Thing #10

I think I'm starting to realize why I have been so classically behind on this process. Part of it is my natural late and disorganized nature, and that's kind of obvious. The new realization, though, is the fact that I've done a lot of my own exploring of a lot of these Things, so I'm not as passionate about doing this process as I might have been a year or two ago when I started down the path.

So del.icio.us, for example. I think I started using it in 2006 for my own bookmarks, and then developed an account just for collecting and tagging legal research bookmarks for my Advanced Legal Research class. I love social bookmarking, I have to admit. My del.icio.us accounts are elizout and levin_ALR, if you want to check them out.

There are several reasons I love this process. One is just the ability to save and organize web resources. I am very good at seeing something mindblowing on the web that I want to come back to later, and then never remembering how I got there. With a bookmarking site like del.icio.us, I don't have to remember. I can just save it in there for later. The tags are another reason -- the fact that I can organize them how I want to, creating my own categories, is great. The social nature of the tags is even better. Once I see that a tag is in use, for something that I'm interested in, I can click the link and see what everyone else has saved with that tag. Thus finding more cool stuff. The other great aspect of the social connection is that when I see that other people have bookmarked a site, I can see who they are and look at their links, thus finding more cool stuff. I love it, it works great for me.

Now that I've read The Several Habits of Wildly Successful del.icio.us Users, I've learned at least one thing that I'm not doing, which is using the inbox. I'm definitely going to set that up.

However, I have tried some other tools that I tend to use more now for my work-related bookmarking. They enable more organization of your bookmarks, and more ways to connect with other users. Connotea is a good one that I have used. So is Diigo, which is the one I probably use the most lately. Diigo has interesting additional features if you install the toolbar -- it lets you highlight and put sticky notes on web pages, so that you're essentially annotating the web. And anyone else who has Diigo installed in their browser can see your annotations. It's fascinating.

Thing #9

Okay, well, part of the reason it took me so long to do this one is that for some reason I was really challenged by Slideshare. Every time I went to that web site, I'd sit there and get upset because I couldn't get any sound. Then I finally realized that most of the presentations on there don't have sound. And then I started thinking, "I don't get it."

Because all of the stuff I've been reading and hearing about presentations the last couple years is how we're supposed to be getting away from content-heavy slides, you're not supposed to be reading your slides, slides are just supposed to be eye-catching or entertaining graphics or illustrations of the real content (what you're saying). So the slides for some of these presentations feel really empty to me, like there's all this stuff I'm missing if I can't hear what the people actually said when they gave the presentation.

I've seen that there are plenty of presentations on there that do have sound; plus there are folks who put a sort of written transcript there with their slides, so I guess that's something. But slides by themselves don't really seem to mean very much.

As far as using this in the library, it's obviously great for people who are working on presentations together to have access to the slides (you can also do this using Google Docs, by the way). You could ask speakers who come to do programs at the library to post their slides (if they have them) to the library's slideshare so that patrons can have access to the presentation if they missed it or if they want to promote/share the information they saw at a program. Of course, if you're the speaker, you can do that too.

An earlier Thing focused on Flickr - for this Thing I used the Flickr badge and put it on my blog... it's on the right over there under the meebo widget. It would be better if I spent some time choosing photos for the display and tagging them for the badge. But I can see how we could do something like this for a library web site or blog. Photos create interest, and it would be a particularly good way to post about an event that happened in the library -- take photos, post them to the blog or web site using the Flickr badge. It's interesting, it looks slick, people like pictures.

I wasn't able to get the database sharing thing to work, but I sure am sorry about that. That's the one I got pretty excited about, actually. Too bad.

This I swear...

I'm going to finish this dang list by deadline. It doesn't look like it, I know. But I'm GOING to do it. All I want is a USB drive that says "NEFLIN" on it.

Thing #8 part two

I went ahead and added a meebo widget to my blog. I have done this before, for my blog that serves as a class web site for the legal research class that I teach. This is the third semester that I have used it, but the first time that the meebo widget has really seemed to get a lot of use. I'm not sure why that is, but I like being able to communicate with my students that way -- they can ask me a question when it's fresh in their minds, as soon as they have it, and they don't have to wait to see me, or send an email and wait for a response, etc. If they see I'm online, they can ask me right now. If we need to actually talk as a result, we can arrange to meet. I think it works great.

We don't have this on our library web site yet, but I hope to add it soon, at the very least on our specialized subject area pages. I've seen it on other library web sites, and I think it's a great idea. The main thing you have to do is remember to always be logged into meebo when you're at your desk.

Now... twitter. I have a complex relationship with twitter. I like it, I enjoy reading it, I get tons of great information from it. I think it's a great networking tool, and a great way to get news of all kinds. However, I've never somehow developed the skill of posting. First of all, the time and commitment. You have to have it open, you have to be thinking about it, you have to do it. It's obviously not that much time, but over the course of a day or week it adds up. The other thing is, you have to say something that matters. And the reason I think I'm not very successful is that I rarely get responses to my tweets, even when I'm specifically asking for input. Maybe I'm just unpopular. :)

Anyway, I've added a Twitter feed to my blog as well.

Thing #8: Communication Web 2.0 Style

1a. I watched the video. I'm Generation X (on the old end, but nevertheless) so this isn't foreign to me, but I never did get into the IM thing so heavily that I picked up all the acronym slang, so that was the thing that really stood out. And while I think that learning some of that jargon would help communicate with people who are really comfortable with IM and texting, I also have to insist that it is absolutely not necessary. I just hope that there are not librarians out there who are resisting virtual reference because they are intimidated by that. I use IM to communicate with my students (in the research class that I teach). First of all, they don't expect me to know that jargon, so they don't use it with me. And even if they did -- I'm a reference librarian! I can Google it and find out what it means! OR... you can just ASK them what it means.

1b. I read the article. We currently do not do IM reference at our library, though the rest of the University Libraries do participate in Ask a Librarian. Here at the law library we have not done that; in the past I believe the rationale was that it isn't appropriate for legal reference questions because we have to worry about the line between legal reference and legal advice, and that is harder to do in email or IM. So this library said no to that. I'm in a position now to revive that conversation and change our policy; but I just haven't taken it on yet. I don't agree that legal reference is inappropriate via IM. Law libraries all over the country are doing it, and I think you handle it the same as many other reference questions where the user really has to come into the library to get what they need. You just help them understand what they have to do next, and why they have to come to the library. Not a big deal.

1c. There are a couple of us who use IM to communicate with each other in my library. I think it will catch on more as we tempt others with the ease and convenience of it. For example, our Head of Technical Services (whose office is actually next door to mine) likes to email me very short questions, which I answer with short answers, and he follows up with another very short question, whereupon I usually call him or get up and walk over and say "if you had IM we'd be done with this conversation already." I think we'll get him to join the club soon. I do agree that having staff use IM is beneficial to the library both from a productivity standpoint and because it creates the familiarity with the tool so that people will be willing to communicate with users that way.

2. I am not a huge texter, but I do use it. It is often extremely convenient. You need to send a message but don't need to talk to someone - text! And the web OPAC here at UF incorporated a texting feature last year that I think is fabulous - for any record that you have selected, you can ask the catalog to text you the call number. The students that have actually discovered this (promotion is always the biggest problem, isn't it?) love it, as one would expect them to. And I love it too.

3. Web conferencing. I've signed up for and "attended" plenty of webinars. As we try to be greener and more responsible with resources, plus dealing with budget cuts, travel to attend workshops and presentations becomes less doable. So I believe in and usually like webinars and web meetings. The one step I haven't taken is doing this myself, but I think that is something we should be doing. Thinking about how we can present programming this way... how we can have meetings this way... etc.

Thing #7: Online image generators

I spent WAY too much time on this one. Definitely time-consuming, but obviously a really easy way to get some fun, engaging graphics for your library web site, for flyers, book marks, etc. Or for creating other types of interactions with users, like the trading card idea. I knew these sites existed, but I had never spent any time looking at them before, so it was a valuable and fun experience.

Here's my poster for my 23 Things experience... it's kind of a stretch, but I had fun with this picture (my husband's cats).

Thing #6: Flickr Mashups

This seems to be the most popular Flickr mashup tool among the Neflin 23 Things bloggers, and I am nothing if not conformist. Mickey is my dog's name; we had to euthanize him last week, and I am still pretty much not over it. Speaking of Mickey, that brings to mind another big plus for Flickr: I can call up pictures of Mickey any time I feel like it, just about wherever I am. I don't have to have my camera, or my computer, or anything special, just web access.

Here's another one I liked: splashr. You definitely could use this in a lot of ways, to promote programming, featured books/videos/other, feature different parts of your library space, on your web site or for presentations. Here's one of puppies!

I have used the mosaic tool from Big Huge Labs before, and I really like that one. It's a great way to post a collection of photos in a somewhat unusual way on your web site. It's simultaneously attention grabbing and easy to ignore. So many people, especially young people, are so stimulated by visual information. Therefore I think these tools are great ways to pique the interest of our customers and relate to them.