Thursday, July 16, 2009

Exploration 9 - What's Next and Looking Back

Wow, what a journey this has been - not in the difficulty of learning the material, but in finding the time to complete each exploration. It is an significant accomplishment to say that I can now check this off of my "To Do" list...

It was interesting to look at the Web 2.0 Award winners from 2007. Of course, many of the sites I am familiar with, but there are still so many that I have not explored or for that matter have even heard about. It truly would be a full time job for me to keep up with this rapid pace.

I remember taking an Internet Fundamentals course at AACC back in 1994 when the World Wide Web was in its infancy. Now, I can barely remember what life was like before the Internet and Google - and that's a very good thing! The Internet truly has changed our lives both professionally and personally...

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Facebook Adventure

Almost another month has slipped by before I could find time to post again...

I have just returned from my first beach trip to Nags Head and have been coerced by our friends to sign up for a Facebook account in order to keep up with everyone.

With much resistance, I have now registered and have a very small "friends" list currently. It does seem to be an efficient way to send out a quick message or to share photos. However, I still find it interesting the people post any small trivial detail on their Facebook account. They seem to have far more time than I at this point. I may find that I close my account due to mere information overload on my part. Only time will tell...

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Exploration 8 - Social Bookmarking

Allow me to first comment that I cannot believe that 3 months has slipped by before I had an opportunity to get back to Web 2.0... So, here it is late in the afternoon and I am trying to finish up another Exploration before the day ends again!

At NCO, our first introduction to social bookmarking was when we transitioned from using Favorites for our frequently used websites to using del.icio.us. It enabled us to quickly identify popular websites and be able to access them from any computer. We can easily share those websites and discover new links when browsing tags.

I must admit that I am still a novice when it comes to making full use of social bookmarking and I certainly have not completely uncovered the benefit of using it for research. It may be useful to search it in conjunction with Google for certain research topics; an area I will need to investigate further.

Unfortunately, public service demands prevent me from continuing this commentary at this time...

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Exploration 7 - Wonderful World of Wikis

For many of us, our first introduction to Wikis was the Wikipedia - an online, open-access encyclopedia. As librarians, we viewed it with caution concerned about the reliability of the information as a resource for our patrons. However, experience has told us that it can be a good resource at times.

AACPL has begun to use wikis to collaborate on projects such as developing the new Long Range Plan or in seeking a better way to organize, share, and disseminate documents such as the Materials Management wiki. For many staff, we are utilizing the various wikis as a resource to access documents but may not have had the opportunity to post or edit as part of the wiki community.

Wikis enable anyone to utilize a website to plan and coordinate in a shared environment without the need to use email attachments or to be well versed in HTML editing. With a little experience, it really does make it easy for anyone to collaborate on a website.

Exploration 7 did introduce me to the Library Success wiki which looks like a great resource for libraries on a variety of topics. It seems like a good starting point for seeking new ideas or identifying trends in the library community.

Many AACPL Info staff are gaining comfort in accessing wikis from our Intranet for a variety of information needs. I think we will see more branch/system projects utilizing wikis as a means of easy collaboration and document management in the future.

Zoho Practice document

Wanda L Wagner

12 March 2009

This seems very straight forward and works very much like using Word Perfect or MS Word software. The advantage would be the ability to be able to store it on the server and access if from anywhere without a flash drive!

Zoho did not seem to save the original Untitled document. It is not in the list of documents on the left.

Great Wall of China

  • Remember to recommend Zoho to patrons
  • Structured similarly to Word and is easy to navigate without instruction
  • Ability to store documents without a flash drive
  • Ability to share documents when needed

Zoho
MS Word
Word Perfect
Easy to Use
Easy to Use
Easy to Use
FREE
Must purchase Software
Must purchase software
Available on Internet
Need flash drive!
Need flash drive!

Exploration 6 - Online Office Tools

I finally had a chance to continue working on Web 2.0 activities this morning and have made it through Exploration 6.

The online office tools is a very useful tool for those who do not have access to software products. With a simple registration process, you then have access to a variety of products including word processding, spreadsheet, presentations, etc.

I only tried out the word processing tool and it works very much like Word or WordPerfect. It is easy to use and the ability to store your documents without a flash drive is terrific! We have been suggesting this to patrons for quite sometime now, but I had not actually taken the opportunity to try it out myself.

It's the perfect solution for patrons who do not have computer access at home and come to the public ibrary to conduct their computer business. You can access your documents anywhere you have Internet access. We will continue to promote this with the public!

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Web 2.0 project at a snail's pace

I have not logged into my blog since way before the holidays. Wow, was I surprised to see that my last posting was dated 10/15/08 and here it is 2009!

I quickly checked Bloglines for a quick update on the RSS feeds I had set up and see that nothing earth shattering occurred during my absence.

It's time to move on to Exploration 5 - It's a Library Thing! More to come...

WLW