Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Blog about my Learning 2.0 experience

I enjoyed so many of the learning segments it is hard to pick favorites. Everything I did was a first time learning experience!

Favorites for staff workflow and productivity:

  • Blogging and Wikis were essential basics. I could see so many ways to incorporate these into my workflow and into VBPL in general that these two are probably at the top of my favorites list [and tagging, folksonomy and Technorati to organize the blog!!]

  • RSS feeds / newsreaders and Del.icio.us come in a close second. One of Ranganathan's basic principles was "save the time of the reader" if we update that principle to "save the time of the searcher" these two items rank high in saving time!

Favorites for appealing to Web 2.0 customers and the FUN involved in learning about them:

  • Social networking is also a favorite because it deals with the much broader concept of libraries being relevant to Web 2.0 technology users. MySpace opened a whole new world I didn't know was out there!
  • Creating appealing sites be it MySpace, Wikis or Blogs requires a knowledgeable use of technology to showcase the site to its best advantage. Flickr, podcasts, YouTube, widgets, avatars, and image generators invite customers to look at what we have to offer -- they draw the customers into our content rich environment.

How has this program assisted or affected my lifelong learning goals?

  • It is all too easy to get caught-up in the trenches of library work. A continuous flow of customers coming in to use our basic services, cataloging backlogs, being short-staffed, all affect the amount of time individual staff members can devote to lifelong learning. Web 2.0 takes a back seat to immediate customer service - get the book cataloged, get the items checked out, "next please" in the long customer lines - there is never enough time to get it all done and it starts over the next day.

  • I was keeping up with the new developments in cataloging, and honing my skills as a cataloger but I knew I was slipping behind in learning about all the other developments out there. I didn't know where to start or how to build on the knowledge to incorporate it into the new Library 2.0 environment.

  • This program was the enabler that I needed to start the process! I now have the basics under my belt, and have a world of ideas swirling around in my head on how to implement them into our library system!

In preparation for the second part of this segment "Check out and comment on at least three Learning 2.0 participants blogs" I created a favorites list of blogs that appealed to me -- including my own! The list is near the top of the page, check it out!

  • The blogs I chose showed a vast amount of creativity as well as an organized flow of ideas and an overall continuity of the various segments
  • They were visually appealing drawing me into the site as a welcomed guest and then offering a variety of interesting posts and discovery elements
  • They were positive, upbeat and displayed a knowledgeable use of Web 2.0 technologies. I felt that the creator of each of these blogs spent time creating an inviting space while also considering in depth the implications all these technologies have in the Library 2.0 world
  • Congratulations to all who created blogs -- Good job!

I will post a comment on three of those blogs that show the blog creator what I liked about their site in particular and in some cases a learning experience or discovery that we shared, although I chose blogs that in some cases were entirely different from my own, so a shared experience may not be possible!

1 comment:

  1. You really put a lot of effort into your page, if i didn't know any better i would think that you knew how to do this all along...good job!!

    ReplyDelete

My Journey from Libary 1.0 thinking to Library 2.0 action!

This will be a new beginning as I explore with you the concepts of Library 2.0 and how it can and should impact the way resources are cataloged!




Cataloging is...
Access to information
The structure that makes things findable
The keyring that holds all the keys together
The right tool for finding information