WikiWatchee #16 and 17

I like Wikipedia for one important reason: it's right there to use when I'm on the phone with a customer, or standing in front of a customer at the ref desk. I can start searching while the customer's talking to me, instead of walking away to get a print source or putting down the phone to look something up. What's more, Wikipedia is a one-stop more comprehensive than any print source, containing as it does traditional encyclopedia topics as well as pop-cultural, esoteric and the downright weird.

The layout is beautiful, with a ton information presented clearly and coherently, that lets you clarify questions so that you can doublecheck in a more thoroughly reliable source.

Wikipedia entries are often rounded out with graphics, and sound and video links. The obsessively attentive overlords of the site keep it remarkably well-policed, and the good parts outweigh the flaws. I give Wikipedia a thumbs-up.

For this exercise I edited the Wikipedia article "pop up book," adding to the references and external links. It was extremely easy to do and somewhat gratifying.

#15: The Whole 2.0 Thing

How long has this Library 2.0 idea been going around? Because Queens has always been
customer-oriented, cooperative,and (believe me!) in a state of constant change for at least a quarter of a century.
I think the biggest changes brought about by the Library 2.0 notion are happening in the cash-poor, somnolent suburban and rural libraries, where growing access to the Internet is allowing isolated libraries to connect with a lot more people, and provide more services without spending more money. Web-based word-processing and spreadsheet applications allow libraries to offer these things to customers without paying for big-ticket brand name apps. Blogging lets them keep wired customers up-to-date on news, events, changes to events. Teach your customers how to use a mouse so they can email their grown kids on the danged computer those kids got them and they can't figure out how to use, and They Will Come.
Yes, libraries have always been welcoming places, designed to provide for the needs of the customer. It was just that intimidating card catalog that was scaring everyone. That, and the electric erasers. (Those were technology once!)
I feel like the notion of Library 2.0 is just a way of talking about a few new things. A few big new things, sure, but it'll be okay. They're the same things we've always done, we just need a new way of doing them if we want everybody to keep talking about our sudden hipness. (Enough with that, already.)

Is Tagging Del.icio.us? It's Downright Yummy!

The first thing that struck me after I successfully imported my Favorites to del.icio.us?

"Whoa!" I thought. "I have a lot of bookmarks."

I had to clean them up. That was work. Is work. Haven't really finished yet. Will make more public when I do. It'd be embarassing to put out dead links and stuff. It's good to clean house.
I will share many rare and wondrous things soon.

The only thing I don't like about del.icio.us is the appearance of one's bookmarks list; I like to see how many other people favorited the same sites I did, but who can read pale blue letters overlaid by pink highlighting? And who thought pale blue type in general a good idea? Gosh I have a lot of appearance issues with these sites, don't I? Anyway I'm fascinated to see how many sites I have that no one else, or only a few, have saved. (Oh, never mind, those are all QL Learning 2.0 blogs....)
The whole idea of tagging is to make things more accessible, and it puts me in mind of Hennepin County Library and Sanford Berman's Herculean efforts to revitalize and reform classification. That was something that got me excited over twenty years ago. At the same time, I loves me a good controlled vocabulary, so let's not get sloppy with tags. Remember my previous post about Technorati, (how could you forget?) when I was searching for movable books? There're so many ways to write the things you're looking for! Popupbooks, pop-up books, popup books, movables, on and on and on. I struggle with that. I don't want to tag every blog post here with "Library 2.0" but should I?

Technorati, the 14th Thing

Well that was a surprise. Technorati's front page looks like MSN.com.

I thought it would be a very tech-oriented site, but...Jessica Simpson's new movie, nude

photos of Melissa Joan Hart, "worst iPod accessories"....I feel like I'm in the supermarket checkout line.

I started the process of claiming this blog, just for the sake of trying it, but the "quick claim"

feature asked me for the username and password I use on Blogger. Huh. I asked the guy from Ken's Space about it and he said they didn't ask him that. I'm sure lots of people have done it without incident but for now I'll wait on the claiming thing.

I wasn't able to view the Technorati tour screencast; it just wouldn't start. I did perform the discovery exercise but results were puzzling and seemed different every time. At the Front Page I searched the phrase "movable books" first without the quotes (868 results, where the 4th hit was 2 videos of movable books- great! Even thought the other 867 results were almost all irrelevant, I was happy to see the video results.) Then I searched with the quotes, got just 9 results, all relevant, very nice....but no videos. But...the videos had been labelled "movable books." Why did they show up in a search using two keywords presumably "anded" together, but not in a search for the phrase with which they were labelled? Searching the Blog Directory for "Learning 2.0" brings up lots of relevant results, but more general topics bring up way too much. I can hardly believe that out of 110 million blogs, only 6 posts in English are tagged "movable books," and only 31 are tagged "popupbooks." There's more, as it turns out, if you really work the spacing: pop up books, popup books. But there are those videos again! and more of them this time. So, it's a puzzlement. The advanced search feature is something I want to explore when I have more time and fewer things to complete before deadline!

Just one more thing about Technorati: is there a graphic designer in the house? Because that page is hard to look at. The layout is busy, the ads are intrusive and the there's a lot of type smashed awfully close together. But I guess when you're the only blog-rankin' game in town, folks are coming for the info, not for your looks.

Just not my "Thing": No.11

I know lots of people like LibraryThing. After exploring it a little bit and entering a few titles in my own list, my reaction to the whole thing is...meh. Seems harmless. Seems like the kind of thing Amazon would feature on their site, the way they encourage you to compile wishlists and track the gifts you've given people. "If you're looking at this book, you might like to know that people who bought this book also bought etc.etc." Okay. So I know that a bazillion other people liked or read or own The Golden Compass. Okay, maybe I'd like to know what else those people read. But, probably not. Thinking of something else to read is not a problem for me. So, in terms of a library application, I guess it's a way to show people asking for reader's advisory that they...don't have to ask a librarian? They can go to LibraryThing, type in some of their favorite books, and see what other people, who've read those books, also liked. Okay, fair enough; it's kind of like a Pandora for books? It's fine. It just doesn't have a lot of value for me. Anyway, here's my fledgling Thing.

That's Not How I Roll

Okay, I hate to be like this, but again, this is not my idea of a killer app. I like that you can edit your searchroll after making it, naturally, so you can add sites you discover later. That's good.

The ads are a little intrusive, though, and the "celebrity searchrolls" don't inspire my confidence.

I can see a use for Rollyo, like that pointed out by Marion, who uses it to search multiple crafting sites at once, but I can't think of many cases in which I'd want to limit a search to "only sites I know" and there are other ways to limit searches to "sites I trust," like using Google to search only ".edu" sites for reliable content. There must be a good use for it...what am I missing? It does have a kickin' logo: simple, memorable, representational of its function, and it looks like candy!

I created a searchroll and was able to search all at once in many library blogs for instances where the new Amazon Kindle is mentioned, and word on Sirsi/Dynix/Horizon, and stuff like that. It's okay. I didn't see a way to link to my searchroll on the Rollyo site, but I added the searchroll as a page element, top left there, see?

I solemly vow to try my best to really really like the next Thing.

My Generation

Went to Generator Blog but didn't really see anything interesting enough to click on.

At BigHugeLabs I tried the LOLcat generator, using it to caption a photo which I have posted here without my cat's permission.

But okay, library app: can you use Rollyo to search a bunch of Image generators for a particular kind you'd like to use for your library's webpage, to promote a program or service? For instance, use the Chocolate Bar Generator to headline a blurb about a chocolate-themed Valentine's Day program? (Hint: NO NO NO!!! That would be really really cheesy!! See the image?)

And I'm afraid that's the problem with image generators: they make a site look kind of cheesy.

They're just something you impulsively click, construct and email to your friend in an idle moment, not something I see being useful at work. Although, I'm starting to grow attached to EmoFiona; I could see using something like that on a personal page.