MLA Web 2.0 Assignment for Week 8

Part I

Mash-ups, hmm, I guess I had heard the term but I never knew what fun they could be! My favorite discoveries this morning:

Mapdango - I'll definitely put this on my list when I am gathering information before traveling both near and far (searched on one of my favorite spots - Bermuda. Wish I were there right now!)

Star viewer - on the list when I need a little distraction and I need to be reminded of my place in the universe (an interactive map of the night sky)

Go-go Google Gadget - I hope our library will think about implementing some of these. A fast and easy way to add some pizazz to our web site

Part II

The post that struck me the most talked about the attitude difference between baby-boomer types (like me) and the net-gens or any other younger generation type. Yes, I am extremely concerned about my privacy and post my private information quite cautiously. My teenage son is at the opposite end of the spectrum. He is about to be a college student (here at UNC-Chapel Hill - yeah!) and he sees the privacy issue as something that is blown out of proportion. We'll see if my concerns are valid or if my son (and his peers) really get it!

MLA Web 2.0 Assignment for Week 7

While I resisted using YouTube for awhile, I have used it a few times in the past year with great success. Unfortunately, I just checked on a great EBM video I had used with the first year medical students last fall and found it has been removed. It was a really entertaining spoof on Bon Jovi called "EBM Got a Bad Name." It featured a group of MS 1 students who come to appreciate the importance of evidence-based medicine. I'm bummed that it is gone!

I had also used YouTube to find videos on health careers for some high school students visiting our medical library. Found lots of useful possibilities there. Plus I looked for videos on the "lived experience" of mental illness and found some helpful testimonials from patients.

All and all, I am a fan of YouTube although I'll never use it to the extent that my 17 year old son does! The Educause piece makes good points about the appeal of visual learning for the younger generation.

In my opinion, podcasting holds great potential for library use. I don't think putting together library orientation sessions is the way to go. Instead, I can see the value of recording lectures or providing commentary on specialized materials like historical collections or local materials unique to our library.

MLA Web 2.0 Course Assignment Week 6

Photo sharing is one of those Web 2.0 technologies that I had not investigated before this course. I have viewed photos of family and friends on Flickr but had not set up my own account or thought about any professional uses. Reading about the Library of Congress project was quite interesting. There does seem to be a lot of potential for going beyond posting images on static web pages. The added value of social tagging holds quite a bit of promise, something I learned in Week 4 with social bookmarking.

At this point, we do not have any plans at our library to use photo sharing. But perhaps in the future we could take some of our unique historical materials, such as our Selected Bibliographies of North Carolina Health Professionals, and link them to images or photos in a shared public space. I imagine that would greatly enhance access beyond just posting them to our web pages

MLA Web 2.0 Course: Assignment for Week 5

These collaborative, web-based software products have enormous potential for both personal and professional use. It makes so much sense to have an easily-accessible, shared space for collaborating on research, projects, presentations and the like.

Some possible uses:

Professional committee work (sure wish I had used this approach when I was chair of the MAC Publications Committee)

Group research (I will recommend it to the docs who I am working with on a revision of a practice guideline)

Class assignments (I will be thinking of how to make use of this more in the coming year)

All in all, this is one of the most useful things I have learned so far!

MLA Course Assignment Week 4

Social bookmarking is not something I have tried before. I found it helpful immediately for a project I am working on for an EBM conference. I ended up adding a bunch of bookmarks for evidence-based behavioral practice that I hope others will find to be helpful. This was a super-useful exercise. I hope to have more time to explore ways to use it for myself and for our patrons. Interesting change from the controlled vocabulary mentality that is so much a part of our professional thinking

MLA Course Assignment for Week 3 Social Networking

Confessions of a middle-aged librarian - I am cynical about the use of Facebook for libraries. Makes me think of parents who try so hard to be "friends" to their teenagers rather than sticking to the role they really should play, which is being parents! Maybe if I was younger and my main user base was younger, I'd feel differently. But I don't see the need to try so hard to be cool by having a presence in Facebook unless it really adds value. Plus the issue of privacy is real and should be considered seriously.

Linkedin has some potential but I am way too busy keeping up with everything else to embrace it. Call me a curmudgeon, but that is the way I feel :)

Now that I've made my reservations clear, I did think the piece by Meredith Farkas had real value. Quotable lines - " When you decide to put up a library profile on MySpace or Facebook, what is your goal?" and "Just like any social software tool, it’s what you do with it that matters." So maybe if I see more evidence of added value, I'll change my tune.

Difference between blogs and wikis

A personal blog is essentially an online journal, except that others are free to comment on your thoughts and ideas. Organizational blogs, like our library news blog, offer a quick and easy way to promote library services.

A wiki is a collaborative web site, which only has value when there is a dedicated community of users who are willing to contribute and participate. A wiki should grow more robust and useful over time. My favorite example of a robust wiki is the EBM Librarian. I've used the EBM wiki many times and have made contributions myself