# 16 Wikis

Now this I can see using. Teams and workplans are my first thought for using Wiki technology for the librarians. It might also be a neat thing for customers, though I think our webpage gives them easy access to most information they would need about the library or information resources. I had trouble getting back to the wiki part of the St. Joseph County Public Library wiki after going to their homepage. Realized it was the subject guides that got you there. Why not just call it a wiki? The Bull Run Library wiki was neat and even linked to Merlin as a good site. Library 2.0 in 15 minutes a day appears to be a Maryland 23 things and then some. The idea of 15 minutes a day is probably a joke, but I will probablely come back to this one after Marylnad 23 is over and I am not on a deadline. BookLovers Wiki is wonderful. I think we should have something like this for our staff and customers! Library Success is a great place for sharing librarian things, but I doubt I would really end up using it. I think administration and Dept. heads would find it more useful. The ALA 2006 New Orleans Wiki was neat to see after having read about it. Actually I think each City should have one to keep residents and tourists informed of the best things do, places to go or whatever. The Academic Library Wiki I am sure is useful to them, but blah to me. At Merlin, I explored Project Forum, Wet paint and Wikispaces. Liked the tour of Wikispaces. It looks easy enough for me to do.

#14 Technorati

Having been "spammed" in my blog, the last thing I would want to do is "claim" my blog to put it out there even more. I really don't think that what I care about is of interest to the world at large. I went to Boing Boing which is one of the top favorite blogs. I think it is quite stupid, amusing, but stupid.

#13 del.icio.us

I cannot get too excited about the idea of tagging and del.icio.us. I really do not want technology to consume my life. I don't mind using it to help me at work and at home, but not to the degree I feel this requires. If I do open a del.icio.us account, it would probably be from home. I read two links from del.icio.us. The one Private: The Several Habits of Wildly Successful del.icio.is Users by Slacker Manager was very good. 1) Make many marks 2) Sir Tag-A-Lot 3) use the in box 4) Mix'n match 5) Stalk other users 6) Get it to go 7) Move it around and 8) Explore more. The other was someone talking about presentations she had seen about flickr and del.icio.us. I printed them to refer back to if I need them.

#15 Read a few perspectives on Web 2.0

I read all five of the perspectives listed and the Wikipedia article too. These articles were a lot of fun. Rick Anderson's "Icebergs" really brings it home that we need to change they way we think of ourselves, our services and our modes of delivery. Due to Charles Robinson BCPL has long not held the idea of "just in case" collections. I agree that we need to be sure that our services need to be usable without educating the user. It should be foremost in our thinking whenever we purchase databases, consider ILS systems and redesign our webpage/interface. The challenge to "integrate our services into the user's daily patterns of work, study and play" by providing services where they want them will require us to be constantly looking forward. BCPL has always tried to be at the BETA edge of things so I have great hopes that we will continue to do so.
I also really like Wendy Schultz's scenarios of Library 1.0, Library 2.0, Library 3.0 and Library 4.0. The idea of librarian "superstars" was really neat.
The Wikipedia article was a nice overview. The user as participant, co-creator, builder and consultant will take a little getting used to, as we are loath to give up control. I liked that fact that they pointed out that companies wanting to do business with public or academic libraries should not be creating "Proprietary" software, that Beta is forever and that rigidity breeds failure.
The one thing that none of these people addressed was the fact that there are portions of the population who do not have and there will always be portions of the population who will not have the educational knowledge or access to technology. We will still need to have services that they can use as well.

Rollyo

In keeping with my theme I have created a cat themed Rollyo. It's called Cats Galore. I hope these will be helpful. As usual I had trouble finding out how to get it into my blog, but with the help of Ellen and Chickens Amuck I finally did it.

Library Thing

This is a pretty neat site if all you have to pay is $25 for a lifetime subscrption. I strangely don't put my own books in order at home. I do my CD's and my Spices, but not my books. I think I will go back to the site and try it with Library of Congress because I really don't like the Amazon.
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/eliza.french

Generators

I went to the Generatorblog and first tried the Egyptian Name Generator. It was neat, but I couldn't figure out how to transport it to my blog. So then I went to the License Plate generator. Created what I wanted but was told you had to export it as a jpeg file. Surprised myself by "saving as", but then couldn't figure out where I had saved it. Once my co-worker showed me it was in MY PICTURES, we were able to load it. Letter James is not anything I am likely to use. FD Toys was okay. I have seen other palette generators that work better than theirs. However, if I had photos I would likely use the Slide Show Generator. I had already created an avatar for my blog earlier at Yahoo.

My License Plate When I Retire