Thing #18: PBwiki

OK, I've added a few links to the "Favorite Music" and "Favorite Restaurants" pages, and listed this blog.

But as the wikis we use at the library (see my last post) are all hosted on PBwiki, this is nothing new. I've never been wild about their graphical editor, and their new version doesn't seem all that different. But it does get the job done if you're not too picky.

(A side note - I'm getting a little ahead on this now, so that I can concentrate on other things during the end-of-the-month rush that will be coming in a couple of weeks.)

Thing #17: Wikis

We've been using wikis for library staff for some time. We started by taking a set of "useful Web links" pages and turning them into a wiki so that staff wouldn't have to wait for me to get around to editing the Web pages in order to link to useful sites. Some other uses of the wiki that have been added since include:

• a missing holds wiki, to help staff throughout our multi-branch system track down holds that get misdirected
• a "TechTime Share" wiki, where items demonstrated at an informal monthly tech-oriented training session are posted
• a discussion wiki for the book Wikinomics, which was chosen for a "one book, one staff" reading program earlier this year (this will be replaced with a new one in 2009)
• a wiki where staff who are participating in Nebraska Learns 2.0 can post links to their blogs

Expanding the use of wikis to our public Web site (especially for posting useful Web sites) is also a possibility, but it hasn't happened yet.

One further observation: sometimes it's hard to decide whether a blog or a wiki is the best approach for a particular function. In many cases, arguments can be made both ways.

Thing #16: Library 2.0

There are lots of good observations in the various articles that were posted. The article that resonated with me most was John Blyberg's. Web 2.0 tools are like any of the other tools in our professional kit: implementing them without a clear idea of why we're doing so is counter-productive. This is especially true in a time of shrinking budgets, when library staff are continually being asked to do more with fewer resources, and especially with fewer human resources.

Properly implemented, these tools should help us be more effective and efficient in what we do. A book talk presented to a half-dozen patrons is an expensive use of staff resources; record that talk and put it out as a podcast, and you have the potential to reach a large number of patrons for just a little more investment in staff time. Provide a way for readers to enhance your catalog with their own ratings and reviews, and hopefully you'll strengthen their connection to the library as well as provide a useful readers' advisory resource.

But there is a cost to implementing these tools, especially in terms of staff time, and so it becomes especially important to carefully choose what we do. Implementing change purely for the sake of changing is more likely to annoy the users we already have than to attract new ones. Providing a true enhancement to an existing service can improve the experience for existing patrons and attract new ones.

Thing #15 - SlideShare

OK, I've set up a SlideShare account; I left a comment on one of Michael's slideshows and found a presentation on Kubuntu Linux (see below) to add as a "favorite." I can see where SlideShare would be useful; the ability to embed slideshows into a Web page could be especially handy (though I don't have anything currently that I would use this for).

KUbuntu

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: linux unix)

But I encountered a few "issues" in getting started with this. First, the embedded slideshow on the page for this "Thing" never did work for me, either in IE or in Firefox. Second, the captcha on the signup page would not work for me in IE, though I had no problem with it in Firefox. And third (though this is more a problem with slideshow presentations themselves than with SlideShare), a lot of the presentations I looked at just didn't work well without something else to accompany them.

I keep this in mind for possible future use.

Thing #14 - Delicious

I've been using Delicious for quite awhile, and find it invaluable as a way to easily bookmark sites to access from multiple computers. The social aspects of it don't do that much for me (see my comments about the social aspects of LibraryThing - they apply here as well), except that the resulting recommended tags are sometimes handy.

Some time ago I had looked into using Delicious as a way of revamping the "recommended Web links" section of the library's Web site, but at the time decided it wasn't suitable. Now that I've learned about link rolls and tag rolls, I may revisit that idea. (One complaint I have about Delicious is that the site itself doesn't make it easy to discover some of those additional tools.)