To a Student

Dear Student,

There's no cause to fret when it's time to write your report for class and you are stranded at your friend's place and  you must get it started immediately so that's you still have time to finish it when you do finally get back home. Ask your friend, "Do you have a computer?" and "Can you get me on the internet?". If this friend answers yes to both questions then you are in luck.

Quickly type "Zoho Writer" into your browser and set up an account. Now, dear student, you can start writing your report.  Notice how familiar the toolbar looks. Use this handy and free online word program, save what you have and access it later from your internet at home.  Or from another computer with internet if you get stranded somewhere else on your way back home.Just return to Zoho Writer and log in to your free account and pick up where you left off.  

You can even tell your folks that you were doing your homework after all.

            

                                                    Sincerely,

                                                    A Concerned Parent

Wikiing with Knitters

As I continue to work on the wiki assignment, I found one wiki I especially wanted to explore from the Maryland Libraries Sandbox web page. It's called "Rather be Knitting". I added a post. Scroll down the page to Hey Knitting Friends. That's mine.

I checked out PB Wiki Tips and frankly setting up a new wiki looked involved and tedious. Probably worth it though. So, we'll see.

I did post a link to my blog to Blog Favorites on the Maryland Libraries Sand Box site.

Wikis for Lovers

Assignment #16- Exploring Wikis.

So, I like that wikis seem to be so intuitive to use. A click here and a click there does the job nicely. For an individual with little time or who is low on the technology food chain, wikis are open to anyone who wants to contribute or collaborate on a topic. Having said this, I do admit that I am more comfortable with the creation of wikis by a smaller group of people who have a shared goal or project. I am more likely to trust the veracity of an established and perhaps limited network of collaborators on a web site than the open-ended contributions of anyone. It's fun to browse Wikipedia about pop culture, for instance; but I'm still going to other reliable sources for my information. It never hurts to check out more than one.

It would be very innovative of HCPL to use the wiki-concept for planning our 2008 summer reading program. Having a wiki would possibly allow the children's librarians to use less time at the bi-monthly children's meetings on SRP but keep the discussion and planning moving along outside our established meetings.

Library 2.0 to Infinity

Yep, Library 2.0 is amazing. And to me it all seems to be happening so fast and furiously. But back to "it's amazing". Chip Nilges, OCLC Vice President, New Services, says to the effect that Library 2.0 allows for "harnessing collective intelligence". All this mind power has created a plethora of resources that are available at our fingertips. It's the bridging of the heart of library services: information, accessibility, sharing ideas, and building community (and so much more) with firespitting technology and worldwide support and knowledge.

Library 2.0 has definitely changed the nature of our role as information specialists. According to Dr. Wendy Schultz, we can expect to see Library 2.0 evolve continually and how libraries operate and the role a physical library may play will be vastly different ten year from now.

Imagine her vision of Library 4.0. A public library that serves as a "knowledge spa" and that customers will look to librarians as tour guides to navigate the quickly changing and expanding selection of online technologies. (Maybe these librarian superstars might even have their own drama/comedy someday- a new kind of "Heroes".
Personally, my favorite parts of this work are helping the people find they information they need and sharing a love of literature through programming. The changing technology component of this job keeps me on my toes and I shudder to wonder that library services might be mostly online. I love handling books- will they let us touch them in the museums of tomorrow?

Technorati Time

Exploring Technorati is the 14th thing of the Library 2.0 series. I took the Technorati Tour and this was nice and played around with some of the favorite blogs and videos. FYI: The "Leave Britney Spears Alone" video is hot, hot, hot. I don't normally search for videos on the web, so all becasue of this assignment have I found myself eye to screen watching some fan wail about the injustices done to Britney. So enough of that.

I checked out some of the blog posts and the tags using the term, "Library 2.0". No these do not necessarily lead a searcher in the same direction. And there's a lot out there and many directions to explore. But that was enough for me today.

So now I wanted to have fun. So, I entered one of my favorite tags, "voluntary simplicity". I came upon the blog post, "Why I Became a Quaker"

And Max Ehrmann's Desiderata is a lovely piece of wisdom for living

See what you think here.

Del.icio.us

I wouldn't have wanted to explore Flickr on my own. I'm just so old fashion and boring. Yet, as I poke around these Library 2.0 exercises, I'm "getting" the energy of others. For instance, today I'm learning about del.iou.us. I go to PLCMCL2 and get a run down on all the bookmarks others have found useful. fd's Flickr Toys is pretty popular. 5558 folks have saved this bookmark compared to the 22 who have saved the bookmark: Library director - Blogging Libraries (Directors that blog). Those directors are probably pretty busy elsewhere. Hmmm. No director/administrator from MD has saved this one yet. Interesting.

Good for those who like to share and save online resources.

LibraryThing- a nice bit of technology for book lovers

So I've set up my LibraryThing profile and selected my absolute favorite books of all time in my little ole life. In case you want to see what I've started check out my list here.

Thank you to Annie, my library daughter, for showing me an easier way to make a link. I'll explore this site a little more when I'm done all 23 thinks. (Sorry Maurice.)