Week 8 #18

I think I pretty much talked about my feelings on computerized social networking last blog - I don't like it. I think it's a way for people to hide behind words and avatars. Just as with the wikis, I can see that a group might have a social network to keep up with what's going on - my mother's family has one for the family which is spread out all over the states and into Europe, but just to put information on the web randomly, like casting a worm into the lake to see what you get, is simply beyond me. If these people are so interested in actually having a relationship with someone, why don't they get out and have one? Instead of joining myspace.com, why don't they volunteer somewhere or join an actual club with real people? Sorry, I just don't get it.

Week 7 #17

I know this will sound anomalous since a lot of people believe that the new technologies are bringing more people together, allowing people to share their thoughts, wiki-ing, blogging, etc., but the few times I have looked at places like myspace.com, blogs, and other technorati that are "bringing us together" I have thought that technology is actually keeping us apart. First of all, each of these sites represents a person sitting alone in front of a computer (even our patrons that are sitting elbow to elbow are strangely alone in their own little world) and that means the person is not sharing with a real someone. And, how much are we losing by limiting our face-to-face contact? How many of these people behind the blogs/spaces can live up to whatever they are writing? And why aren't they involved in a flesh and blood relationship (I don't necessarily mean boyfriend/girlfriend, but just friend/friend)? Are we turning into a nation that lives through a screen? And if you only connect online, are you losing the ability to have a "real" relationship where the other person sees you with your not so perfect hair and a few extra pounds instead of the beautiful avatar you have posted? And are we turning into a people that likes the shadow instead of the reality?

Week 7 #16

I find it hard to see the point of a lot of these wikis. Wikipedia is a good example of what librarians are here to prevent – the dissemination of maybe wrong/maybe right or downright bad information. One of the things that we stress constantly in helping people use the computers is to find a TRUSTED source. The Wikis for information may or may not be trustworthy. And, the SJCPL seems to me to be totally useless. If you are computer literate enough to navigate through the wiki (for example to get to the tax forms) then you are computer literate enough to simply do a search using a search engine. Why go through more clicking? The Book Lovers Wiki from Princeton is another case in point. How do we know whether the person doing the review even read the book? Many of the reviews sound like cobblings from amazon.com. I think this goes back to what I said earlier; I don’t have time to read things my friends suggest, much less strangers.

I did like the Library Success wiki since it is a specific forum for a specific group to share ideas and we can always stand to look at new ideas. I think a system-wide wiki on ideas for bulletin boards, posters, reference, etc., would be nice except that (as has already been mentioned during the reference meetings) no one has the extra time that would be needed to setup and maintain it. And (as has also been said) each library is different in time, space and money restraints (although I think we all share the not enough of any of the three) as well as in patron demographics so what works at one may not work at another. I can see the point of specific group wikis to share information among a related group but I still don’t see the point of general wikis.

Week 6 #15

Library 2.0. I think that it means we change to meet the needs of the community. And the quote from our lesson, "libraries have always been 2.0: collaborative, customer friendly and welcoming" is definitely not true. I think that the public concept of libraries (and to a great extent, librarians) is more of a bank that holds the information as opposed to a store where they can come get information. Some libraries are customer friendly and welcoming, but there are still libraries that are not welcoming and there are still a lot of librarians who want to withhold information more than they want to disseminate it.

Of course, one of the problems (as noted by others) is that the library is different things to different people. One of the problems we have at ours is that to be more welcoming to teens and kids means that a lot of our adult customers feel estranged. People who want to use the library for a quiet refuge are out of luck because our library is more of a community center. We cannot be all things to all people. At our library we offer computer classes but because of space restraints they are out in the library proper - so although we are providing a service for those wanting to learn, we are not providing a service for patrons who want some peace. I think that patrons (as well as librarians) need to understand that there will always be time, money and space restraints. The successful library is the one that juggles these restraints successfully.

Week 6 #14

I think I might have to kick and scream a little.

This section is another one that I don't really get. For example, the first exercise (take a look at Technorati and try doing an advanced search by typing "Learning 2.0" as a keyword search in Blog posts, in tags and in the Blog Directory. Are the results different?) - yes, the results are different but a lot of them are the same - NOT related to Learning 2.0! I think this goes back to the last post - we really, really need structure.

And one other thing I found, which is not surprising but definitely worth noting - is that so many of the people blogging (90% is a conservative estimate) having nothing to say and can't say it in an interesting way.

What did these people do before they were not communicating well via internet? Watch TV is my guess.

Week 6 #13

I'm not sure about this "delicious" thing. I can see that for an individual to make their own tag for their own use, it makes sense; but the problem comes with "tagging is completely unstructured and freeform, allowing users to create connections between data anyway they want" - we at HCPL have already experienced this "free form" type of thing when anyone was allowed to put items into the catalog and it became a nightmare. I don't know about the rest of the world, but Americans do not seem to do well with "unstructured." In fact, the beginning problems are talked about (changing cooking, cook, cooks to one word: cook) but the implications are ignored. I think the internet has already proven to us that more information needs stricter guidelines, not looser.

Week 5 #12

The reminder Elf is a great service - I think that most people check their emails regularly (as opposed to their library accounts) so they would see that they need to do something and it organizes everything so nicely. I particularly appreciate that I can add the cards for the entire family and see everything at once as opposed to having to go to three different accounts. Very nice!