16.

I started out my library career thinking the standard, "Wikis are bad. There isn't any proof!" Unfortunately, that is sometimes the case. But there are plenty of ways to use them efficiently. I love to use Wikipedia to learn about something I know nothing about. It serves as a really great way to compile lots of information without denying access to knowledgeable non-members. I took a look at Book lovers wiki and thought that it was a really great use of the technology. In general, Number 16 has been a really helpful learning experience. I think it's my favorite number of the 23 things. I want to set one up for my library!

15.

Although the articles could have used some less pretentious vocabulary and needed to get to the point more quickly, there were a number of masked tips on how to use the library in conjunction with all of the tools provided by new technology. Many of them are practical and logical steps in combining useful tools to make the searching process easier for patrons. My favorite example is this:
Libraries should get much greater mileage out of the metadata they create. For example, if geographic names embedded in the middle of subject headings are mapped to latitude and longitude coordinates, it becomes possible to present users with graphical means of searching by place, new ways of easily asking for materials about nearby places, and hierarchical browsing by place.

I would think that google maps works just as well as latitude and longitude, the concept is the same. It's the next logical step in the development of easy-inter-library-loans. I hear that on average, every inter-library-loan costs the library $8. This price is totally unacceptable as it is possible to BUY books on amazon and have them shipped to your house for that price. If the process of finding and ordering the ILLs became more manageable, the cost of each would significantly drop.

This was not nearly the only useful suggestion made in the Library 2.0 articles, but the process of making them a reality is another story altogether. Changing the make up of our bibliographic records is a time-consuming and expensive process. Many (board members) may believe that it is a superfluous step in the process of becoming a more technologically integrated library system. Who knows? Maybe I'm wrong and administrators would jump at the chance to evolve. I hope that that's true.

14.

Wow. Technorati. I've never seen this site, but I have seen something similar on Flickr. Flickr has it's own built-in version of it. It's pretty interesting stuff to say the least. I have a friend who took a picture of some graffiti on a garage and titled it "What do you 'spose this means?" Well he had about 10-20 answers from supposed thugs all over the country. It's turns out that that photo (because of his expert tagging skills) was number three on the list of hits when searching for "Latin Kings." I know that to some, that little tidbit isn't that interesting, but I thought it was pretty cool.

One cool thing that I learned on Technorati was the edutweet phenomenon. I guess that there are a whole pile of people that (using Twitter) will send you links to valuable internet tools for learning. So, that's pretty cool. And I really like the word edutweet.

Of the top searches, I was mostly surprised at my surprise that Jennifer Garner and cheat-codes were somewhere around the top of the list. It just figures that young teenage boys are taking up so much surfing time to post/search about girls and video games. Hilarious.

13.

I've had a delicious page for quite awhile now. I wish that I have been organized enough to use it how it could be used! I just need some time to really compile all my useful (and not-so-useful) sites into bundles. I love the bundling tool! It lets you create a pile of similarly tagged links together to make life easier. So, if I was, for example, working the reference desk, I could have my delicious page opened up to the "adult reference sources" bundle. Ideally, I would have so many bundles that I would never need to think about where to find things. I may not have started my library career as a highly organized person, but I do want that to happen. I will keep working on it. Everybody wants life to be simpler, right?

12.

Although I can see why a service like this is appealing, it was really difficult to come up with something useful that I would want to rollyo. I decided to try knitting, because I would rather be searching from sites that have patterns that I like, rather than old fashioned stuff that happens to be free. But, I would rather use it for the library. I think that it's a great reference tool! You chould put all your adult reference sites in one spot, so you can be sure that you are searching documented sources. I think that this tool is best used in conjunction with delicious. I could serach by tag and create a different roll for each tag. As long as I was tagging correctly, I think it would be really useful. Here's something cool I found while looking for knitting stuff:

11.

I love library thing. I haven't really used it that much, but I have put in about 20 of my favorite books. I've decided that all the books that I actually own do not represent my taste very well...I tend to give away my favorite books to make other people read them. So, instead of putting in a literal library, I entered an ideal library. I put in about 20 of my favorites, and low-and-behold, I have a list of libraries that are similar to my own. One of which is called littlegeek who has over 200 books in her library. We share 12 of the same titles, and we feel the same about them. As I was looking through her library, I found other titles that she gave five stars that I had not read yet. It's a great way of finding something new to read!!!

10.

So, I know that these things are out there, but does anyone else feel like they are being forced to use Powerpoint against their will? It's nice that it's a simple way of creating images, but I don't know if I will have much use of it until I have a work-related issue where I need to make one. Like, for example, if I get a job at a middle school or something, I could think of lots of ways to use these or to just show the kids how fun it would be to waste a study hall on making these things. It would be fun too! But for the moment, I'm not very impressed. When they figure out how to imitate oil or watercolor painting on the Internet, I will have more fun. Right now, I just feel like they are trying to teach me how to paint-by-number.