LIBR 246-04/13 Web 2.0 (Fall 2010)

Although I was already an active user of social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn and intermittently posted scintillating content to my beauty products blog Spiffyface, this course opened up a whole new world of content aggregation and collaboration that I never anticipated.

I realized that I was thinking a lot about libraries and social media policies when my group for the group project started to discuss a policy for blog comments and Facebook wall posts for our fictional corporate library. In this course we have talked frequently about appropriate levels of moderation in online communities as well as general guidelines for users and participants.

Here is a screencast on how to create a Tumblr blog.

Why do I want the quality and depth of the information provided on WebJunction in the format of Smart Bitches Trashy Books? I think the online community that would have the best chance of attracting me personally as a repeat visitor is Television Without Pity.

Any kind of user-generated tags can suffer from a severe case of selfishness and lack of self-control. User tags are the ultimate in uncontrolled vocabulary. Ever notice how a search for the word ‘dog’ in Flickr retrieves some cute, furry dogs, but also hot dogs and some guys with the nickname Dog? People tend to apply tags that are very personal.

Someone who owns a dog named Blueberry might tag all photos with the word blueberry despite the fact that the canine in question is not blue, round nor a fruit. In this way, user generated tags are also fairly ambiguous.

Here are the three resources I started with for Exercise 5 and the number of people that tagged each:

•    Philadephia Museum of Art Collections Social Tagging (29)

•    Live from SMX: The Real Time and Social Search Landscape | Search Marketing Sage(no number)

I would like to take a moment to wonder why we pronounce wiki (wi-kee) and tiki (tee-kee) differently. The pronunciation disparity makes part one of my title a little less clever. Nevertheless, I would like to launch into somewhat of a stream of consciousness blog post featuring what I have learned and what I like and dislike about wikis, social bookmarking and tagging.

I just spent the day at an "unconference" event called InfoCamp Seattle. It was so truly amazing that I wanted to share a few highlights with this class, because so many of the topics discussed were relevant to everything we are learning and doing.

The University of Washington Libraries is comprised of a group of specialized subject libraries serving the University of Washington research community. While the libraries primarily serve students and faculty of the university, library resources are also available for Seattle area researchers. Although the individual libraries maintain separate websites, there has been some progress towards university wide unification of social media outreach efforts.

First off, was it just me or did it crack you up that the Stutzman article repeatedly referred to “the Facebook”?

I loved the Manchester Library and Information Service Facebook page. The welcome page has a clean and engaging design. The custom tabs lead to all the right places – the library web page, the online catalog, and reference. The wall features frequent and relevant posts. The events tab is well utilized.