Thing 7: Wikis

Way back at the beginning of grad school, I had to make a wikipedia page for a class, and I remember it being a terrifying experience, full of error messages and lost pages and so on. I wish I had been able to use PBwiki, because I found this program to be relatively intuitive and painless. I liked how easy it was to add photos and links. I have had trouble doing that in the past, but this made it so simple.

I think wikis could be useful to school librarians especially, and also to public librarians when they are putting together projects as a staff. Making a wiki is a good way to keep all of everyone's thoughts and research in one place for easy use. Wikis might also be a good way to passing on information to students about books and sources, either for a special project or after a book talk.

The wikis listed in the blog were great finds... I already bookmarked most of them. I especially like the readers' advisory themed one.

Here's my wiki if anyone wants to check it out:
http://larsendeborahg.pbworks.com/

Thing 6: Tracking

I have heard of Google Alerts before, but Social Mention and Addictomatic are new to me, so I tried out all three. I think I prefer the Addictomatic's format and how it shows where the library is being mentioned.

When I searched our library using all three methods, I was kind of depressed by the results about our library: there are hardly any. Our library has a Twitter account and a Facebook page, but I don't think we are using it as often as we could to promote our upcoming events and services.

I think that it is a very good idea to create a social networking presence for the library, but right now I am not sure who is in charge of that. In a dream world, we could hire someone who would just handle promoting the library, including social media, but we are a pretty small library.

Thing 5: Delicious

I have used Delicious before, but mostly to save travel articles, organizing articles, and recipes that I want to save for the future. It keeps me from having magazine pages strewn all over my house and makes me feel more organized. All sorts of interesting information is safely waiting for the wonderful day when I will have time to sit around and read links for hours, whenever that magical day occurs.

I like the idea of using Delicious on the public computers in the children's department of our library, maybe for special assignments or questions that come up often. The logistics of getting it on there are a bit tricky -- has anyone done it at their library?

Thing 4: RSS Feeds

While I love the way RSS feeds collate everything to one place, I remain a bit overwhelmed by the idea of them. Not by the way they work--I understand that--but by the amount of information I now feel obligated to read. There are too many good blogs out there, but not enough time in my day to read them all and get anything else done!

That said, I much prefer Google Reader to other RSS feeds I've tried. For awhile, I used NetVibes but found its layout and organization mystifying. Google Reader has a clean and simple layout, is easy to set up, and although I don't usually use gmail for email, if I did, it would be nice to have everything connected that way.

Things 1-3

My name is Debbie Larsen, and I work part-time as youth services assistant at Palos Heights Public Library. Right now, we are deep into our summer reading program, which has made it hard to get to this until today, but hopefully once things wrap up next week, I will be more punctual in my posting.

Since I just finished my MLS in May, I am eager to take a course that I don't get graded on! During my last semester, I took a hybrid online/in person class about Library 2.0 with Michael Stephens. But looking at what is on the class blog for this week, I can tell that there will always be more to learn. I think this course will be very helpful to me because it looks at Library 2.0 specifically from a children's librarian perspective.