Perspectives on Web 2.0

I read the piece from OCLC "Web 2.0: Where will it take us?" and then several of the attached commentaries, Rich Anderson, Michael Stephens and Wendy Schultz. Actually this piece really belongs at the end of 23 Things with our final thoughts since everything I read led me to a "what next?" frame of mind. All the comments reinforce my thinking that it is past time for us to seriously reconsider how library staff spend much of their time. The days (well, actually evenings) of people being six deep at a reference desk waiting for help with print materials or maybe microforms are long gone. Yet we still act as if the reference desk is the mainstay of our existence. If we are going to incorporate 23 Things and whatever the next 23 Things might be into our work, we need to restructure job descriptions and expectations so that staff have the time to not only learn Web 2.0 (and then 3.0 and 4.0), but actually have time to use it in their work day. Wendy Schultz talks about library services that will emphasize the virtual over the physical where customers rate the best librarian avatar who creates buzz on the newest books in whatever format is preferred. You, too, can be Nancy Pearl in SecondLife, but exactly when is this going to happen in the work day? 23 Things can't just be about adding things on; it has to bolster the discussion of dropping things off.

As the days dwindle down...

Well, the pressure is really on and the days remaining are very few. I have started the bad habit of hopping around within the 23 Things as the spirit moves me. It keeps me interested, but it also leads me to think that I am further along than I actually am. Before I backtrack and talk about a couple of sites that are further back on the list, I have to talk about the wonderful YouTube clip that I found and posted. Actually finding it wasn't serendipitous. I was at a dinner party with some New Jersey buddies and they were bragging about the the MTV ad that they had done for QandANJ (the New Jersey of Ask Us Now). Since I knew the chances of me catching it on MTV were pretty slim, I figured that I wasn't going to get to see it, but then they said it was on YouTube. Voila! I love it and I hope that anyone who reads this blog enjoys it, also. So now I have two YouTube postings, the Harry Potter finger puppets and QandANJ. Do I get extra credit? I didn't think so.
Moving backwards, after having fun with Library Thing, I took a look at Rollyo and sort of ground to a halt. Part of my problem is that as I run out of time, I pull different sites up and start to look at them, and if their use doesn't jump out at me immediately, I don't want to take the time to play around with them or find someone who can explain why a particular site is beneficial to humankind. That is how I felt about Rollyo. Because I was hopping around, I had already found del.icio.us and really got into it. Then I realized that I had missed looking at Rollyo and went backwards, but I just couldn't get all fired up. That was when I jumped forward and started looking at YouTube. After posting the Harry Potter puppets, I decided that I had to get more structured and went back to Technorati. Although I enjoyed finding Boing Boing and was fascinated to see how Arianna Huffington's blog had evolved since the last time that I looked at it several years ago, I wasn't that interested in pursuing the finer points of Technorati. I finally have come to the conclusion that what 23 Things is doing is introducing us to a wide variety of things that overlap in their capabilities. Duh. Well, I am a slow learner.

QandANJ: Now You're Library is Open Late Night Too!

Potter Puppet Pals in

My daughter turned me on to these Harry Potter youtube puppet shows. I immediately became addicted.

Where has the time gone???

I was shocked , shocked to realize that the last time I put anything in the blog was in July! Here I have been plowing my way through the various tasks and not writing them down and now I hope I can recall half of what I did.

I messed around with RSS feeds and subscribed to Bloglines. Then I spent a couple of hours finding blogs to add. One that I have been enjoying is Pop Goes the Library, but I have to confess that I am biased because I used to work with Sophie Brookover who is one of the main contributers. Others that I like are Library Garden, It's All Good and Tame the Web. I also took a look at MERLIN. I think you really need to look at this stuff often to really start getting some meaning from it all.

Then I messed around with avatars for a while. My problem is that although it is fun to make believe that I look like a 20 something chickie with spiked purple hair and a mini and thigh high boots, it does seem like false advertising to post that on my blog when I am really a pug faced white Persian with an elegant demeanor.

So then I looked at Library Thing and really had some fun. I think this one is a keeper. What's more I have been telling all my friends about it, so maybe we can do some book sharing.

Whoops! I just realized that I haven't checked otu Rollyo yet. So I will have to back up, but I really got into Del.icio.us. At first I felt like I was just wasting time finding things to stick on my site, but then my daughter said something about putting recipes on it, and it all just clicked into place. since then I have been really having a good time adding just about everything to it. I figure as long as I can come up with a variety of tags, I can find it all again.

Sooooo, it looks like I had better back track and find out what Rollyo is.

Well, I spent time with bloglines.com and got an account. The challenge then was coming up with some blogs to link with. I finally remembered that someone that I worked with did a blog, and so I linked with that. Then I discovered a list of blogs that her site recommends and came up with another. I feel like I am missing something here, but maybe as I go along I will find more blogs to link with.

Well, I am finally in week 3 although it is really more like week 6. I started playing around with Flickr and before I knew it about 90 minutes had passed, which is the problem I have with technology. It just eats up tons and tons of time and although it may be sort of enjoyable, I never feel very productive at the end. Despite that I went back to Flickr tonight and started an account and then realized that I needed to post some photos. So I pulled up some photos from our trip to Scotland two years ago that have been sitting on our computer since the trip. When we got back, I spent about ten hours (I am not exaggerating) attempting to arrange them in some free online photo site. I would add all kinds of clever captions, and try to block some of the shots so they were centered better. Then after spending a few hours doing that, I would try to save my work only to discover that I hadn't and it would all disappear. So imagine my delight when I pulled a couple of photos up, tagged them, captioned them, tagged them some more, saved them and then could find them again! I would upload more photos, but I am so far behind, I need to move on to RSS feeds.