I’ve joined the Cairo American College 23 Things and have a blog on the schools blackboard site. Let’s see if I can put the link here and link the blogs.
Once again, I’ve managed to copy and paste it in. I’ve tried the link function but don’t know where it went – and haven’t managed to make the link above active. What’s different about the process in this blog?
I’ve just spent time reading some of the perspectives on Libraries 2.0 and found several articles interesting. Rick Anderson’s “Away from the icebergs” used a clever image to suggest some changes to library thinking. Collection building for a just in case collection is definitely on the decline. At Cairo American College we have a wonderful HS reference collection – and it is rarely used. There is a continuing shift to electronic resources.
His next point about user education made me gulp – probably because I’m a MS HS librarian who does lots of teaching. Introducing kids to the library, library catalog, databases, and other library resources seems like a no-brainer to me. It sure seems to help kids become more confident finders and users of resources. Perhaps instruction and help services are more important at the MS and HS level than the college level where Rick Anderson works.
And finally, his last point – the come to us model of service. Participating in the 23 Things has certainly given me insights into the concept of taking services to patrons where they are. And I agree it is very necessary. I also come from Vermont where libraries serve important funtions in small towns – places that draw people in, create social spaces, and maintain community. Married to an architect, I’ve come to understand the power of the built environment in enhancing community life – so, I think it’s cool to swarm into this wonderful new web world, but hopefully not totally give up libraries and community in the corporeal world.
The Chip Nilges piece contained a lot of jargon and acronemes. But I got the gist of it. OCLC is doing what it should be doing – and is in the forefront of using web 2.0.
The last article I read was the Stephens piece. That kind of library writing makes me rebelious and annoyed. It is a written harrange, an overwhelming, finger shaking lecture fulls of “shoulds.” I feel insulted. Better just retire and fade into the dusty old book shelf leaving the library world to smarty pants guys like Michael Stephens.
Monday after school and my buddy, Ann, and I have revisited Week 8 and spent some time cruising around Technorati. Once again, I’m in “Wow” mode. There is so much of everything! We looked at the front page: news with it’s mainstream media and blog news. Then we checked out Rising posts and some of the photos. It was interesting that the photo selection changed while I was at the site. Ya gotta be fast!
I checked out the 100 Top Blogs. The Huffington Post was at the top of the list. Interesting as I’d just read a long profile of Arianna Huffington in an old New Yorker magazine a couple weeks ago. I looked at Boing Boing which claimed to be the most popular blog.
Ann and I took a little detour and tried to understand what “authority” means. Some times looking at help screens and FAQs only deepens the confusion. There is so much new vocabulary that is unintelligible – it feels a little like trying to understand a foreign language.
We searched for both my kids’ blogs, but did not find them. Jake races bicycles and he did appear in a YouTube video although not his own blog. Liz writes the Bolton Valley Nordic blog but it didn’t come up. Once again there was a YouTube video. We both search our own blogs. No show.
Lastly we read a little about pings and registering a blog. OK, maybe we’ll register.
OK. We are back from Christmas Holiday and working on some more 23 Things in Cairo. Ann and I spent an hour yesterday looking at wiki stuff. We looked at PBWiki and I added my blog to Favorite Blogs. Strangely it come into the site above the heading Favorite Blogs and in very large type. Today we were back there for Ann to add her blog. We copied and pasted mine into its proper place below the heading – but still in large print. I’m speaking loudly in print, I guess.
Today we looked at Wetpaint and Mediawiki. Thank you for setting them up in similar formats!! It certainly helps me. At Wetpaint we worked together to add a post about the book our book group will read this month in Cairo. We looked at Droplets and Site To- Do List (overwhelming for me) and were mystified by the Easy edit button. It gave us a word processing toolbar but we couldn’t find a place to add text?? I’m sure it was a paper bag, but we couldn’t fight our way out of it.
We looked at favorite vacation spots. I’d just written a little piece about my Christmas in Vermont that I’d sent out to my family and friends – with photos embedded (a new skill!). I made a new page under Favorite Vacations and copied and pasted my Christmas piece into it. Unfortunately, the pictures did not come into the page with the text. I’m not sure yet how to make that happen.
It is fun to be back working at this even though much of it is baffling to me.
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