LIBR 246-13 Building the Social Library Online

I’m going to unimaginatively go through each of the questions one by one…I’m in the middle of the big Course Project for my other class, so all creativity has apparently gone out the window.

Social software tools are a big jump into the unknown for many.  I’m right on the line there…I didn’t grow up with them, but I was still in high school and college when many of them first appeared.  It’s not as scary for me as for some, but I’m probably not as comfortable as many.  I think this fear of the unknown is probably the greatest barrier to implementing social software in the library.  Because administrators are not familiar with social software, apart from occasional mention of the dangers of MySpace on the news, they will not be

Podcasts are a library tool that I have mixed feelings about.  When I first read the topic for this week and started thinking about the concept of libraries with podcasts, I didn't see the need for them at all.  It seemed to me like the classic example of libraries seeing a technology and using it because it's new and "in," not because it will be the best tool to serve the library's patrons.  What information, I wondered, would be better on a podcast than it would be in text or pictures on a website?  Certainly not library news or events--that does much better

I think this week's assignment was probably the most frustrating one for me.  Apparently, gaming and virtual worlds are not my thing.  I started in SecondLife.  I've tried it once before, and I didn't have enough RAM to even install it.  I have the same computer as I had then, but I have installed more RAM since.  This time, I went through with the install and entered the world.  Almost as soon as I entered, however, I started getting warning messages saying that I didn't have enough memory to handle the program, and would need to delete files.  I exited t

Commercial reference services are great for many reasons.  One big one for libraries is that they will handle everything for you.  All the library has to do is subscribe to the service and all the hassles of setting up IM reference, staffing it, and worrying about the time constraints of reference librarians disappear.  This is certainly attractive to many libraries.  The service can then also be available 24 hours, something that is attractive to many users.  Libraries, even large university libraries, simply do not have the funds to be open 24 hours every day, but

I used the question about homicides in my state (California), and I asked that question at AskNow, the California referece site and at a college library with a Meebo widget.  I began this exercise expecting to be impressed.  After reading about the experiences of some of the other class members, I assumed that the question would be answered quickly and easily.  I was a bit surprise at the real results.

I've never liked MySpace--I didn't ever get into the online social networking thing until Facebook came along.  I've looked at people's profiles in MySpace, and I began one for myself that has languished with no content in it for a very long time.  Facebook required much less initial time investment.  Your profile could be up and running right away, which definitely made sense to me.  MySpace also irritated me in its cluttered nature, which makes pages difficult to navigate and makes them take an indefinite time to load.  All that said, it can be good if the right p

Wikipedia has proved to be a bit of a dilemma for me.  I've swung back and forth on the issue so many times!  I was definitely one of the later ones to get swept into the web 2.0 flood.  I was in college when Myspace, Facebook, Wikipedia, and all of those things were really getting popular.  But I didn't ever really want to explore.  I was very "academic" in my pursuits, and when I wasn't working on papers and projects, I preferred playing mindless games on my computer over editing an encyclopedia, online or otherwise.  All this to say, I hadn't even

I think user-generated content can certainly have a place in libraries and on library websites.  One huge reason I see for doing this is the issue of accessibility and useability.  Library OPACs are looking and feeling increasingly dated.  They are clunky, uninviting, and often not very forgiving.  For example, if someone types in an author's name in the firstname-lastname format, they will not get any results in my library's catalog.  People are used to searching Google, the ultimate forgiving search, that corrects spelling and truncates for you.  A misspelled