joy at moll projects dot com
The Web is a magical place. I joined the 2007 TBR Challenge on 43 Things yesterday. As an afterthought, I threw the post up on my blog as well. This morning, I received email from David Weinberger author of Small Pieces Loosely Joined, a book on my list! That's so fun that I've been smiling all day because of it.
That, and some other things, have me thinking about Steve Lawson's recent post on See Also..., Experts and Novices. Here's the bit that keeps coming to mind:
People who don't read a bunch of blogs and similar sites through RSS, who don't have any kind of online social/professional network must have a completely different experience of surfing the web from those of us who do. That's why they ask us questions like "how do you even know about all this cool stuff?" It ain't by Googling random keywords, that's for sure.
I have that experience with the library blogosphere and on 43 Things. I briefly had the goal "Lose 30 pounds" on 43 Things, until I discovered that as a community-making mechanism, that goal was useless to me--it drew too many adolescents who either had anorexia or wanted to have it. Not a healthy group and not particularly responsive to the preaching that is the first reaction of most adults when they encounter those posts.
A 43 Things novice might be put off by that and never come back. As a 43 Things expert, I knew there were better places for me to find the group I wanted. In recent surfing of goals (looking at the lists of people connected to me because they share one or more goals with me or because they cheered me on one of my goals), I had noticed a couple of people with the goal eat healthily. I noticed not because of any immediate interest in the goal but because, to my Midwest ears, that doesn't sound grammatically correct even though I suspect it probably is. It turns out that besides knowing how adverbs work, this group has a nice little community of people who encourage each other, share triumphs and failures, and offer tips.
The point of all these thoughts? Mostly gratitude for the connections I make through the librarian blogosphere and 43 Things. But also, this all reminds me that if I want to get more people to use Bloglines or another RSS feed reader (and I'm pretty much of the opinion that almost anyone would benefit from it, especially the people in academia who I work with), that I need to provide them with feeds to get started. From there, they can make connections rather than try to find their own way--encountering a Web that seems wild and wooly instead of magical.
Labels: instruction, social software
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I found the 2007 TBR Challenge on 43 Things, but it originated on the blogosphere in this post by MizB. The idea is that you pick 12 books you've been meaning to read (on your To Be Read list or pile), then read one a month in 2007.
Here's my list:
1) The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
2) Life of Pi by Yann Martell
3) Dreams of My Father by Barack Obama
4) Small Pieces Loosely Joined by David Weinberger
5) Leave me alone, I'm reading : finding and losing myself in books by Maureen Corrigan
6) The long tail : why the future of business is selling less of more by Chris Anderson
7) Never eat alone and other secrets to success : one relationship at a time by Keith Ferrazzi with Tahl Raz
8) Resonant Leadership : renewing yourself and connecting with others through mindfulness, hope, and compassion by Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee
9) The knitting way : a guide to spiritual self-discovery by Linda Skolnik & Janice Macdaniels
10) Transforming leadership : a new pursuit of happiness by James MacGregor Burns
11) What the river knows : an angler in midstream by Wayne Fields
12) A pirate looks at fifty by Jimmy Buffett
Labels: social software
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I just "got friended" by the American Library Association on My Space. The Books entry under Interests made me laugh out loud. I'm guessing we have Jenny Levine to thank for this--thanks!
Update: Jenny Levine reports that Wendy Prellowitz is reponsible for the MySpace page. Thanks, Wendy!
Labels: social software
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Session 1 at the SILRC (pronounced Silrock and standing for Southern Illinois Learning Resources Cooperative) Retreat was mine: Social Networking Software in Libraries. I doubt that anyone blogged it....But I talked from a wiki that is publicly viewable. There's also a handout with definitions that I should probably throw up on the web sometime.
This is the third time I've given this talk as a 90-minute overview of web-based social technologies--wikis, blogs, instant messaging, sharing sites, and community sites (although the last two seem to be blending). People seem to get a lot out of seeing lots of library examples in conjunction with short definitions--it helps them understand the similarities and differences.
I'm giving it again on Friday for the Kirkwood Public Library's In Service Day. I'll probably change quite a few of the links to focus on public library examples. Suggestions welcome: joy at moll projects dot com. Also, I think I only get to talk an hour, so if anyone has ideas on what to cut, I'd love to hear it.
The difference between a retreat and a conference seems to be that there are fewer people (about 30) and only one track of sessions. With no choices to make, no room changes, and a reasonable number of people to meet, I found a retreat to be a much more relaxed atmosphere than a conference. I stayed for a couple of more sessions (and lunch) so I'll blog those in the next two blog posts.
Labels: conferences, presentations, social software
# (0) commentsTwo things have made me laugh out loud today.
I consider the second item to be not only fun, but the best interaction with students I've had yet using social software.
Labels: fun, social software
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We have rolled out Instant Messaging reference for the fall semester. I would still like to improve the web page with status indicators and/or logos of the services, but the information is there. Besides the web page, we marketed the service with bright red bookmarks printed with the IM information and IM was mentioned in the promotional material that was sent out for Techology Changes Fall '06, our attempt to get the word out that the Libraries will begin charging for printing on October 20.
We're getting maybe a question a day via IM at the moment--not bad for a new service and the beginning of the semester. We've had a variety of responses from patrons and librarians:
The first, and longest, step to getting IM reference at our library was to research the security issues. Two articles proved most useful for that:
The most serious security concern comes from file transfers. At our library, staff members are using either Trillian, which we set to not accept file transfers, or Meebo, which doesn't yet support file transfers. The second security concern involves clicking on links. We have asked people to be as careful about doing that as they are about clicking on attachments to email--or more careful since some viruses can apparently mask themselves as a person on your IM buddy list.
Labels: social software
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