Thing 12: Wikis

I like the concept of the wiki, and I use Wikipedia fairly often to answer my own personal questions that are of a trivial nature.  I can understand why some teachers would issue a “ban” on student use of Wikipedia for assignments, though.  There are some people out there who just have too much time on their hands, and they apparently take great pleasure in things like “vandalizing” the Pop Tarts entry and many others in Wikipedia.  So while I appreciate the concept of the wiki, I wouldn’t make life-impacting decisions based on information I found in a wiki.  Here’s a link to an interesting article by Nicholson Baker in The New York Review of Books.

I’m a rule follower by nature, and one of my personal pet peeves is people who don’t do what they’re supposed to do.  Those are the people who damage the integrity of the wiki.  I have a little mantra that I find myself repeating often, “If people would just do what they’re supposed to do, the world would be a better place.”  (Yes, I realize that this is a broad generalization, and there are plenty of times when the rules are stupid and people need to break them.) The same can be said for wikis:  If people would just do what they’re supposed to do, wikis would be a more reliable information source.

Some of our staff is working on a circulation manual, and I really liked the Albany County Public Library Staff Wiki.  I thought it was a great idea for documenting those sometimes elusive procedures and practices that everyone assumes everyone else knows about but that aren’t written down.  I plan to forward that link to my co-workers that are currently working on the circulation manual.

I edited the NEFLIN 23 Things Wiki on the “Edit Me Wiki Test Page.”  It was fairly straightforward and painless.  Lucky for you I’m not a dangerous Pop Tart vandal!

Thing 11: Social Media

After looking at all four of the sites listed, Digg, Mixx, Reddit and Newsvine, I can’t say that I’m a fan.  They seemed to be much more of a productivity detractor than an enhancer.  Of the four, I liked Newsvine best.  It seemed to be more “newsy” and had an attractive feature that allowed you to view regional stories...in my case, Jacksonville.  Digg and Mixx I felt were pretty similar.  They seemed to be a mix of some newsy-type stories and many more that were just “interesting” things that people had happened across.  There were lots of things there that I would never have found on my own, but their usefulness was marginal at best.  Reddit seemed like it was virtually no news and almost completely random stuff, and the comments that people made on this site seemed much less relevant and pertinent than on other sites and more like the comments of people just trying hard to be funny (an in my humble opinion, usually not succeeding).

I had not, until today, ever even visited any of these sites.  I did read a couple of stories that I saw featured, my favorite being a link to opencongress.org that described a bill introduced in the House in January and co-sponsored by 44 Representatives that advocates doing away with federal income tax in favor of a national sales tax.  Of course, I’ve heard a lot of talk of this, but I hadn’t read or seen anywhere that there had been an actual bill introduced, so I thought it was interesting. 

There’s so much information out there, we can’t possibly keep up with everything, but I don’t think these social media sites are the answer.  They’re something I might spend a few idle minutes perusing on a Saturday afternoon just to see what’s out there, but overall I prefer the RSS feeds.

I also shared this link on Digg.

Thing 10: Tagging and Delicious

Tagging

I’ve been tagging (or labeling) my blog posts since the beginning, and as a cataloger I can definitely see the usefulness of tagging.  I do like the idea of using natural language tags rather than a controlled vocabulary system like Library of Congress Subject Headings.  You avoid the problem of having to use the term “Cookery” when all your patrons are searching for “Cookbooks.”  However, I am a cataloger who likes things to be very orderly and consistent.  I am also a human who realizes that even though I like things to be orderly and consistent, I, myself, am not always consistent and other humans are not always consistent with themselves, let alone with each other.  Thus the problem of using natural language tags arises:  some people will tag a book of recipes as “cookbooks,” some as “cookbook,” some as “cook books,” some as “cook book,” some as “recipe book,” some as “recipes,” and the list goes on, potentially forever.  Then, instead of bringing like things together, we’re creating lots of different groups of like things, and then you need to group the groups.  Of course, if I’m being honest, this happens even with cataloger using a controlled vocabulary, because we are, after all, only human.  I admit, though, to “a foolish insistence on consistency” being a “hobgoblin” of my “little mind.”

Delicious

I admit I wasn’t that excited about Delicious.  I watched the Common Craft Show on social bookmarking, I looked at NEFLIN’s Delicious account, I looked at tags, and I read notes that others had written about certain sites, and I still wasn’t that excited about Delicious.  Then I created my own Delicious account, and suddenly, it was very cool! 

First I tried importing my bookmarks from my browser, which I was able to do with no problem.  Then I realized that I not only imported my bookmarks, but also tons of bookmarks that were not really mine, but instead were just defaults that came with the browser.  Then I had to try to delete the ones that I didn’t want, but there were too many to go through.  So I thought I would just delete them all and add my bookmarks one at a time since there weren’t really that many.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t figure out how to do that, and I ended up deleting them in batches of 10 at a time which was still time consuming but not as time consuming as deleting them one at a time.

Finally, I was able to start fresh.  I added bookmarks to my Delicious account and tagged them all (hopefully consistently...I tried).  I also added a Delicious network badge to my blog.  I had a little bit of trouble with that.  I couldn’t get the html code to copy and paste, so I ended up typing it in myself, which was no big deal since it was pretty short.  I’m a little bit sad that I don’t have any “fans” yet, but maybe I’ll get some soon.

I think Delicious can certainly be a useful tool, both for me personally and for my library.  Like many things, though, all it takes is time which is in short supply.  I think it can be useful even without having your own account, though, so maybe that’s the solution for the time being.  We can use it in the library to help locate sites on specific topics that others who have more time than we do have already bookmarked and tagged for us.  Thanks!

Thing 9: Sharing, part 2

I used Zoho Show to create a very quick slide show.  I had no idea that such a thing existed, and I can imagine that it's a lifesaver for lots of folks out there who don't have access to Power Point or other presentation software.  I appreciated that I was able to log in via my Google account without having to create yet another account.  There are certainly a lot of potential library uses for such an application, particularly in small libraries that may not be able to afford presentation software.  It also makes your presentations quite portable...all you need is internet access, and your presentation is right there at your fingertips.  My only issue was that I had entered (extraordinarily clever) text in the callout on the last frame, and it is not appearing when I imbed the slide show in my blog (see below).  Now you’ll just have to wonder what that little ladybug was thinking...

Thing 9: Sharing photos

I loved using Mosaic Maker.  I thought it was really cool and easy to use.  Also, an account is not required.  I was able to make the mosaic above by pasting URLs from my Flickr account into the appropriate blanks on the Mosaic Maker website.  Then I created the mosaic without establishing an account with Mosaic Maker, and I was able to save the resulting image.  I liked this one so much that I used it with some of my favorite pictures of my kids, mainly just close-ups of their beautiful little faces, and I made a mosaic for each kid.  Then I printed them out and made Valentine’s Day cards for all the grandmas and surrogate grandmas.  They’ll eat it up!  I can foresee using this little application quite a bit in my personal life, and I can also see how it could be useful in a library setting to jazz up your webpage with event photos, to create posters for publicity, or to make a scrapbook of your events.

I also made a Flickr badge, which you can see in the column on the left.  That was super-simple to do using my existing Flickr account and the photos already there.

I haven’t had time yet to try the slideshows or the databases, but I intend to take a look at both, so you’ll probably see another Thing 9 post later.  So far, Mosaic Maker has been my absolute favorite new thing in this endeavor (followed by Google Reader and ToonDoo).

Thing 8: Communication, Web 2.0 style

Instant Messaging

I have used IM for customer service and technical support in my personal life, and in that context, I’ve liked it pretty well.  I don’t love to talk on the telephone.  (Okay, let me rephrase that because my husband, who calls me Chatty Cathy, would certainly beg to differ with that statement.  I don’t love to talk on the telephone with people who are not my family or friends.)  When I have questions about something, I would prefer to put it in writing...then you don’t wind up having to repeat it 37 times when you are transferred from person to person on the telephone.  You can explain everything in great detail, and it doesn’t go away the minute the words are out of your mouth.  E-mail makes that possible, and IM goes one step further by providing you with an “instant” response...a hybrid combining the best features of both telephone and e-mail.

Of late, I’ve been sucked into the Facebook craze, and I’ve used the IM function there to chat with online friends.  In terms of staying in touch, that’s really a pretty neat trick, too.  I would IM an online friend on Facebook and chat with them for a few minutes, when in most cases, I would not just pick up the phone and call them to talk.  You’re both there already, and it seems to me like it takes less time, effort, and planning than a “keep in touch” phone call.  I’ve had the opportunity to chat and catch up with old friends that I haven’t seen or talked to in years, and that’s been fun.

I did also use IM to chat with a fellow 23 Things participant, a colleague at another library.  We practiced our skills for a few minutes one evening, and I think that while we probably won’t win any IM contests, we can probably hold our own against the IM skills of the general public.

There are some downsides to IM, too, though.  As a perfectionist, I find it difficult to throw capitalization, punctuation, and typos to the wind and just type for content and speed, but the more I use IM, the better I get at these things.  I don’t know the language of IM (lol, ttyl, ttfn are about the extent of my knowledge, and that last one may, in fact, be Tigger language, not IM), but I know that will come with more use.  And if you have a whole lot to say, sometimes it is just easier to pick up the phone.

Regardless of the challenges, I can see how it would be particularly useful when doing reference to be able to go back and review what the person said a moment ago, an option that’s only as good as your memory (and mine’s getting worse everyday) when doing an in-person or telephone reference interview.

Text Messaging

I’m definitely not part of the text messaging “revolution.”  I’ve never sent a text message, and what’s more, I have no desire to ever do so, although I suppose that could change in time.  I find it really annoying when I get junk texts on my cell phone.  I’m one of those people who doesn’t even turn her cell phone on unless she’s talking on it.  I just don’t think I want to be that “available” all the time.  That said, I can see how sending library users text notices to their cell phones could be a useful tool, because I realize that I’m probably in the minority when it comes to my feelings on text messaging.

 

Web Conferencing

I’ll have to cover Web Conferencing in another post.  The next OPAL program on the master schedule is on February 6 at 2 pm, and I won’t be able to do that one.  I’ll have to come back and finish Thing 8 after I have a chance to use OPAL.  Although, I am supposed to do an online meeting via some sort of web conferencing software on Friday, so maybe that will count?

I attended a meeting via web conferencing the other day, and that had its good points and its bad points.  The primary good thing about it was that I didn’t have to leave my city and travel to the meeting location, so attending via web conferencing saved me anywhere from 6-7 hours of my time plus the expense of the travel.  That’s huge!  The worst thing was that because there were multiple people speaking at the meeting, the sound wasn’t always good.  Sometimes it was fine, and sometimes it was impossible to hear because it wasn’t feasible to move the microphone around every time someone different spoke.  With an program like OPAL where they are broadcasting more programs than meetings, I expect that the sound would be just fine.  In this particular meeting, I did have video and access to documents that were discussed, and I did have the ability to chat with other meeting attendees, so the struggle with the sound was definitely worth the trade-off for me.

Thing 7: Image Generators, part 3

Okay, indulge me in my little dream, here.  This one was super-easy. I used Image Chef and was able to post it to my blog straight from the Image Chef website. It also provided you with html code so you could do it that way if you preferred.

Thing 7: Image Generators, part 2

Okay, so here's my second try at using image generators.  I used Toon Doo to create this little gem. It was really easy and fun, too. This is a joke that I "made up." (Yes, I realize that others have probably "made up" this same little joke, but please don't try to steal my joy.) I am amused by it, and I often tell it to my husband when the subject of cantaloupes comes up. He is less amused, but tolerant and long-suffering.

I can see uses for this in public libraries. I think you could use it in doing a program on cartooning for YAs. You could also use it for marketing and PR purposes when you make posters and things like that.

All in all, I give Toon Doo a big thumbs up!