I attended a nice workshop today. The format was great with some lecture and some hands-on activities. It was on the topic of Library 2.0 technologies and applications. Here are a few brief notes and links from the session.
The first speaker, Elizabeth Thomsen from NOBLE, presented a lecture on Library 2.0 trends. You can find it at http://www.slideshare.net/ethomsen/library20-186577. She was using http://www.slideshare.net, which I have never used.
It looks like very useful for presentations.
Sketchup is a Google’s free 3D rendering program.
Library 2.0
Library patrons are no longer passive they want to play an active role and interact with our online services.
They want lots of options: IM, Phone, Blog, Wiki, etc.
Perpetual beta – we now live in an environment where users are comfortable with services being rolled out in permanent beta, continuously evaluated and evolving, e.g., think Google products.This is not how we as librarians are used to working. This new way of just putting it out there even if not prefect is not what we are used to.
Bring services to the users – we now can do this electronically, laptops and other electronic devices have made us able to be more mobile with our services, e.g., providing reference service in the coffee shop.
High Tech/High Touch – e.g., one library has a slide show of their library staff on every page with the text “ask a librarian” which changes the picture with each page change. The personal touch!
Library 2.0 on Ning – it’s a social network on the topic of library 2.0
Wikis
PBWIKI is one of many free Wiki platforms
Betsy Dick presented her project on pbwiki, where she installed the MWCC Library Staff Manual. http://mwcclibrarymanul.pbwiki.com
http://Pbandfluff.pbwiki.com is an example of how a Wiki can be used for a class.
Here is the one I started to create.
Plugoo Chat
With Plugoo you only need to have a chat client running in the background like AIM , Yahoo, etc. You do not need to keep a webpage open like with Meebo. See example at http://www.mwcc.edu/library/ask_librarian.html#Ask-ALibrarianLIVE
Library Success Wiki has some interesting information on Reference Chat, see http://www.libsuccess.org.
