#17 Playing around with PBWiki

PBWiki was fun to play around with. I even added one of my Favorite Restaurants to the SPLS Learning 2.0 wiki.

#16 So what’s in a Wiki?

It was fun searching the different wiki examples given in the Learning 2.0 lesson. Wikipedia has always been a useful (but not always reliable) source for general information. When you open up information for the general public to edit and moderate as they please, information and opinions can vary.

I think wikis can be a very useful tool for various businesses and in Library Land. Given that they are moderated or regulated to an extent, they are a useful platform to disperse information. Think of it as a newsletter or newspaper online.

I think any library could benefit from an online newsletter wiki, a wiki for procedures or regulations, even a book list or recommended reading wiki for staff or the public. The uses are endless!

#15 On Library 2.0 & Web 2.0

I like the idea that Library 2.0 is more than just a term used to describe the use of technology in the Library system. Look at card catalogs for instance. I think if you told anyone 15 years ago that the card catalog would not be around in the next 10 years, most librarians would have laughed at you. The are still around in one way or the other.....just in a new format.....and online. As a whole, libraries are ahead of the curve on adopting new technologies.

#14 Getting not-so-technical with Technorati

Once again, Technorati is a greatly useful tool for organizing and managing your link list and favorite sites. It is one of my favorite tools to quickly browse through a list of links or sites you read on a regular basis to see who has updated and what they are talking about. Being able to breeze through the most recent posts of your favorite websites makes it easy and saves time.

#13 Tagging, folksomonies & social bookmarking in Del.icio.us

Del.icio.us as a website, reminds me of many other social portal sites such as Digg.com. Del.icio.us on the other hand as a bookmarking tool is a good tool to use for those of us that have bookmarks on our home computers and work computers. Or if you share a computer with your kids or spouse, your bookmark list on your computer can become overwhelming rather quickly.

In the early days, used to create my own HTML pages with link lists myself. This was easy to update and maintain. I could also style and layout the link lists how I wanted them (as you can see....I am a bit of a control freak), rather than to just have a drop-down list in your navigation window of your browser.

Del.icio.us can be a useful tool to share and research links and subjects among co-workers or family and friends.

My only negative comment would be that it is yet another online tool that you need to create an account.....log in.....and maintain.

#12 Getting to Know You - MySpace & Facebook

I have had both MySpace and Facebook accounts for some time now....both for different reasons. Each can be used and is beneficial for keeping in touch with different groups of people for different reasons.

#11 A Thing About LibraryThing

LibraryThing is a useful tool for cataloging your collection of books, or books you have read. I didn't know how many of my books would be online, but I found a good collection. My "library" consists more of design and web design books rather than the traditional fiction and non-fiction books.

One of my favorite (offline) programs for my Mac is Delicious Library. It allows you to catalog your books, CDs and DVDs on your personal (Mac) computer. One feature that I love is that you can 'scan' your item by the barcode on the back with your built-in iSight camera and it will pull all the information about the book, CD or DVD from Amazon.com online. It also interfaces with the built-in Address Book program, so you can log who has what and when they borrowed it from you.