add some fun and creativity to your Web sites. Create customized images for your PowerPoint presentations, Web pages, and other projects. This is also an opportunity to think about copyright and licensing issues–some image generators use characters from popular TV shows (The Simpsons, South Park, etc.)–is this legal or part of the Internet free-for-all?

Record you thoughts on this blog as a comment under Week5 #7

Week 4 #6 RSS

Week 4 #6 Learn about RSS feeds and set up a blog reader account
You’ve heard of RSS?
RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication” and is a file format for delivering regularly updated information over the web. Just think about the websites and news information sources you visit everyday. It takes time to visit those sites and scour the ad-filled and image-heavy pages for just the text you want to read, doesn’t it? Read more about RSS here or see this video at BlipTV.Now imagine if you could visit all those information sources and web pages in just one place and all at the same time … without being bombarded with advertising… without having to search for new information on the page you’d already seen or read before… and without having to consume a lot of time visiting each site individually. Would that be valuable to you? Well, it’s available now through a newsreader and RSS. This week’s discovery exercises focus on learning about RSS news feeds and what free tools you can use to do this.Discovery Exercise:1. Follow these discovery exercises to set up your own, personalized RSS feed reader. Learn about the difference between RSS feed readers, Bloglines, and Google Reader. Click here for Bloglines or here for Google Reader2. Create a free "RSS aggregator" account from either Bloglines or Google Reader and subscribe to at least 2 newsfeeds to your reader.

1.BLOGLINES. Here are the steps for creating an account in BLOGLINES. See Using Bloglines Tutorial steps 1-3 for instructions. See also a short video on YouTube on how to add feeds ;

2.GOOGLE READER. You may prefer to set up an RSS aggregator in Google Reader. Tutorials include: Google Reader Tour, video tutorial#1 or #2.]

3. Create a post in your blog about this exercise. Don’t know what to blog about? Think about these questions: What do you like about RSS and newsreaders? How do you think you might be able to use this technology in your school or personal life? How can libraries use RSS or take advantage of this new technology? Optional: If you're up to the challenge, you can provide the URL address to your public bloglines account (find where to find this below)

4. Add a comment under this blog entry on HNLibrary.blogspot.com including the name of you blog and anything else about RSS.

WEEK 3 #5 Explore Flickr and learn about this popular image hosting site

WEEK 3 #5 Explore Flickr and learn about this popular image hosting site
Photo sharing websites have been around since the 90s, but it took a small startup site called Flickr (now owned by Yahoo) to catapult the idea of “sharing” into a full blown online community. Flickr uses "tags" or what we would call keywords to help identify and search for photos.For this discovery exercise, you are asked to take a good look at Flickr and discover what this site has to offer. Find out how tags work, what groups are, and all the neat things that people and other libraries (list also here) are creating thanks to Flickr.Discovery Exercise:In this discovery exercise, you have two options…a. Take a good look around Flickr and discover an interesting image that you want to blog about. Be sure to include either a link to the image or if you create a Flickr account, you can use Flickr's blogging tool to add the image in your post. Another option you have for including images in your post is to use Blogger's photo upload tool.

--OR--

b. If you are up to an easy challenge ... create a Free account in Flickr and use a digital camera to capture a few pictures of something in your library. Upload these to your Flickr account and tag at least one of the images “23things@central” and mark it public. Then create a post in your blog about your photo and experience. Be sure to include the image in your post. Once you have a Flickr account, you have two options for doing this; through Flickr's blogging tool or using Blogger's photo upload feature. So go ahead, explore the site and have some Flickr photo fun and if you're interested in looking at some photo hosting sites, then check out Picasa Web Albums from Google and another service called Smugmug.PS: A quick word about photo posting etiquette - When posting identifiable photos of other people (especially minors) get the person's permission before posting their photo in a publicly accessible place like Flickr. Never upload pictures that weren't taken by you (unless you have the photographer's consent) and always give credit when you include photos taken by someone else in your blog.Discovery Resources:· Flickr Learn More tour (6 steps)· Mediamazine Flickr Tutorials· Flickr: Popular tags Interesting- Last 7 days· Flickr Services (3rd party applications & mashups) and here's another Flickr site that lets you create movie posters, CD covers, magazine covers and so on.· libraries that Flickr or 365 Days of Library Pictures in Flickr.

Then Write a comment about it on this blog.
[Note: Please remember to include WEEK# and THING# in your heading posts.]

Week 2 #3 & #4 Register your Blog

WEEK 2 #3 & #4
Register your blog with ... HNlibrary.blogspot.com

If you’ve made it this far, you already have three items or “things” completed of the ’23 Things.’ We hope you are enjoying the adventure so far and having fun. Remember to share with colleagues any knowledge or experience that may help them out if they get stuck or vice versa!But how do you qualify for special recognition? Good question! You need to do two things. You have to register your blog with 23 things kims@hdc.govt.nz , plus you have to record your progress on each of the ‘23 things’ on your blog. Reminder: Identify each WEEK clearly and each exercise (THING) in your entries. The 23 Things moderator will track and verify your progress in a log.

So, here’s Thing #4 – Add you blog address url as a link in this blog. ”Remember … your blog address is in the format http://insertname.blogspot.com/ "
It’s really that easy and just think, now there are only 19 more things to go. :)

Extra ideas
Idea #1: A blog is an excellent forum for discussion of issues. Create one for the next school, local, state, or national election and discuss the issues of the day. Idea #2: A book discussion blog is a library favourite. Start one today and then branch out into other topics such as pro/con topics of interest, student opinion surveys, or campus activity discussions.

Week 1 #2 Create your own avatar and add it too your blog

WEEK 1 # 2 Create your own Avatar and add it to your blog and write a post about it.

Create an avatar -- a representation of yourself. or upload a photo of yourself. For Avatars go to http://avatars.yahoo.com/ , design an avatar with a library or classroom background. (You will have to set up an account if you don't use Yahoo!) Save your avatar and export to your blog.[HINT: Here's how to export your avatar to your blog. When you are on your Avatar's !Yahoo.com page, go to "home" tab and look to the right column. One of the options is: "EXPORT: Use your avatar in web pages and blogs and more." Click there. Then, in the centre of the page, one option is your avatar's HTML code. Copy the code, go to your blog and sign in. When you first sign in, there is an option to add a post OR manage posts, settings, or layout; go to "LAYOUT." You will see various page elements.) Paste (Control V) the HTML code in the PAGE ELEMENT marked "HTML/Java Script." Then move that PAGE ELEMENT to wherever you want your avatar to appear on your blog.]

These exercises are all about discovery! Have fun … and happy blogging!!
IMPORTANT NOTE: How you choose to identity yourself on your blog is up to you. You can blog under a screen name, anonymously, or with your real name.

Then Write a comment about it on this blog.

Week 1 #1 Blogs

Read the first entry in this Blog.
Now that you’ve done some exploring around this website and understand how this program will work, it’s time to set up your very own personal blog to begin recording your thoughts, discoveries, and exercises. For this program, you may use any one of several free online blog hosting services including Blogger, Wordpress, or Typepad. (Although we are recommending Blogger, you may find another preferred blog service.)

Grab yourself a blog in 3 steps:
1. Create an account Google asks you for an email address - this becomes your username.Note:You do not need a Gmail account.
Remember to write down your Username and Password.
2. Name your blogRemember that the whole web world can see your blog title and blog address. You probably don’t want to use your real name. Consider creating a blog name that’s anonymous, yet uniquely you. The URL for your blog will look like these examples - http://librarywriting.blogspot.com/ or http://preilly.wordpress.com/ or http://librarianinblack.typepad.com/ (these are real blogs so of course you need to give your own blog its own unique name.) The format is name.blogspot.com when you use blogger.com software. Note: There is no www in the address when using Blogger.com software. Please remember your URL address and/or bookmark it.The 23 Things moderator recommends: You are urged to use a name or "handle" as follows: [ [FIRST NAME or NICKNAME]Library2 -- for example, http://hiphoplibrary2.blogspot.com/
3. Select your template.Blogger has several templates - have fun choosing one for you! If you run into problems, check out Blogger's Help file and Tutorial or ask your 23 Things moderator .

Discovery Exercise:
1. Set up a blog for yourself through Blogger.
2. Play around and add a test post or two.
3. You will create a discovery post for each of the ’23 Things.’

Please clearly label each entry in your blog in the following way:
Week 1, Exercise or Thing #1, subject. Each of your posts should provide insights into what you’ve discovered and learned. Feel free to share what worked for you … and what didn’t … what surprised you … what frustrated you … what amazed you. For example: Your ‘Thing 2’ post will talk about which habit among the 7 and 1/2 lifelong learning habits is easiest and which is hardest for you & why.
TIP: This is a good time to "bookmark" your blog for easy access throughout the course.

Welcome to Kim's Library Blog : 23 things

Welcome to Kim's Library Blog
HAVELOCK NORTH LIBRARY BLOG
This blog is a web 2.0 self paced development tool. You do as
little or as much as you wish each week.
I was inspired by Paul Reynolds after attending a
Web 2.0 session of his at Library Conference in
Rotorua September 2007.
In conjunction with "23 things @ Central" they allowed
me to source some ideas & content for my blog.

Kim Salamonson
Blog Master

Welcome to Kim's Library Blog

Welcome to My Blog.
It is my aim to provide some straight forward easy help for Librarians to use Web 2.0 resources.
On the following pages, you will encounter the tools of the new Internet: Web 2.0 tools that are bringing our kids in touch with the entire world through social networking, video, audio, and gaming sites. Tools that our customers are wanting use and tools we can use to attract customers and keep in touch with our customers.
For this tutorial, there are 23 Things for you to do. Each Thing will show you one more web tool. There are many places for you to explore, experiment with, and think about creative ways to use this in your library. There is no deadline and this course will remain online through the 2007-2008 and longer. Work at your own pace and enjoy.
Help sheets available on request email the webmaster.

Why Should I learn new technology? Is it for Libraries?

Why should I learn about that when I’m busy with other stuff?, I concluded that if library staff are going to trade a couple of hours a week to learn about emerging technologies that they can’t even use yet in their jobs, then there better be some compelling reasons for it. With items to catalogue, instructional material to write, users to help, budgets to balance, outreach to plan and systems to troubleshoot, why is it good management for staff to be released from these tasks to spend some time learning about emerging technologies? Here’s my list. I’d love to know what’s on yours.
1. Core business. Our core business is linking information and people. There are new and better ways to do this and we need to know how.
2. Productvity. All of the tasks listed above can be made easier using emerging technologies, but you need to know how to use them.
3. Understanding all formats. Users will ask us about these information sources. Are we serving them well if we say “sorry I only know about information in some formats?”
4. Trend watching. Tools are constantly evolving and changing. What starts as a seemingly pointless diversion can become a potent information source when it reaches critical mass or people discover a new use for it. (eg. twitter). We need to be there watching this and understanding it
5. Our skills are useful. Tagging, metadata, data-mining, indexing - new technologies need our skills.
6. Experimenting gains skills. It’s like Solitaire when Windows first came out. People needed to learn how to use the mouse interface - and this was the fastest, most efficient way to educate the workforce. Some seemingly pointless sites (yes, I’m looking at you boomshine, and you, Second Life) teach us new interfaces.
7. Dealing with vendors. If we don’t know what can be done, for free, using new tools, then library software vendors can continue to sell us “solutions” that are inflexible and costly.
8. Being prepared. What a few early adopters are using now, others will use in 18 months.
9. Core concerns being redefined. The definitions of some core concerns of librarianship are being re-negotiated - copyright, plagiarism, scholarship, authority, privacy and recreation. We need to be in among the conversations on sites where this is happening.
10. Manage our workforce. We need young, tech-savvy, passionate, clever library staff to deal with the changes, and we need to know enough to manage these people and get the best out of their new skills.
11. Fun. If staff are given permission to have fun and be creative as they learn in a supportive environment, it can lift workplace morale.
12. Better service. If we know how, we can offer better service to our users, where they are and using their preferred tools. (eg. SMS output of item location records to their mobile device via wireless)
13. So we can tell the IT dept what we want. If we feel overwhelmed by web-based technologies that are now only available in beta, imagine how it feels if your job has been to set up software, protect a network and standardise operating environments. If we have a centralisedl IT department, then we may have to know more about the tools we want to use (eg. software we’d like for an internal blog).
14. Our users are required to keep up. In academic and special libraries, our users are required by our organization to keep up to date with technology in their fields. To support them, we need to know what that is.
15. International perspective. Your network of professional contacts does not have to be restricted to your own country. New tools make “communities of interest” easier to form. (Thanks to Darren Draper for the last two).
16. Finding out what other libraries are doing. Printed journals and conferences are no longer the best way to find out about the successes and failures in other libraries. With blogs, wikis, podcasts - all harnessed into your aggregator via a subject search, you can keep up and have an avenue to discuss these things with professional colleagues.
17. Standards are different. The tools we will use from now on aren’t standards like AACR2 and LCSH. The best tool for the job shifts and changes daily with our users’ needs. We need to learn general flexibility and skills to adapt to this. Skills like how to register at a social software site, how comments culture works on blogs, how to assess Open Source software, how to tweak templates and products to fit our library.
18. Can’t predict the future, so need to experiment. Without crystal balls, we don’t know for sure what will be widely used. We need to try and assess many services to find what works for our users.
19. Crowds are fickle. Good quality tools with easy user interfaces may not be favoured over early established tools with a critical mass of users…and the crowd may switch. This happened when a mass of people migrated from bloglines to Google reader as their preferred aggregator. Today’s unused startup may be the Next Big Thing.
20. Better collaboration Libraries have a culture of sharing resources and ideas with each other. Emerging technologies enhance this.