#16 So What's in a Wiki?

The essential thing that I learned about wikis is that they are collaborative websites that allow users to easily add, remove and edit content. I had often checked out Wikipedia before, knowing that the content could be contributed by anyone, but I didn't know anything about other wikis.

I can see, after looking at a number of library wikis and checking out all the links on this topic, that wikis can be a very useful tool for a number of things - group projects, staff intranets, conference planning, meeting discussions, collaborative editing of documents and so on.
I have just been involved with the editing of a book for publication. It involved a couple of other people in Melbourne and the author in Bendigo. We could have usefully used a wiki for our little group instead of emailing sections back and forth and sending full hard copy drafts in the mail.

I like the article by Meredith Farkas on Web Junction where she says that wikis.. at their best, they can become true community resources that can postiton the library as an online hub of their local community. http://webjunction.org/do/DisplayContent?id=11264
We are trying to create libraries as physical hubs of our communities, so a vision of them as an online hubs, contributed to by the community, is very interesting.
There are good examples of wikis as community information resources, as book review sites, as subject guides in libraries (that include information not only on books but also on local clubs, shops, other Internet sites etc on the topic).

Library Success: a best practices wiki provides links to very interesting blogs on library success stories. http://libsuccess.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

#15 Web 2.0, Library 2.0

I read through all the five perspectives on Library 2.0 that were listed, but the best articles I found were from the references listed at the bottom of the Wikipedia entry (though some of these references were a couple of years old).

One link was to an interesting blog of John Blyberg http://www.blyberg.net/2006/01/09/11-reasons-why-library-20-exists-and-matters/ with a posting entitled - 11 reasons why Library 2.0 exists and matters. He talks about Library 2.0 being partially a response to a Post-Google world. Google's impact on the way we do business has already created profound changes in usage patterns in libraries. He argues that Library 2.0 is revolutionary, is essential for survival, is an ever-changing amalgam of ideas, dreams and visions, and is happening - and requires great changes in libraries.

Another link was to a podcast of a seminar talk in 2006 available on the SirsiDynix Institute site - Creating a 2.0 Library by Thad Hartman & David King from Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library in the U.S. http://www.sirsidynixinstitute.com/seminar_page.php?sid=93
They talked about libraries needing to be with the times, not behind; about the library as a human, changing organism; about the great books and other materials that we have that we need to let people know about; about creating a digital branch with all sorts of ideas about providing the best of library functions in a digital space, connected as well to a physical library. They gave examples of using blogs, podcasts, YouTube, Flickr, RSS etc (linking catalogue information, ILL access, ebooks, digital subject guides, author broadcasts, event attendance on-line, events connected digitally to relevant books/authors, digital events, email reference services, patron participation).

They also talked about creating a Travel Neighbourhood (genre collection) in their library, which brought together all the travel related materials (mostly books in 910's in dewey, foreign language phrase books, books on hotels, restaurants, travelling with children, travel magazines/DVD's). The also then created a Travel Subject Guide on the library website's blog and included postings on travel books, events, finding articles on travel, planning a holiday, local attractions. This was especially of interest as we have recently re-arranged the non-fiction collection in our branch into genres (all into genres, not just one genre).

I was inspired to go to the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Libray website to check them out.
http://www.tscpl.org/.

I also looked at an article in the SirsiDynix montly e-newsletter by Stephen Abram (Vice President of Innovation at SirsiDynix) - Can This 2.0 Stuff Help Libraries with Promotion?.
http://www.imakenews.com/sirsi/e_article000862006.cfm?x=bb1LCGK,b5PTDpv0.
This article is also posted on Stephen Abram's good blog Stephen's Lighthouse http://stephenslighthouse.sirsidynix.com/
He described a great many ways of using Library 2.0 technology to promote libraries - using YouTube, Second Life, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, Podcasts, Wikipedia, Ning, Twitter, Mozes, NowPublic, Blogging and RSS, SearchEngine Optimization, eSurveys.

The video from YouTube that was linked to the Library 2.0 training - "Web 2.0 - The Machine is Us/ing Us " was excellent. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE

It really does seem that libraries have changed for ever. We don't want to leave behind the patrons who are not computer literate, or throw away the great things that we do, but we do need to get people back into libraries by making libraries relevant to what they want and need in their daily lives. Many, many people today use blogs, eBay, Amazon, Flickr, Facebook etc and expect the library to be similar. We need to be visible in these places so that the library is, as Sarah Houghton said in another article, a destination and not an afterthought. http://librarianinblack.typepad.com/librarianinblack/.

I am really glad to be doing this training - it has opened up a whole new world of Web 2.0 technology to me that I knew very little about before. There are a great many articles, blogs, and discussions on Library 2.0 that I wish to come back and look at later.

#14 Technorati

Technorati is supposed to be the leading authority on blogs and for searching content within blog posts. However I felt that I didn't have much success with it. First of all I couldn't get the video clip in the exercise to load, so I just had a look around the Technorati site myself (and found it a bit confusing). I discovered eventually that to keyword search in Blog posts, in tags, and in Blog Directory (as the exercise indicated) it was necessary to go to Advanced Search. Doing a search for Learning 2.0 did not yield much in blog posts or tags, but brought out a clear list in blog directory. Maybe I wasn't using the search process correctly. I wasn't inspired to join Technorati or claim my blog or tag the posts in my blog at this stage.

# 13 Tagging and Del.icio.us (a social bookmarking site)

Del.icio.us will be really great for organising bookmarks, being able to access them from any computer, and for the capability of sharing a network of useful Internet sites with other people.

After looking at the Del.icio.us site at http://del.icio.us/ I created my own account, and added toolbar buttons to my computer for easy access to my Del.icio.us listings and for easy tagging of useful Internet sites. I then tagged a number of sites that I had been using and will want to visit again in the future, as well as some for my nephew Aden.
I added a Network Badge to my blog (a little Del.icio.us link to my listings) and a list of my tags (subject headings that I had used to describe the Internet sites I listed) in a cloud formation.

When I have more time I will go back and have a look at what other people are listing and tagging. I can see that following the tag trail of another user could yield some useful sites on topics of interest as well.

The Del.icio.us facility could be well used for sharing a network of useful Internet sites with a group of colleagues, friends, or library patrons.

#12 Roll your own search engine with Rollyo

I had a look at a couple of Rollyo search engines on different topics, then created a Rollyo account for myself and decided to put together a search roll that could be useful for me when searching for sheet music of folk music tunes. I called my search roll Folk Tunes - see www.rollyo.com/bonnielass, and added it to my blog.
I often find myself searching for tunes on the web. Being able to search several of the main sites at once (instead of having to search them individually) would save me a lot of time and effort. For some topics, especially when searching for specific information (like specific tunes) , this would work really well. At other times it would be better to browse an individual site.

#11 Library Thing

Aden's Favourite Books
I opened an account at Library Thing, created a short list of Aden's favourite books http://www.librarything.com/ and posted the list to my blog by using a Library Thing widget.
Now I've managed to do the same with some of the books from my book shelves, though a number of books I tried to show were not listed through Library Thing, and most of the others had no covers available. I also created a search link to my own list of books at Library Thing.
It was really interesting to see who else had listed the same books and I learnt about a number of literary groups by following the links to these other people and under the groups button.

This great photo was taken by my brother at the Mainz Festival in Germany a few years ago and I have turned it into a motivational poster at http://wigflip/automotivator/, once again found through The Generator Blog.