Monday, September 17, 2007

Wikis (Thing #16)

Wikis are a great tool that allow users to contribute interesting articles, resources and ideas. They are a great way of coordinating plans without contacting many different people by e-mail. Of course, wikis need to be used with caution, since the accuracy of the information can be in question. This is the major problem with Wikipedia, which many students use for research. While it can be a very useful tool, it should ideally be used in conjunction with some other source with a higher reliability rating.

Library 2.0 (Thing #15)


library 2.0
Originally uploaded by hamilton_buffy
One underlying principle of the Library 2.0 model is the two-way flow of information - from the library to the user and from the user to the library. Users are encouraged to participate in the development and maintenance of library services. User feedback is valued and encouraged, so that services can be continually updated and reevaluated to meet users needs. Users are encouraged to use social computing technologies to share ideas about the library collection and other library services.

Technorati (Thing #14)


Technorati Rank
Originally uploaded by Dosh Dosh
The Technorati web site provides a way to search and browse blogs. The home page lists the latest top blog searches and top tags with links to the blogs. There are also links to popular blogs about music, movies, videos, games and news. Searches can be done using keywords. The "favorites" section gives the user the option of creating a list of favorite blogs, by suppling the URL of the blog and adding a tag. Blogs can be claimed on this site as well.

Tagging and Del.icio.us (Thing #13)

I have lots of favorites on my computer so I figured this would be useful to me. I like that I can access the sites from anywhere. It would also be useful to the librarians on the information desk. They could bookmark regularly used sites and assist customers more quickly and efficiently.

Roll Your Own Search Tool (Thing #12)

I created a search roll for American Explorers web sites to be used by elementary school students. Using Rollyo was very simple. As a librarian I work with the online reference service Ask Us Now, and this would be a very useful tool for organizing web sites to be used for common research questions. The link to my search roll is:
http://www.rollyo.com/ntennant/

Library Thing (Thing #11)


Library Thing
Originally uploaded by <<graham>>
You can catalog your own books very easily on Library Thing simply by typing in the titles. You can also rate books and write reviews. Library Thing creates a user profile for you that allows you to connect to others that have the same books in their catalogs.
The link to my LibraryThing catalog is: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/ntennant

Online Image Generators (Thing #10)


I created the image on the right using Chalkboard Image Generator, a generator I found at the site "Generator Blog". I found many other image generators by doing a Google search.