Folksonomies and Tagging

Social bookmarking with del.icio.us. I'm not sure if I get delicious, I think I'll need to play around with it some more. At first glance it seems to be a good idea and I really like tag clouds. I don't know why, perhaps because it seems like a really intuitive system where you don't really have to know anything about them to use them effectively. More important information or information that is most utilised, is larger and therefore more noticeable than more obscure subjects, leading to more efficient identification and usage of said data. but the idea of sitting down and tagging all the websites you are interested in seems like a task for someone with a lot more time on their hands. After setting up my own delicious account (as in the link) I was hard pressed to think of one website to add let alone all of them, and it seemed kind of pointless as I keep all the websites I regularly visit in my Favourites box. But I can see how such sites would be useful for larger organisations to share information and research material within their community. The technology seems to come into its own more as a research tool than as a social endeavour.

However, I really loved Technorati. Being a blog fan I really loved how Technorati made finding new and interesting blogs really easy. A matter of just typing your interest in the search bar and clicking on the blog with the most interesting byline. Searching for "bookmobile", as suggested in the lesson, I found a number of interesting articles a snippet of one I will include because it made me laugh:
thedailywhat:

Buy This: “Smell of Books” — enhance your e-book...
http://carocat.tumblr.com/ post/ 120751138
the daily what : Buy This: “ Smell of Books ” — enhance your e-book experience by giving your e-reader that “fresh from the bookmobile” smell. If you’ve been hesitant to jump on the e-book bandwagon, you’re not alone. Book lovers everywhere have resisted digital books because they still don’t compare to the experience of reading a good old fashioned paper book. But all of that is changing thanks to Smell of Books™, a revolutionary new aerosol e-book enhancer. Now you can finally enjoy reading e-books without giving up the smell you love so much.

How off the wall is that? As if the smell is the only thing keeping people from the new e-book technology.

Lastly we looked at Librarything, another great idea in my humble opinion. Not only does it quickly and easily catalogue your own collection of books but it also allows you to sticky beak at other peoples collections and fine out what they think about their own books.

RSS Feeds

I always wondered what RSS stood for and now I know, Real Simple Syndication and that is what it is; real simple. I've had a Bloglines account for sometime and have collected a number of interesting sites. I subscribe to a really great site called librarian etiquette which is a humorous look at the subculture of library staff rooms. Your Shelves explores the world of private libraries asking people to send in photos of their home bookcases with a short explanation of their collections. 50 books is an exploration of one woman's challenge to read 50 worthwhile books a year and comment on them (though life seems to interrupt an awful lot). I subscribe to the ALIA employment page, looking to see what is available out there for trained librarians (one of which I hope to be in the next few years).

For a while I subscribed to a collection of online comics, some original and some from newspapers. As a result of this i have become addicted to online comics of all sorts which I follow religiously in my own time. I have found that RSS feeds and the recommended sites list on Bloglines allows you to try sites you would not normally have seen (as with comic page) and in doing so opens you to a great range of information and recreational opportunities.

In terms of usage for work purposes, RSS feeds are great in that they provide opportunities to easily research what other library professionals are doing all over the world, how their projects are developed and the returns they have experienced, so that such projects can be adapted and used in your own libraries. Such ideas as gaming the in the library sound great but it is also really useful to have real life feedback on how such projects are received by the average library user.

Social Networking Sites

Personally I haven't had much to do with social networking sites, as i have enough trouble updating my blog let alone tweeting every move that I make and seeing as I see most of my friends at least once a week, I don't see the point in phoning them let alone chatting online. But I can appreciate how these sites can be important tools for people separated by distance or for companies and organisations to interact with their customers on another level.

Libraries in the 21st century have become social and community spaces and the use of social networking to reach out to the community fosters this feeling of inclusion and fun within our patrons. Sunshine Coast Libraries does this very well by using Twitter and Facebook to promote our library events and our services to the wider community.

I've also heard of organisations using these technologies in conjunction with established services, such as Museums posting exhibitions, School based work experience students posting what they are doing on twitter for use by their schools to monitor their progress and so forth. It seems to be only limited by the imagination of its users.