the sky's the limit...

I can't believe this time of the semester is here...and I have to be honest...I am ready for it!

Responding to Suellen's request for a final post, here are a couple of things I learned this semester.  Firstly, my knowledge of web 2.0 and social media services was not up to par when I began this semester.  Although I was not in the dark about this topic, I was not that frequent a user of these tools.  Now, I can say quite the opposite!  I have been exposed to and learned about so many cool web 2.0 tools!  One of my favorites was Twitter.  At first, I didn't quite get it.  I didn't understand why anyone would want to follow people...what did they have to say that was so good???  After editing who I was following, I found people or organizations that I found really interesting.  Besides reading what others tweeted about, I enjoyed tweeting to the class as well.  I liked that Suellen gave us the freedom to be sort of creative with how we communicated some of our thoughts regarding what we read, watched or found for this class.  Secondly, I really enjoyed creating the book review via Prezi and YouTube.  I gave myself a crash course using Prezi and was really proud of my final product.

Needless to say, although I am not a librarian right now, I am an English teacher, and I am really excited about trying some of these tools out in my classroom.  I hope to get my Shelfari page up and running so that my students can join and access the titles I am sharing with them.  I am thinking about how blogging, tweeting and wiki creation can fit into my classroom and curriculum as well.

I guess you could say the sky's the limit when it comes to web 2.0 tools!

Thanks for an enjoyable semester and learning about a fun topic!

some thoughts on the gaming articles...

I wish there was gaming in the library when I was young...of course we'd be playing Pac Man or Pitfall, but it would have been really fun!  Overall, I like the idea of gaming in the library just bringing people together.

In Suellen's article, "The case for video games in libraries," I was drawn to the fact that she mentions concrete connections to educational benefits as well as social benefits.  I do think that video games tend to get a bad rap among older generations that didn't grow up with any kind of video games.  I can see a librarian needing some ammunition in order to convince administration that gaming in the library is worthwhile, and I think this article provides those concrete examples needed.  I also really like the suggestion of matching up books to the game being played.  Of course, the books don't literally have to be able the game or characters within the game, but displaying books with a similar interest makes a lot of sense, and I would imagine people would be interested in the non-verbal recommendation if they saw the display being linked to a game that they really liked.

I found "Percolating the Power of Play" pretty interesting.  How fortunate Champlain College's library was to be able to recognize the skills that are prevalent in their students--gaming skills--and mixing that with the need for information literacy skills.  I can't imagine students wouldn't be interested in giving this a try.  I do, however, wonder if these games are really just a "gimmick?"


Now, for Howard Rheingold's Second Life...I was a bit confused.  Is his Second Life virtual world a space for his online courses?  He teaches social media at Stanford University, so does he throw his students into a virtual world to be part of social media too?  Curious...

Haven't used Facebook too much yet...still trying to understand it and gather some friends.  I have noticed that if people's privacy settings are as high as possible, you really can't find them.

Almost done the summer semester...had fun with this class...hope you did too!

thoughts on week's readings...

After reading the articles by Peter Fernandez, I was left surprised by some of what I learned.  In "Online Social Networking Sites and Privacy: Revisiting Ethical Considerations for a New Generation of Technology," I encountered the term "Illusion of Privacy" for the first time.  Previous to this class, I knew that there were issues with privacy when using sites like Facebook; however, I thought the issues had to do with people simply seeing what you posted.  I didn't realize that data mining existed.  I didn't realize that if a librarian was chatting with a patron, that the patron's confidentiality was being compromised because the conversation could be culled by organizations looking for information as a way to advertise, for example.  I was also surprised by Facebook's own data that revealed that 25% of their users cannot find the security settings.  Wouldn't Facebook want to improve this so that their users could find this more easily?  Reading this made me wonder about the ethical  workings of a social network on behalf of the network's creators/executives.

Next, in "Privacy and Generation Y," I was shocked when I read about Facebook's attempt to change their Terms of Service--specifically when they tried to say that ALL content posted (information, photos, videos, etc.) would be owned by Facebook.  I was happy to read that this didn't fly with its users, and as a result, the Terms of Service reverted back to what it was.  I know that this isn't a totally new idea...I once sent in a video of my dog--rather funny--to America's Funniest Home Videos.  With this, I had to sign over rights to the video stating that I could not use the video for any other commercial purposes (or something along those lines).  To me, that was no big deal.  It was just one video, one time.  I can't imagine the same thing happening with Facebook.  The difference to me is the way people use Facebook, and how often they use it.  It certainly is not a one time thing like sending in one video with hopes that I would win $10,000!

Finally, in "Balancing Outreach and Privacy in Facebook: Five Guiding Decisions Points," Decision #2--Patrons as Co-Developers stood out.  The more I read about Facebook, the more I realize what an enormous undertaking it is to manage a Facebook page for an organization.  How can a librarian manage this in addition to his/her regular duties?  The librarian would need to spend a pretty big amount of time monitoring the site.  I would be worried about false postings that might put the library in a bad light or postings that might use bad language.  I would worry that the site might appear to be less professional if things like this happened.  How much control would the librarian have in fixing bad postings?  Would managing a Facebook page for the library be a bigger headache than it's worth?

In addition, reading the posting about ebooks on Library Law Blog was a good lead in to watching the presentation "Free Culture: The Future of Creativity, Collaboration and Knowledge."  I tweeted about Free Culture, so check them out @jgongoleski, and I did use the #LSC597 hashtag!  Yeah me!  I started watching the video "RiP! A Remix Manifesto," which Elizabeth Stark mentioned in her presentation.  So far, it's very interesting.  Take a look if you are curious. 

Survived this week, and still on top of my insane workload.  Hope you all are doing well!  Enjoy!

flickr, youtube and stumbleupon

I have had experience with Flickr and YouTube in the past.  Both outstanding sites.  I literally stumbled upon the site "Stumbleupon.com" when I was exploring other social media sites.  This one, though I have only played around with it, seems to be pretty cool.  Stumbleupon claims to help you find sites regarding your interests that you may not know about or find on your own.  As Stumbleupon offers you results of websites, photos and videos pertaining to your interests, you can rate and review what is being offered.  As you continue to use Stumbleupon, it gets to know what you like and dislike, therefore, creating better results for you each time you use it.  Take a look when you have the time!

the living, breathing being called social media

This week's reading that focused on the use of  Facebook left some thoughts in my mind.  Greg R. Notess, author of "Forget Not the Forums," caught my attention when he discussed the use of the forum "College Confidential" as a way to get the answers one is looking for regarding colleges.  I think forums like this can be of great help when parents and young adults are trying to get a feel for potential schools that the young adult might or will attend.  I remember back to when I was looking for colleges...I hand wrote notes requesting information about the college, I filled out my application in the neatest printed hand writing I was capable of, and I asked my teachers at school for help when writing my college essays.  Boy have times changed!  Parents and young adults can now surpass the formal, printed materials colleges and universities send out as a way to help their incoming or prospective students navigate their decision, and they can get the real low-down on forums designated for this topic.  I wonder how colleges and universities react to forums like this?  What about information that is inaccurate or that paints the school in maybe an unfair light?

In "Academic Libraries, Facebook and MySpace, and Student Outreach: A Survey of Student Opinion" by Ruth Sara Connell, the focus was on how students use or would use these social media sites in combination with the library.  I found that the survey results make the participants seem kind of wishy-washy  regarding what they wanted from their Facebook experience with the library.  The researcher said there are questions that would need followup as a result of the survey, and these questions left me wondering.  For example, one of the questions focused on students who would proactively friend the library but later said they would resent the library using social networks to send announcements...what exactly would the student expect from an organization like a school's library?  Unless the library specifically outlined exactly the type of communication it would be sending out via its Facebook page, wouldn't one expect to get announcements from certain types of organizations?

danah boyd's article was most interesting to me not because of the subject matter (which I did find interesting) but for it being an example of what we are studying in this class.  I loved how I could link to link to her blog to view or write a comment.  I loved how I could link to sources she mentioned.  And I loved how she discussed her role as a blogger as opposed to an academic writer in her response to the critiques of her essay.  danah boyd really became a REAL person to me through her blog post and her response post.  It is interesting for me to hear her explain to the readers how she sees herself as a writer within the different writing roles that she has.  When boyd explained in the response to the critiques of her post, "When studying post-structuralism, I was utterly fascinated by the idea of the death of the author. The idea is that once a text is put out there, the author matters not because the author has no control over how that text is interpreted. The weird thing about blogging is that the author is pretty darn present. I'm here. No one seems to realize that but I am. In the last week, I read the thousands of Slashdot comments and blog entries addressing my essay. In most cases, I refrained from commenting though. Instead, I decided to take all of the issues and put them together in a response. This is that response. Of course, that doesn't mean that people will listen.. the author might not be dead but she might be powerless against people's preferred interpretations. And in the world of blogs, verbosity is akin to author suicide. Still, I haven't learned to be succinct."  How funny it is that people forget that blogs are active, almost living things...the author is there and is a participant in the aftermath of the posting. 

Just a sort of unrelated question...why doesn't danah boyd use capital letters in her name??

alas...my book review

Below is my book review...

This book review was created using Prezi software. To navigate through my book review, continue clicking on the arrow below the presentation. Click whenever you are ready to advance to the next slide.

Note: A special thanks to Laura Gladding for exposing me to this software. Class, visit Prezi.com to access this software, which has a free version and is another example of social media!

Book Review on Prezi

more of a shopping experience...

In so many classes I have taken within this program, it has been emphasized that it’s of the utmost importance for librarians to be able to help patrons find the information they are looking for.  After reading “Toward a Twenty-First Century Library Catalog” by Kristen Antelman, Emily Lynema and Andrew K. Pace, it occurred to me that another hurdle for patrons to be faced with is the limits of the online catalog that the library is using.  My previous knowledge of how an online catalog actually formulates its list of titles based on a patron’s search was somewhat limited.  Thinking about it now, I guess I assumed that the list was generated based on the subject field of the record.  It’s interesting to see how people are trying to advance the searching capabilities of the technology to take into account other fields within the cataloging record—for example, the call number AND the subject headings.  I also think it’s interesting that the Endeca catalog reports one of its most popular features is the “more titles like this” feature.  This could possibly be popular because patrons might be familiar with this kind of feature which seems to be similar to Amazon’s “People who bought this item also bought” feature.  This could also help patrons “browse” the catalog by bringing them options that might not show up in their initial search. 

One thing that was brought to my attention in the article “New generation of catalogues for the new generation of users: a comparison of six library catalogues” by Tanja Merflun and Maja Zumer was how Hennepin County Library offers audio reviews of the books in their catalog.  I think this is a neat feature, for if a patron wanted to know a little more about the book than the brief summary that was offered, they can just click and hear what the librarian thinks.  I do wonder, however, whether or not this would not be accessed frequently.  If a patron doesn’t want to take the time to listen to the review but would read a review in a more timely manner, should both be offered?  I also find it interesting that research shows that people want more of an Amazon-like experience when using the catalog in their library.  I personally find various catalogs visually unappealing.  Although this doesn’t affect the way the catalog works, there is something to be said for something that is pleasing to the eye.