Week 7, Thing #17: Add an entry to the Learning 2.0 SandBox wiki

OK, between Bloglines not letting me into MD 23 things, and the directions to add your blog to the wiki being a little confusing, this activity was a little annoying. I get the whole idea of adding to a wiki, just need a little more practice.

Week 7, Thing #16: Learn about Wikis

Wikis, I think it's an interesting idea. I've had experience with wikis in the past so this was one of the easier exercises. When I went to ALA in Washington a few months ago, the ALA wiki was invaluable. I found just about everything I needed to know in one place. I also use wowwiki, a World of Warcraft wiki (enough said). The one thing I don't like about them is that on some wikis, anybody can go in and edit the info for either good or bad purposes. At times, it's kind of hard to know what the truth is.

I did bring up using a wiki at a branch meeting today. It seems a few branches are doing somewhat major shelving reallocation. Thought maybe we could set up a "best practices" wiki. We'll see.

Week 6, Thing #15: Read a few perspectives on Web 2.0, Library 2.0 and the future of libraries

OK, after taking a two week vacation from 23 Things, it's time to get back on track.

I read three of the articles that were suggested: 1) Away from the Icebergs by Rick Anderson, 2) Into a New World of Librarianship, and 3) To a Temporary Place in Time.

I think what I got of this, or "what Library 2.0 means to me", is that Library 2.0 seems to be the big "now" thing. I like it and I think it has some interesting uses. People are using the Internet more and more, so it seems logical that we start using it to enhance BCPL. I do think we need to use a little discretion and not go overboard with it though (this coming from a self proclaimed computer geek). Not to mention the fact if this is going to be the future, we'd better get our bandwidth up to speed (is blocking My Space, a virtual community, what we're trying to accomplish). Creating a virtual library community is great, having databases online is great, but I still think having important print material is still a good idea because one question always pops up in my mind when dealing with online information...what do we do when the power goes out?

Week 6, Thing #14: Explore Technorati

OK, got through the Technorati site and to be honest, it's a little confusing. I finally figured out, after much searching, how to do the first "discovery exercise" (it's in the advanced search). Here are my results:

Top blog posts: 28,150 different hits
Tags: 3, but if you click on "view all", it takes you back to the top blog posts.
Blog Directory: 536

So yes, the results are different.

I explored the top favorites, top searches and top blogs, and found a few interesting things. I now have a new blog added to my bloglines account: Lifehacker, Tips and Downloads for Getting Things Done, and the top game was World of Warcraft: the Burning Crusade. It's all about the Warcraft ;)

Claiming my Technorati account

Technorati Profile

Here's the tag for MD 22
mdlearn2

Kittens!!!!

Just in case you haven't been to my other half's blog, here is the post that has pictures of our new arrivals. Our cat Sharess finally had the darn things.

Week 6, Thing #13: Tagging and del.icio.us

Went to del.icio.us and checked it out. Seems cool enough. I can see where it would be helpful with research, being someone has already done part of the work for you. I guess it could save time if your looking for information on a particular subject. This is another site I need to play around with more. Oh, I did a search On WoW links and I feel pretty good about the fact the top link is the one I use the most while playing, Thottbot.

I am starting to realize just how huge the "social networking" thing is. It seems a lot of people want to share just about everything about themselves. Being somewhat of a private person, I'm not sure how I feel about all this.