ILS 599 – Technology Trends in Libraries – Web 2.0

For those who want to keep going, here are a few links:

A presentation with good blogging tips (PPT)

23 Things and the related Our 23 Web 2.0 Things which is now up to 29 things. Be sure to look at the blogs on the Our 23 things blogroll, too, since many of them are other people doing the 23 things. Lots of inspiration there! Another good 23 Things blog from the individual’s perspective: 23 Things and 3 Birds, with #22 as Keeping up with Web 2.0.

If you want to follow developments in Web 2.0 technologies and companies, Mashable and TechCrunch are good blogs to follow. Warning: they both have very high posting rates.

Another blog I follow is LASSIE’s Social Software, libraries, and distance learning. It’s based in the UK, so it gives a good non-US perspective to the whole issue.

That blog lead me to this excellent list of 100 Free Library 2.0 Webinars and Tutorials, which ought to keep you busy for a while!

Up in the top link bar there is a new link, Survey. That is the course evaluation, using SurveyGizmo, which seems to be an excellent poll and survey creator. As with many web 2.0-type applications, they seem to be using their free offering, with limited features, to drive traffic to their subscription based services. All and all, I’m impressed so far.

If you have any trouble with the survey on the page, there is a link at the bottom of the page to the survey on the SurveyGizmo site. It shouldn’t matter which one you do. If you do have trouble, please post a comment (including what browser you were using, since that should be the main difference–like the chat box not showing up in IE in the Meebo post.)

The survey is anonymous, and we’d really appreciate the feedback. If you have other questions you wish we’d asked, please put them in #10 Suggestions. Please do the survey only once, and don’t forget to click on the Finished button at the bottom when you are done (or it won’t count). Supposedly, you can come back to the survey and finish it if you get interrupted, but I don’t know how, or if, that will really work with an “anonymous” survey. Don’t feel obligated to “save” or anything, if you need to stop in the middle; just come back and do it again–it’s only 10 questions!

Thanks, folks, it’s been great! (And those final projects are shaping up great. I hope some of you get to do these at your places of work.)

I thought it went very well, aside from the technical difficulties! It’s always nice to see faces and (try to) associate the names we see online with real people. We talked about final projects, RSS, the importance of technology education in library school, online classes in general, and the difficulties of being an online student in specific classes (Cataloging!)

We had some technical difficulties, first getting my computers hooked up to the campus system. It seems we don’t have a wireless signal in the library classroom! I tried to set up a video conference, so that people online could see us, but while the video worked pretty well, I gather the sound kept dropping out. I’m not sure if that was the microphone on my computer or the connection to TokBox, but when I tried it out earlier I did have similar problems, so I think it’s a connection issue. Earlier, I found a delay in the sound versus the video, so we looked like badly dubbed movies.

One thing that several people mentioned was a desire to have had this type of meeting at the beginning of the class. In a full semester-long class, which is Dr. Okobi’s goal for this course, several meetings would be ideal. Some better system, maybe a full video conference or maybe a good audio, could be found so that online students have a better experience, too.

We didn’t get to the Second Life demo, but if you are curious about it, have a look at the videos on the Second Life Librarians Ning group: http://sllibrarians.ning.com/video.

For those who attended, either on campus or online, please comment!

OK, I think we have this organized now. I’ve signed up the library classroom, room 211 in the new library, for 5:30-7:30pm, tonight, Tuesday, June 24. To find 211, come into the library by the new entrance, which is on the side facing the student center (around the corner to the left from the old entrance, on the opposite end of the building from the Engelman parking lot.) The stairs to the second floor just to the right of the main entrance once you are inside. The elevators are down past the reference desk by the computers.

From the stairs, once you are on the second floor, follow the window wall all the way until you come to a computer room at the end of the floor, to the right of the window that makes the corner of the building. From the elevators, turn right and go through the shelves to the windows, then turn right again and look for the computer room.

Essentially, you are going up one floor, in the far corner from the main entrance.

We can log into the chat room from this room (plenty of computers for all of us). I’m also going to try and set up a webcam (I’m not quite sure if this will work) that will show *part* of the room (not all of it–don’t get stagefright!) We’ve got a nice alcove that should work for this. I’m not sure I can get that working, but I’ll give it a try.

This is mostly a social occasion, we won’t be covering anything special. Questions on anything are welcome, both in person and online. We’ll find some way of taking notes, so that we can post answers to the blog.

If there is interest and no one has anything related to the course to ask about, I can give a tour of a web 3.0 library, in Second Life. For those who can’t make it, I’ve got several videos of tours of that library, so you won’t miss out on anything but watching my avatar walk into buildings.

Oh, and there is basically no food available on campus during dinner hours this summer as Conn Hall is closed for renovations. We’re not supposed to eat in the classroom (so if you smuggle something in, we have to clean it up really well.)

We shouldn’t end a Web 2.0 class without touching on social networking. Online social networking is something of a buzz word, but essentially it’s refering to those services and tools that are primarily social in nature–the main purpose is to connect people of similar interests with each other. Many Web 2.0 services have social networking as a component: Flickr has pools, del.icio.us has it’s network features. The idea is to form communities within the services. One clue to this, and a handy way of telling how dedicated something is to social networking, is the ability to see beyond a single link of the network. For instance, one of the people in my del.icio.us network is choconancy. If you go to her network page, you can see that she follows a lot of people and a lot of people follow her. You can trace links from account to account, if you wish. She is also one of my Flickr contacts.

There are web 2.0 services that are dedicated to social networking. My Space, Facebook, and Linked In are dedicated to connecting to other people. Libraries have tried various ways of using social networks to connect to their communities and patrons. (A few of the many articles on the subject – SCSU library login required!)

Another interesting social networking site is Ning. Ning allows you to create social networks. One of the Ning networks that I’m part of is Library 2.0. Val reviewed part of this site as her blog review. Library 2.0 is partly a blog, but also more. There are groups, discussions, photos, videos, event listings, and even more stuff available that Bill Drew, who manages it, hasn’t added (or in some cases, already took off!) Ning might make a good site for a class like this one–among other things, the discussion section allows for threaded comments! There is also an automatically set up blog for each member. What do you think–should we try that next time? Should we set up a ILS599 Ning group for continuing discussion after this class is over? I’m willing to do it, if you folks would use it.

Ning would also be an interesting way to have student groups for online programs. A Facebook group (you have to log into Facebook to actually see anything) for the ILS distance students was tried at one point, but people don’t always have the time (and Web 2.0 stuff has a way of eating up your “spare” time). No one has posted anything for a while.

By the way, I just have to highlight one of our own, who had a great post about problems and expectations of social networking written just as this class was starting. So, Denise, do you have any new thoughts on the subject?

Don’t forget that you’ll get extra credit by continuing to collect and tag things in del.icio.us. A few of you have discovered the for: tags. If you tag something for:rhedreen, it shows up in sort of an inbox for me. That is not required for the course! But it is a very handy trick. If you use del.icio.us in your library, or in your project, you can request submissions from del.icio.us users by telling them what for: tag to use, as I did on my Physics page: http://www.library.southernct.edu/physbib.htm (look at the very bottom of the page). Be sure to have some way that non-del.icio.us users can contribute, too. My Physics page uses del.icio.us’ “linkroll” feature, which allows you to get some cut and paste code for all your links or links for certain of your tags. Here are the five most recent of my ILS599web20 links:

Rebecca’s ILS599Web2.0 links

This only works for your own links, that’s why your links aren’t showing up here. For that, you need to use the RSS feed for the tag, and display it using something like Feed2Js, or our Pageflakes page (del.icio.us links are in the left column).

By the way, here is an example of a library account on del.icio.us, from the Geosciences & Environmental Sciences Librarian at Oregon State University.

Week Five Readings

EK Chapter 13, 17

MC & LS Chapter 9

Mashups are the latest Web 2.0 tools. Review information on Mashups here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashup_%28web_application_hybrid%29

Hi folks, we’re heading into the last week of the course. Please click on the Assignments link under Categories on the left, and make sure you have done everything that shows up. Most of the discussion questions can be either in the comments of the post or in your blog, but be sure to read each assignment carefully to be sure that you have answered in the right place–we did specify posting to your blog for some assignments (like the Flickr pictures). And be sure to click the “Older Posts” link at the bottom of the list of assignment posts. I’m counting 16 items. You can check the syllabus (link at the top of the page) for the evaluation and grading percentages.

If you are having trouble with any of the assignments, please email!

We are also talking about Instant Messaging and Chat in libraries this week. I have an account with Meebo, which is a multiprotocol, web-based IM client. That means that I can log in, via Meebo, to my AIM, MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk, and other Instant Messaging accounts, in one screen, from any web accessible computer. Meebo also allows me to create chat boxes to place on websites, and chat rooms where multiple people can chat together. Quite a number of libraries are using Meebo, or similar services, to provide chat boxes for Ask-a-Librarian services. The advantage of something like a Meebo chat box is that the patron does not have to have an IM account, and does not have to download any software. It’s also free (ad supported, however!)

Part one of the assignment is to contact me, a fellow student, or some library via IM. Then write about the experience on your blog. You can use the Meebo chat box below if I’m online (and I’ll try to be online as much as possible this week, including some in the evenings) or your own IM account if you have one. If you contact a fellow student, you could do a reference “roll play” or exchange ideas about your final projects. You could try one of the libraries on the Library Success Wiki “Libraries using IM” listing. If you do contact a library, please let them know right away that you are a library student in a class, and that you’d like to ask them about the service. “Is this a good time?” You can ask if it’s used a lot, do they like it, do they see different questions than they do at their “in person” reference desks. Don’t make up a fake reference question. (If you do have a real reference question, and want to try out your local service, however, that’s fine.)

Part two is to visit the Meebo chat room that I set up for this class, http://www.meebo.com/room/ils599/. What do you think of it? Could you see using it, maybe for group work in an online class? Online “office hours”? Small group library instruction? Was there anyone there when you showed up? Have you used any other chat service, like the one in Vista? How does this compare? The chat “log” should stay up all week, so you can come in and read what your classmates have written. Again, write about it in your blog. I’ll also be sure to log into the chat room when we are having our on campus meeting next week. If you can’t make the meeting in person, but are free online, come join us.

Questions? Meebo me!