Wikis

I love wikis! My family goes on an annual ski trip/family reunion, and when I started Library school and learned html, I became the family webmaster. Email just hadn't been working very well when it came to planning our vacation with multiple people coming from multiple places. Me as webmaster was better, but it meant I had to go in and code all the changes as people emailed them to me. I was the one doing all the work, which was difficult when I was going to school while working full time and taking care of family. Plus, once I graduated we were going to have to find a new Webhost. Wikis are the best solution! I used the wikimatrix to decide that PBWiki would be the best wiki program for us. It was amazing how fast the site came together with lots of people contributing their efforts! My elderly mother even figured out how to edit a page, it is that easy. We have never had a problem with malicious editing, but our group is small, and I assume no one is interested enough in our little wiki to find it.

Relating wikis to libraries, I thought it was interesting that the example link to the Princeton Public library wiki hadn't been updated since 2006. Evidently it was used for a summer reading program where adults could post reviews of books they read to the wiki, but since that time they post directly to the library website. One way that our library has discussed using a wiki is as a readers advisory tool for putting together good bibliographies for various interests. Like my family's wiki use, it would involve only a small group of participants rather than be open to the general public.

Speaking to this wider issue of audience size, it seems like small groups that know each other are good candidates for wikis. This can even be enforced by making them officially private with password entry for editing. Huge wikis also seem to work, such as wikipedia. Enough people are interested enough to keep on top of any changes and change anything malicious. I wonder if medium sized groups such as the patrons of a particular library system are too annonymous for social checks, yet too small for enough people to keep track of changes. If you have a moderator, doesn't that just negate the benefits of wikis?

On-line streaming videos:YouTube, Hulu and Fancast

This section of the "Sno-Isle library's 20 for 2.0" was certainly the most fun, most like not working at all section so far. I am familiar with YouTube, having watched multiple clips in the past, including such classics as "The march of the librarians", "The super-librarian" and the spot where a librarian interview committee interviewing a gorilla for the open librarian position. Just the other day I suggested my daughter post the video of her winning race on YouTube so that her grandparents and other interested family members could see it as well-though admittedly I have not posted a video myself yet.

What was new to me were the Hulu and Fancast sites. Now having poked around them a bit, I was pleasantly surprised. Both of them provided good sized screens of the shows I decided to watch, and advertising was amazingly light. Hulu showed a short commercial before the movie started (I chose to watch "Iceage"), but Fancast didn't show even that. I didn't watch enough to see if commercials popped up further into the show, but I wouldn't imagine so since users could just scroll past any such interruptions. I have been totally turned off of watching TV because the shows don't make the commercials worth my time-sometimes even when I watch good movies I get frustrated by having to wait through all the commercials. Hulu and Fancast are excellent alternatives. Two caveats: sitting in front of my computer screen isn't as comfortable an experience as sitting on my couch watching the TV screen (old and smaller than currently standard though it is), and so the experience isn't as sharable. The second caveat is that I don't know how extensive their offerings are. If I heard of a show or movie that sounded enjoyable, I have no way of knowing whether it would be available on one of these sites. On the other hand, I don't get cable anyway so these sites would be an excellent way of watching a particular interesting option without going through the hassle of getting cable just for that one show.

MySpace

MySpace seems like a big timewaster to me. Ok, it has games. It has applications that you can play with your friends. Big whoop. I have better things to do than hang out on the web twiddling my toes. Maybe I don't get it. I mean, I know that the Marysville library has a MySpace account, and I looked to link to it, but I couldn't find it. I could find the various schools in Marysville, but not the library. I could only find friends that had specific email acounts (eg, with Google, hotmail, etc), not with any email accounts that I might know (eg, sno-isle.org). I'm not looking for a mate. I'm not exactly sure how this would help with a job search, either, as it seems too frivolous and amorphous to me. I'd rather be more specific with my networking, such as with the Washington Library Association or the local Special Library Association. I guess I just don't get why I would visit on any regular basis.

On the other hand, I do use a networking site for sharing books I've read: Goodreads.com. I use it both for my own benefit by keeping track of what I've read and organizing them for use in Reader's Advisory, and for sharing with others who have similar reading tastes so we can share our opinions on new reads, both good and bad. Now this networking site, since it is more specific to my needs, I use almost every day. I even recommend it to patrons to help them keep track of books that they want to read, or have read in the past since their library account doesn't keep track of what they've checked out in the past.

Flickr

I'm thinking of taking the family to Ireland this summer, so I looked up pictures of Irish libraries on Flickr. Some modern buildings, some buildings that look like Gothic churches. Some pictures just looked like generic libraries. But my favorite didn't look like a library at all, but almost artistic: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mr0zek/2301240848/in/pool-irishlibraries

Here's my attempt at embedding the image in my blog:

OK, so I'm a little behind on my tasks such as blogging, but I'm gradually getting back into the swing of things. The WLA/OLA conference was absolutely great and highly useful, with topics such as jazzing up my storytimes, excellent first readers, and good ways to present the "Catch the Reading Bug@ Your Library" Summer reading theme. Continuing education and all that, now I just have to put it all into practice...

Streaming music

I had heard of Pandora, so for this Sno-Isle 20 for 2.0 project, I tried it out. Pandora is a site that has human-sorted, professionally tagged music, which appeals to me after the useless automated recommendations of sites like amazon.com. They analyze the music for all sorts of qualities beyond the usual genres. With Pandora, I can put in an artist or song title, and they will play music similar to it. I tried it with Tito Puente, since I like his music, and the several songs I listened to did match it in feel. You can also pick a "station" by genre (e.g., "latin american pop" or "New Orleans jazz"). I liked the songs they picked for the "latin american pop" station. I tried typing in a genre that they don't already have, "World music" to see what I would get. In reality I got a song with a title similar to "world music" in the reggae genre, so even though I didn't get exactly what I was asking for, it was close. For each song that plays, I can give it a thumbs up, thumbs down, or a "I'm tired of this song", and Pandora will adjust the playlist accordingly.

Okay, so I've given this site a generally positive vote. Will I actually use it? Well, the place I usually listen to music isn't in front of the computer but in the car and secondarily while I'm doing housework or cooking. If I could download the songs and burn a CD, then I could listen to the music when and where I liked, but due to licensing issues you're only allowed to listen to the songs through the Pandora website. This does mean that artists get paid for their artistry every time I listen to them, which isn't a bad thing itself, but does mean it's more like listening to a radio than purchasing a song.

I also can't listen to music at work. At work, my computer is separated from the public area by only a short wall, so I listen via earbuds - but the cord isn't long enough and I have to hunch over to keep them in my ear. I listen to short, necessary things, but there's no way I could easily work on my computer and listen to Pandora for any length of time because of the discomfort in my neck.

If I were a real music nut, I'm sure I could overcome these minor, personal technical issues, like I could keep a laptop in my kitchen, or somehow connect my computer with the good stereo speakers at home, or I could get a longer cord for my earbuds at work. I still wouldn't be able to bring it with me in the car for long trips. I like music, but it isn't important enough for me to overcome these issues on a regular basis.

RSS feeds

I already use the Google reader at home, and I love it! Just like the video from the Common Craft Show says, I can see at a glance which blogs that I follow have posts that I haven’t read yet. I am able to skim through multiple posts on very active blogs to quickly find interesting topics. Like I stated in my criteria in my original blog, it saves me time and helps me manage my information flow. I just started a Google reader account here at work as well.
Most of the blogs that I cover are library-related somehow: LibrarianInBlack is great for finding useful websites, LISNews is great for keeping up with library news and issues throughout the North American continent, and I follow The Annoyed Librarian for her caustic commentaries, among others. But I also follow a humorous political blog and a favorite author’s blog.
Because my RSS blog reader keeps me well plugged in to the library world, I have decided to let my membership in ALA lapse: I never end up reading the printed journal they send out, and the weekly email is annoying. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m staying connected through my membership in my local Library Association for networking purposes, but following blogs through my reader is my favorite way of keeping connected to the broader library world.