Wikis

For this exercise I looked at the Grand Rapids Public Library's Wiki called GRPLpedia. It's a collection of articles put together by librarians there, covering a broad range of subjects, including research guides, special event information, reader resources, community information, and Hispanic language resources. I like the fact that wikis can be updated and edited quickly, so the information is up to the minute. I see lots of uses for wikis in a library environment, both for staff and customers. Book reviews, staff training, pathfinders, and local information would all make great topics for library wikis.

Library 2.0

To me, the key ideas behind Library 2.0 are (a)today's libraries must be able to change constantly in order to meet the needs of users, and (b)today's users want to play an active role and customize their library experience. Many libraries are using blogs, Twitter, instant messaging and other tools to reach their customers rather than waiting for customers to come to them.

The Ann Arbor District Library's catalog is a great example of how we can let the users participate. Users can add tags, review books, share photos and add comments to old-school library cards!

Delicious

I wasn't sure if Delicious would be something I'd use much, but now I use it all the time!

I find it useful when I’m away from home, using another computer. Using Delicious, my bookmarks travel with me! I also love being able to tag all of my favorite sites…that way I can go straight to sites related to work, or recipes, or whatever.

It’s also fun to see what sites other people have tagged. For example, I searched for sites tagged “vegetarian” and here are the results I got. I was able to discover some great new sites on the topic.

Twitter

I just signed up for Twitter last week and now I'm officially addicted! I'm following a lot of library people and it's a great way to exchange information. Here's my profile!

And I'm also following Henry Rollins, which is cool.

Library Thing (or something similar)

I haven't used Library Thing, but I do use both Goodreads and Shelfari. So I hope those are OK for this exercise! I've been using Goodreads the most lately. Sites like this are great for me because I tend to forget what I've already read, and what I've seen that I want to read in the future. This way I can keep track! Here's my profile and bookshelf.

Image Generators

Well, these are fun! I used the ALA Mini READ Poster Generator to create this one.

The Generator Blog could turn into a big time waster if I'm not careful! I have already spent way too much time on the Sick Clown Name Generator and I have discovered that my Glitter and Glam Rock Name
is Sharryn Sprinkles.

Finding Feeds

For finding blogs, I felt that I got the best results from Technorati, and I found Topix.net and Syndic8.com to be less efficient. One very useful feed that I found is ResourceShelf. Every day this site features web-based resources of interest to information professionals, including databases, lists and rankings, real-time sources, and multimedia. They also post comments and observations about news in the information and web industry. For fun, I'm glad I found The Sewing Divas...it's great for sewing tips and ideas.

Fun With RSS Feeds

I'd used RSS feeds a bit in the past, but not very efficiently! I really like Bloglines...it'll really help me to keep things organized. Using it will also be a big timesaver since I do read a quite a few blogs.

What I DON'T like is trying to find the RSS icon/link/whatever on a lot of blogs, because they're often (a)the size of a breadcrumb or (b) completely buried somewhere at the bottom or side of the page!