Thursday, April 29, 2010
DISCLAIMER for Video
Warning: This video does have an explicative! (Not the worse in the book, but it's definitely there.) Additionally, this isn't specifically about school libraries, but I thought it was the perfect video to display how a lot of people think of librarians. SO, it's a great example of what whe SHOULDN'T be doing!
Tweet Tweet
Because I'm not a huge advocate of broadcasting myself to the world (one huge reason I have yet to create a Facebook account), I've never been impressed with the idea of Twitter...until now. I think using Twitter for a business, or library as specifics would have it, is really not that bad of an idea. It's a great way to let people quickly know about upcoming events and keep the library (and librarian-whom we know is on the hit list of late) in mind. My major concern, however, is that people won't follow the "tweets." If patrons and parents of patrons could be encouraged to follow you, then I think Twitter could be a very beneficial tool in the high school library setting.
RSS or RFF?
RSS or Really Frustrating Feed experience? Sorry to complain, but I've really had a hard time figuring out everything with RSS. I do feel slightly better now that I know more about it, but the bitterness is slightly lingering ;)
Nevertheless, despite my small meltdown, I did find a few blogs that I would like to follow. A couple of things that I looked for were that the format was easy to use (not too busy), that the information looked interesting to me, and that the person/organization behind the blog updated it often (it's little use to me if they only update it once a month).
One blog was from the "10 librarian blogs to read in 2010," and it's called "The 'M' Word - Marketing Libraries." After looking through some of the others, I decided that this would be one of the more useful ones for me because of two reasons: first, librarians need to really put themselves out there these days and she seemed to have some really good ideas; second, she also had some technology based ideas and obviously knows what she is talking about to a certain extent since I'm viewing her blog-and after my previous venting, it is very obvious that I am not a technology guru-wait, scratch that, I'm not even technology proficient.
The second blog that I plan on following is "The Unquiet Library: Not Your Mother's Library. Your Library." Although the blog could use a slight visual makeover, I do love that the creators of this blog post tons of videos. Videos are a great way to see something in action and to really involve the students and get them interested in visiting the blog and coming into library. I also really like the title and premise of this blog: that their library is different than the stereotyping librarian-shushing library. And, of course, they update it regularly with detailed posts! I think it will be a great asset and be fun to boot!
Nevertheless, despite my small meltdown, I did find a few blogs that I would like to follow. A couple of things that I looked for were that the format was easy to use (not too busy), that the information looked interesting to me, and that the person/organization behind the blog updated it often (it's little use to me if they only update it once a month).
One blog was from the "10 librarian blogs to read in 2010," and it's called "The 'M' Word - Marketing Libraries." After looking through some of the others, I decided that this would be one of the more useful ones for me because of two reasons: first, librarians need to really put themselves out there these days and she seemed to have some really good ideas; second, she also had some technology based ideas and obviously knows what she is talking about to a certain extent since I'm viewing her blog-and after my previous venting, it is very obvious that I am not a technology guru-wait, scratch that, I'm not even technology proficient.
The second blog that I plan on following is "The Unquiet Library: Not Your Mother's Library. Your Library." Although the blog could use a slight visual makeover, I do love that the creators of this blog post tons of videos. Videos are a great way to see something in action and to really involve the students and get them interested in visiting the blog and coming into library. I also really like the title and premise of this blog: that their library is different than the stereotyping librarian-shushing library. And, of course, they update it regularly with detailed posts! I think it will be a great asset and be fun to boot!
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Insights from Christopher Harris
I really enjoyed this article about library 2.0 by Christopher Harris. Harris brought up a lot of interesting issues about "the relevancy of libraries in an online world." Harris was pretty adamant about the fact that libraries do have a place-if they rise to the challenge, "It was school libraries, in fact, that led the way in the first wave that brought computers and then the Internet into our classrooms. This is about adapting, once again, to a new, perhaps even more compelling digital revolution, in which powerful new ideas are enhancing the way in which we function in an electronic information environment."
Harris had a lot of great ideas for libraries to incorporate in order to be a part of the new technology age. Some of my favorites were using Librarything, or some other comparable website, where students could keep their reading updated, write reviews, and share. Another idea I liked was having students call in and give book talks onto electronic voicemail. The final idea that I think would be really useful, especially in a high school setting, is screencasting. Through this, the librarian could still help out the teachers, but wouldn't necessarily have to be physically with them in the classroom.
Harris had a lot of great ideas for libraries to incorporate in order to be a part of the new technology age. Some of my favorites were using Librarything, or some other comparable website, where students could keep their reading updated, write reviews, and share. Another idea I liked was having students call in and give book talks onto electronic voicemail. The final idea that I think would be really useful, especially in a high school setting, is screencasting. Through this, the librarian could still help out the teachers, but wouldn't necessarily have to be physically with them in the classroom.
Searching Blogs Through Technorati
Well-represented categories: Technology, Books (yay!), Food (another huge yay!)
Under-represented categories: Pets (sniff, sniff), Tennis, and Motorsport
I searched first for "Canine Companions for Independence," and sadly I didn't find anything under blogs or posts. My next search was "CCI," the more colloquial term. Surprisingly, I didn't find anything under posts, but I did find a few actual blogs concerning CCI puppies. I thought for some reason that I would find more posts than blogs, but that was obviously not the case.
Next, since Technorati doesn't really have a lot of blogs concerning pets, I decided to do a search about something else I love, that's category was much better represented: ice cream! This is what I found:
265 blogs for ice cream
293 posts for ice cream
Once again, kind of surprising results.
Technorati is a pretty useful tool if you like to search for random people's blogs. However, I don't find it extremely entertaining to read the blogs of people I don't know since blogs, in my experience, are typically personal.
Under-represented categories: Pets (sniff, sniff), Tennis, and Motorsport
I searched first for "Canine Companions for Independence," and sadly I didn't find anything under blogs or posts. My next search was "CCI," the more colloquial term. Surprisingly, I didn't find anything under posts, but I did find a few actual blogs concerning CCI puppies. I thought for some reason that I would find more posts than blogs, but that was obviously not the case.
Next, since Technorati doesn't really have a lot of blogs concerning pets, I decided to do a search about something else I love, that's category was much better represented: ice cream! This is what I found:
265 blogs for ice cream
293 posts for ice cream
Once again, kind of surprising results.
Technorati is a pretty useful tool if you like to search for random people's blogs. However, I don't find it extremely entertaining to read the blogs of people I don't know since blogs, in my experience, are typically personal.
del.icio.us -YUM!
Honestly, at first I wasn't very excited about the idea of delicious. However, after I played around with it more, I can definitely see some of the benefits of using this site. People spend so much time "surfing" the Internet, but it's never really known if a site is good or not. Even more time-consuming is figuring out exactly what to put in that magical search box. Although I think that Google does a great job at "reading my mind," it's still an imperfect process. Delicious helps by expanding your search into relating fields that have some tie-in to what you're looking for. For example, on Google I searched for "high school library." What I found was literal information about high school libraries. In delicious with the same search, I found more links to websites that are helpful or applicable to the high school library setting. I thought this was great!
I think delicious can be really helpful for students because they could use this site to share websites they like with their fellow classmates (this is also applicable for librarians and teachers alike). They could also use it when initially brainstorming for a research topic in order to broaden their ideas or consider related topics that they had not previously thought about. Teachers and librarians can use delicious to share what they've found with each other and to simply keep all of their favorite websites organized and in one location. Additionally, they can read other people's comments about certain sites, getting a second opinion, which is always extremely useful.
Overall, I think delicious is a beneficial, time-saving tool to be used in and out of the classroom!
I think delicious can be really helpful for students because they could use this site to share websites they like with their fellow classmates (this is also applicable for librarians and teachers alike). They could also use it when initially brainstorming for a research topic in order to broaden their ideas or consider related topics that they had not previously thought about. Teachers and librarians can use delicious to share what they've found with each other and to simply keep all of their favorite websites organized and in one location. Additionally, they can read other people's comments about certain sites, getting a second opinion, which is always extremely useful.
Overall, I think delicious is a beneficial, time-saving tool to be used in and out of the classroom!
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