Part 1 - Facebook
Step 1
This step was easy for me! I've been using Facebook to help with activities in my student association. We have a Facebook group we use to invite connect with other members, publicize group events, and share newsworthy items.
Step 2
I'm already friends with several other members of my student association, and a few of my co-workers and colleagues, but I always like making new friends on Facebook. I 'friended' a few of the people in this class.
Step 3
I left a message on one of my colleague's wall thanking him for a link he sent to my del.icio.us account.
Step 4
I'm familiar with Facebook's 'events' application. I've even created events myself. I searched for and found MLA's Annual meeting and the Technology Trends meeting. Unfortunately I won't be able to attend the conference this year. Maybe next year!
Step 5
I have a couple of library related applications on my Facebook page, but the UAB catalog isn't one of them. I found the application by searching the 'apps' for 'UAB catalog'. After I added the app to my page, I did a quick search for 'catheter'. The search opened a new Firefox tab with UAB's catalog and my search results. My search returned 46 hits, mostly books.
Step 6
Again, this step was easy! I already had both Pubmed applications 'Pubface' and 'Pubmed Search' added to my profile. I've tried them both out before, and they both do the same thing, returning search results in the same format. I think these applications are good for quick Pubmed searches, but are not real replacements for PubMed itself.
Step 7
I already had the WorldCat application added to my profile, and have tried it out. I think the 'suggested readings' feature is interesting, but not that helpful to me. This application is a lot like the Pubmed applications. Results are listed within Facebook, but you can click on individual search results which will open the homepage in a new Firefox tab (for me).
Part 2 - LinkedIn
Step 1
I joined LinkedIn a few months back as part of an assignment I completed for a class I was taking. It looks like it's a great application for building a network of colleagues both in your area and afar. It's also a good tool for employers who might want to supplement what they know of potential employees.
Step 2
I sent 'Connection' requests to a few people I knew from my student association and a few of my co-workers.
Discussion Points
I definitely prefer Facebook to MySpace. Facebook has a much cleaner interface, and is overall easier to navigate and search. The applications offered by Facebook make it a more versatile and relevant tool than MySpace. For me, I would consider MySpace to be more for personal use, where Facebook could definitely have professional applications. Developing a catalog application should be a must for any academic library. As librarians, increasingly we have to 'go where the users are'. I think Facebook's median user age is a little higher than MySpace's though, so I can understand why a Children's Librarian, or a Public Library, would choose MySpace over Facebook.
As with anything on the internet, security and privacy are a huge issue. There is no guarantee that anyone is who they say they are, and websites can't guarantee that the security measures they put in place will stop hackers from gaining access to personal information. Outsiders aren't the only threat. Facebook faced criticism last year for not allowing users to stop them from feeding their information to their advertising agency, Beacon. As long as we exercise caution and forethought when dealing with social networking sites, I think they can help us reach new users and connect with our colleagues.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
Week Two
I'd never used wetpaint before this week (I've always used wikispaces), and I'd never created a wiki of my own. I know how useful they can be for collaboration though, so I was excited to try it out. Wetpaint made it easy to click through the wiki creation process. I decided to create my wiki as a home for interesting websites, blogs and other wikis I've found while taking this course. I gave it a simple, easy (for me) to remember name using my initials: http://kfrmla.wetpaint.com/.
While I was in the middle of adding my wiki to the list of class wikis, someone had submitted his/her change right before me. I had to 'manually merge' my changes with his/her's. It was an impromptu, but important, lesson in wiki editing.
Discussion Points
Step 1
The library where I work uses a wiki. We use it as a document repository, as a shared place to record work processes, and for internal communication (ex. advertising and signing up for work events). It is also used to manage projects that have team members contributing from multiple library branches.
Step 3
I find this to be very true. My workplace wiki would quickly become irrelevant without everyone making contributions and keeping the content they submitted up to date. The wiki also lets us catch and fix any mistakes and dated material we find.
The student association I'm a member of uses our wiki to record meeting minutes, advertise upcoming events, and get opinions from our members. I've helped contribute to both of these wikis. However it doesn't get a lot of use because only the officers really contribute to it. With only a handful of people adding content, it isn't being utilized to its full potential.
Step 4
I joined the 'Baking Wiki' and contributed a recipe I have for 'raw cheesecake'. I know people use wikis for purposes outside of academia, but this is the first time I've done so personally.
Step 7
Blogs make it easy to track the history of a shared conversation using 'comments'. Using RSS technology, it is easier to use blogs to keep up to date with new content. While blogs are better for fostering group conversation, it is much harder to create a collaborative work using blogs. While blogs can have multiple contributors, most of the time these contributors have to be added by one or two main 'administrators'. Wikis don't have this restriction. They make it easy for many people to edit the same document. All of a blogs contributors could collaborate on the same blog post, but it would get confusing to track the development of the document. In a wiki, all edits are logged so that everyone involved in the process can quickly see who made what changes.
Wikis are also closer to being like websites than blogs are. Wikis allow users to create subsidiary pages which can be linked from the main wiki page and vise versa. For example in my wiki, I created separate pages for 'blogs', 'wikis', and 'websites'. While blogs could create separate posts where people could comment with additions (or edit the posts by contributing), the information would not be as well organized.
While I was in the middle of adding my wiki to the list of class wikis, someone had submitted his/her change right before me. I had to 'manually merge' my changes with his/her's. It was an impromptu, but important, lesson in wiki editing.
Discussion Points
Step 1
The library where I work uses a wiki. We use it as a document repository, as a shared place to record work processes, and for internal communication (ex. advertising and signing up for work events). It is also used to manage projects that have team members contributing from multiple library branches.
Step 3
I find this to be very true. My workplace wiki would quickly become irrelevant without everyone making contributions and keeping the content they submitted up to date. The wiki also lets us catch and fix any mistakes and dated material we find.
The student association I'm a member of uses our wiki to record meeting minutes, advertise upcoming events, and get opinions from our members. I've helped contribute to both of these wikis. However it doesn't get a lot of use because only the officers really contribute to it. With only a handful of people adding content, it isn't being utilized to its full potential.
Step 4
I joined the 'Baking Wiki' and contributed a recipe I have for 'raw cheesecake'. I know people use wikis for purposes outside of academia, but this is the first time I've done so personally.
Step 7
Blogs make it easy to track the history of a shared conversation using 'comments'. Using RSS technology, it is easier to use blogs to keep up to date with new content. While blogs are better for fostering group conversation, it is much harder to create a collaborative work using blogs. While blogs can have multiple contributors, most of the time these contributors have to be added by one or two main 'administrators'. Wikis don't have this restriction. They make it easy for many people to edit the same document. All of a blogs contributors could collaborate on the same blog post, but it would get confusing to track the development of the document. In a wiki, all edits are logged so that everyone involved in the process can quickly see who made what changes.
Wikis are also closer to being like websites than blogs are. Wikis allow users to create subsidiary pages which can be linked from the main wiki page and vise versa. For example in my wiki, I created separate pages for 'blogs', 'wikis', and 'websites'. While blogs could create separate posts where people could comment with additions (or edit the posts by contributing), the information would not be as well organized.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Week One
Response to Course Material
Information overload is an issue in all professions, but especially so in the medical world. Doctors and health professionals work long hours at jobs that take all of their energy and focus. They may want to keep up with the latest research in a certain field, or follow a certain issue as it develops, but don't have the time it takes to scan through thousands of medical journals and news sites. RSS feeds are a quick and easy way for them to streamline their information sources into one page. As RSS feed technology becomes more and more popular the amount of information available in RSS format will grow in leaps and bounds, making it useful to more and more types of patrons.
Using RSS technology, I could offer to set up RSS feeds specifically tailored to any of my patrons' needs. I can also use RSS feeds to keep up with news and events in my own field. My library has a blog, and I know many other libraries have blogs as well. Subscribing to the blogs of local libraries is a good way to keep up to date with events which may affect me or my patron base. My library is part of a university system and a teaching hospital. It's easy to get out of touch with what these other parts are up to, and too often the first we hear of university and hospital news is when it affects the library unexpectedly. If any of the departments keep blogs, it would be easy to use RSS feeds to make sure I know what's going on outside of the library.
Thoughts on the First Week
This is the first week of MLA's 'Web 2.0 101' course, and already I've learned a lot! I knew a lot about blogs coming into the course, and I knew a little about RSS feeds, but I'd never set up a Feed account before. I chose Blogger.com because it's integrated with Google, and Google has an RSS Reader feature. This means one log in, one account, less for me to remember! I've also posted with Blogger in the past with a student organization I've joined, so it was familiar to me.
I've already found RSS feeds are keeping me up to date on the medical library world. Subscribing to the blog of my local chapter has let me know about upcoming events and networking opportunities. Subscribing to my workplace's blog is letting me know what is being added to the collection and what is going on at other university libraries.
Information overload is an issue in all professions, but especially so in the medical world. Doctors and health professionals work long hours at jobs that take all of their energy and focus. They may want to keep up with the latest research in a certain field, or follow a certain issue as it develops, but don't have the time it takes to scan through thousands of medical journals and news sites. RSS feeds are a quick and easy way for them to streamline their information sources into one page. As RSS feed technology becomes more and more popular the amount of information available in RSS format will grow in leaps and bounds, making it useful to more and more types of patrons.
Using RSS technology, I could offer to set up RSS feeds specifically tailored to any of my patrons' needs. I can also use RSS feeds to keep up with news and events in my own field. My library has a blog, and I know many other libraries have blogs as well. Subscribing to the blogs of local libraries is a good way to keep up to date with events which may affect me or my patron base. My library is part of a university system and a teaching hospital. It's easy to get out of touch with what these other parts are up to, and too often the first we hear of university and hospital news is when it affects the library unexpectedly. If any of the departments keep blogs, it would be easy to use RSS feeds to make sure I know what's going on outside of the library.
Thoughts on the First Week
This is the first week of MLA's 'Web 2.0 101' course, and already I've learned a lot! I knew a lot about blogs coming into the course, and I knew a little about RSS feeds, but I'd never set up a Feed account before. I chose Blogger.com because it's integrated with Google, and Google has an RSS Reader feature. This means one log in, one account, less for me to remember! I've also posted with Blogger in the past with a student organization I've joined, so it was familiar to me.
I've already found RSS feeds are keeping me up to date on the medical library world. Subscribing to the blog of my local chapter has let me know about upcoming events and networking opportunities. Subscribing to my workplace's blog is letting me know what is being added to the collection and what is going on at other university libraries.
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