Had a fantastic time trying out Dance Dance Revolution, Guitar Hero, and Wii Bowling today. Many thanks to Barbara and Debbie for their encouragement. It's easy to see why these games are so popular and why they belong in libraries. Need more convincing? Read the Gaming issue of our electronic serial Library Technical Reports Sept/Oct 2006. Vol. 42, issue 5 in Proquest or other full-text online databases.
I explored Webware and found a search engine called YoName which lets you search for people in FaceBook, MySpace, LinkedIn and a couple of other social networking sites. I found myself and a couple of friends in MySpace and FaceBook and a college friend on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a social networking site for adult professionals. Exploring Google Labs earlier in the week, I found a tool called Google Notebook. I think it will be very useful. I downloaded the browser extension so that I can keep the Notebook open while I search Web sites and work on my blog. I do most of my kcls27things assignments and work on my blog at home so I think it is very cool to keep my notes on the Web instead of on two computers.
... and other excuses could be a thing of the past with Web-based office tools that allow users to create and save their work online. I hope our patrons are already using Google Documents and Spreadsheets or Zoho because these services are really user-friendly and they are good for the environment (less printing, no need for floppy disks). I plan to use these tools for collaborating on documents with other people in my department.
Google Mars was neat and I pitted certain authors against J.K. Rowling in Google Trends. Rowling garnered a healthy amount of interest compared to other authors in my research set.
I stumbled upon a road trip planning tool that seems like a rather nifty alternative for getting somewhere: http://trippish.com/
I put Flickr to good use yesterday when I uploaded some photos and shared them with my work team. Baker & Taylor took photos of books that are being processed and housed off-site for Snoqualmie's opening day collection. I retrieved the photos from their ftp site, posted them on Flickr and sent a guest pass to members of the ODC team and other interested librarians. Here's one that caught my eye:
After reading all five articles for this week’s lesson, I was not sure what I thought of them. I needed some mulling time. It seems to me that college and university librarians are the main audience for these articles and for the kinds of services they advocate. There’s value for public libraries as well but many of the Web 2.0 services do seem to be targeted at one particular demographic: college-age students. Events in Virginia earlier this week seem to bear this out. News reports repeatedly mentioned some of the ways college students are reaching out to each other during this tragedy: Facebook, blogs, IM, and Second Life. University and college libraries should be meeting their students where they are and serving their target demographic.
Public libraries serve a much wider range of patrons and some of them may be interested in Web 2.0 services and others may not. I’d love to see our library embrace Web 2.0 ideas and incorporate them into a thoughtful, well-rounded and diverse service plan that meet the needs of all our patrons.
I searched for rss in the KCLS & Neighbors Rollyo and Google Co-op custom search engines and the results could not have been more different. Try it yourself by selecting "KCLS & Neighbors" and typing "rss" in My Rollyo search box on my blog.
In Rollyo, Tacoma Public Library's RSS feed service dominated the search results while KCLS was absent from the results list.
In Google Custom Search Engine, the same search produced hits for KCLS, but none for Tacoma Public Library's RSS feed service.
Then I searched "interlibrary loan" and was happy to see the KCLS Interlibrary Loan Request Form at the top of the results list in Google Custom Search. However, SPL topped the result list in Rollyo. KCLS was the fourth result down.
If there were time, it would be interesting to study how the "search robots" work in both of these services. How do they harvest or tag website content for retrieval? What criteria do they use for sorting results?
What I like about this kind of service, at least in theory, is the ability to quickly extract pertinent data from websites that contain a lot of information, some of it buried, like treasure. That brings me to my own experiment with creating custom search engines.
I'm not certain that my Rollyo custom search engine for "Stargate Atlantis TV" is more helpful than doing a regular Google search but I found creating a search roll to be a remarkably satisfying kcls27things exercise.
I came, I saw, I wiki. Admittedly, a terrible corruption of Veni, vidi, vici but do follow the link to the Wikipedia article. It's a hoot. I've been plagued by the flu and an eye infection this week so I'm blogging with one eye and a limited amount of oxygen reaching my brain.
I was very impressed with the look of SJPLC's Subject Guide wikis and it should be apparent to everyone by now how much I depend on Wikipedia to supplement my blog posts. I can see how wikis might be useful for compiling procedures for internal use, collaborating and sharing information with work groups across the library system, and as pathfinders for public use.
Something like SJPLC's Harry Potter subject guide could be created as part of a virtual branch display. Not only would it showcase our our collection but it could also highlight services that patrons may not be aware of: electronic reference resources, online serials, staff (or patron)-created reading lists, or links to special programs or events involving the release of the last book in the series.
Why not create a (moderated) Harry Potter/Deathly Hallows-themed blog and invite young readers to share their thoughts about upcoming release of the new book and provide links to and from a Harry Potter-themed wiki?
Why not plan a Deathly Hallows library event, publicize it on the wiki and the blog, take (child-safe) photos at the event, and then post them on the wiki and the blog?
There are many service possibilities in mashing together the amazing resources we already have with the applications we are learning in KCLS27things training.
Spoiler alert? Check out the book cover of the U.K. edition of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It's very interesting ...
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