23 Things Summary

I think this activity was a really great way to introduce a lot of new technology, and show just how much the internet has to offer.

There were some really great tools, a lot I had used before and a lot I hadn't, and all of them were pretty interesting to explore.

Not only can a lot of these things be used by librarians in their jobs, but are great tools to introduce to library users, and improve service.

As someone interested in academic libraries, I found a lot of these really interesting. Several of these tools would be very useful to college students doing research, as well as being extremely easy for them to use. College-age students today are very technologically savvy, but probably don't know how to use it to make it work for them school-wise, and probably wouldn't know about some of these things, but a librarian could introduce them to it.

I think that libraries must move forward with technology and internet, and in order to do so, librarians must know how to use all sorts of web 2.0 tools, and how to utilize it in order to give their patrons the best services possible. While the 23 things certainly don't cover everything that the internet has to offer librarians, they are still extremely helpful in giving an introduction to the web, and are a great starting point in terms of the wide array of things that the internet can offer a librarian.

Web 2.0 Tools

Perhaps this is sort of cheating, but one of the websites that stuck out to me was last.fm.

I’ve had an account for years, and I don’t even use the site to full potential but I love it. I like knowing useless facts like how many songs I’ve listened to in the past 2 years, how many times I’ve listened to an artist or song, etc. One of the useful things too is it will recommend you other artists that aren’t already in your library, based on your top listens, and you can also see users who listen to artists, and friend them and talk to them. You can comment on songs, rate songs, etc.

Basically, last.fm is like a goodreads or librarything, but for music. It also incorporates some wiki-like functions, as each artist’s page can contain information about the artist and pictures, uploaded by users, and you can see the artists’ discography and songs, and some artists even offer free downloads on the site.

I’m not sure how last.fm could really be applied to libraries, because similar things do exist for books, but I just think that last.fm is a great tool that has introduced me to many new artists, and fulfills my need to know useless statistics. :) 

Library 2.0

I think the idea behind ‘library 2.0’ is one which will help to sustain libraries into the future. Though libraries and archives are an important link to the past, and in no way should abandon books and personal service, I think integrating new technology is essential.

As society moves forward, so must libraries. By offering things like audiobooks and downloads, for instance, libraries are able to meet changing user needs. More internet-based information is essential, because the way people search for information is quickly becoming solely internet/computer based. Although certainly a lot of the older generations are unable to keep up with this changing technology, the changes must happen in stages, not all at once, and therefore by the time that computer and internet skills are essential for library use, more of the population will be competent to use them.

I would in no way advocate making physical libraries and librarians obsolete, and I don’t think that an extreme change is necessary in the near future. But its undeniable that all aspects of society are becoming technologically based, and libraries must follow suit, because their users expect library services to change in the same ways.

Rollyo & Zotero

Rollyo

This was an interesting site, and one which I had never heard of before.

After playing around, I created one based around Agatha Christie, and connected it to several book sites, as well as Wikipedia and the official Christie site. It was interesting to search her books and characters, even obscure ones – although Wikipedia came up most often, and with that came a lot of other Wikipedia items with similar names, unfortunately.

I could see a librarian using it to create a search for students using only relevant, reputable sites to help with research, but it would be on a pretty small scale I’d think. A very interesting and useful website.

Zotero

My first problem with zotero is that it isn’t compatible with Chrome – I downloaded Firefox just to complete this portion of 23 Things, which was not what I wanted to do, so immediately I was a bit biased against zotero.

I’m still not sure I completely understand Zotero’s point, or how to use it. I was a bit confused by the whole thing, and I think it involves too many complicated directions to be able to use effectively without spending time getting used to it.

From what I can tell, it would definitely be useful in the field, especially in helping researchers, but it would take a lot of patience. Perhaps I’m just not used to not understanding something about the internet immediately, but zotero frustrated me and made me want to give up before understanding it properly.

LibraryThing

My LibraryThing

While there are some good things about LibraryThing, overall I wasn’t a fan.

I’ve had a goodreads account for a while now, and overall I prefer that site. There are a lot of useful features to LibraryThing though, and more in terms of finding similar users. However, I found it very hard to find the book I was looking for compared to goodreads, particularly because under one book on goodreads you can see all the other editions of the same book, unlike on librarything, as far as I can tell. It’s a bit time-consuming to find the exact book you’re looking for without the isbn, and while the ability to search so many different catalogs of information, like amazon and Library of Congress is nice, it’s also a bit of a hassle to work with.

One other thing that I didn’t see on LibraryThing that I use/abuse on goodreads is the ability to update what page of a book you’re currently reading. I like tracking how long it takes me to read a book, and sharing where I am with my friends on goodreads.

Regardless of what site you use though, I like that these kinds of sites exist. Similar to what I was saying regarding book review wikis, I love being able to read reviews before I read a book, and add my own review, as well as having a handy way of tracking what books I’ve read for my own personal reference, and how many I’ve read.

Web-based apps & Google

Though I’d heard of Google Docs before, I didn’t actually use it until this semester. Man, I was missing out!

One thing that was always a huge hassle in undergrad was when I’d do research on school computers, or when my laptop was broken and being fixed in UB Micro (at least once a year…) and I had to use the school computers, was saving files and saving links. I always ended up saving multiple word docs of links to pages to remember, or citations to remember, or articles, or outlines & beginnings of essays, and it was a mess to save them in a way I could retrieve them on a different computer later. I was constantly losing my thumb drive, and so always ended up emailing multiple docs as attachments between email accounts. WHY didn’t I check out google docs then?  Being able to have all those things saved into one place that I could access from anywhere would have been so much more convenient!

I’ve slowly been realizing how great Google is. Once I tried gmail, yahoo mail was forever in the past. iGoogle has been my homepage for well over a year now, cluttered with gadgets I rarely look at and some I use every day. Google Earth is a great way to waste time. Google Chrome has been a revelation since I got my new laptop and it was the default browser – I liked Firefox just fine on my last computer, but haven’t even bothered to download it on this one after using Chrome.

After looking at the list, I realized just how much I still didn’t know existed. I tried out the calendar and books.

I had no idea all of these books were available to read online! I can see myself using this a lot, despite the fact that reading for too long on a computer screen will probably make my eyes hate me. Even though I don’t yet have one, I’ve been looking into a Nook or Kindle for Christmas, and I’d be interested if with the download feature, if the pdf you can download will work with the Nook, which my roommates who each have one tell me you can put pdf files on them.

The calendar, to be honest, was useful but wasn’t perfect for me. It took a little bit of getting used to, and, to be superficial about it, I couldn’t find a way to make it pretty enough. Although some would find the alert function of it useful, if I didn’t have a blackberry and it emailed me an alert, I might not get it for hours. As it is, if I really need to remember something, I can put it in my BB’s calendar, and not have to wait for an email. Very functional, but not something I would use myself. Google certainly continues to amaze though, and I look forward to checking out more of the apps on the list.

Wikis

I use Wikipedia on a near daily basis for a variety of reasons, but it actually took me a while to realize that Wikipedia was just one example of a wiki, and what exactly they could be used for. I also have had experience with pop-culture based wikis, for instance, there’s one for the Harry Potter universe, with entries about every character, actor, book, event, object, etc that its users can think of.

While I like the idea of a wiki a lot, I do realize (especially if I was a librarian instructing students) how dangerous it is to believe everything you read on Wikipedia and similar wikis, because it is edited by people who don’t always list their sources, and anyone can change it at a moment’s notice.

After learning more about wikis, I see the variety of functions and uses, which are all pretty great.

One of the example son the 23 things website I liked was the Princeton Public Library’s Book Lovers wiki. I LOVE the idea of a wiki based around people reviewing books. It’s kind of a shame that the site as is now seems pretty limited, and I wonder what a site like this could become if it was on a larger scale, with less moderation of who could post. Websites like Amazon and Goodreads are great places to read book reviews already, so I wonder exactly how popular/useful a wiki of people posting book reviews would be. It would have to be set up differently, so that for each book multiple people could upload their own reviews, but to then have people be able to search by review, as this site does with looking for only 5 star book reviews, which I found to be a great feature, would be great. To have people tag the books themselves as well, with both rating, what they think an appropriate age group would be, etc would be great. I also think it would be interesting if in a wiki you could see a book’s page and reviews, and be able to then have links from it to similar authors/books/plot genre, etc. While all of these features are available in a multitude of websites, I’d be really intrigued if all of these could be combined into one website.