Del.icio.us

Del.icio.us is way cool. I really like this one! It was easy to set up an account and start book marking and tagging. Every student should use this tool.

MySpace

MySpace is easy to set up; it seems intuitive and easy to “fill in all the blanks”. I set up an account long ago and with the help of Diane have learned to customize it. My problem is I really don’t want all that information about me out there. So my account looks boring. I think most people love to talk about themselves and be “out there”; but I don’t happen to be one of them.

VBPL and Social Networking sites

I think VBPL should use social networking sites to connect with teens. MySpace and Facebook are where the teen are, then libraries need to be there too. However, it will need constant monitoring and updating. Some one will need to be responsible for the site and make sure the VBPL always looks good.

Adding to a wiki

Adding and entry to a wiki was very easy. The difficult part is having something worthwhile to say. Wikis are perfect for sharing opinions.

This was a good exercise for us since everyone has an opinion on the books they read. I can see a lot of uses for wikis in library business; they are great for collaboration and librarian like to share and collaborate.

wiki

Wikis

Wikis are a great tool. They have many good things going for them such as ease of use, being web based, anyone can make changes to them and they are very flexible. Disorganization and lack of control are the biggest problems. They are not a solution for all projects.

I like the idea from Princeton Public library of their Bookloverswiki. They use a wiki to allow customers to write reviews of books and make recommendation to others. It would be even cooler if these could be linked in the catalog.

The ALA conference wiki was another good use of this tool. I have experienced that first hand, and got some good information. It is a great way for librarian to collaborate and their information.

IM-ing

Marshall Breeding said the pervasive presence of instant messaging will be ignored only by organizations willing to risk irrelevancy. According the Pew Internet and the American Family Life report, 53 million American adults use IM as frequent communication channel. We cannot ignor IM, libraries need to be on IM.

I think it is great the VBPL is offer IM reference and I hope that the limited hours will not continue. We should add IM to our set of reference tool just as we added the telephone long, long ago.

Bloglines or Google Reader

I set up feeds in both google reader and bloglines. I found Google easier to use. As for a search tool, Technorati was fun to play with. There is a lot of stuff out there. I can see how people get information overload.