del.icio.us.ly easy

We've been using del.icio.us as a group in IS for quite some time now and I use it personally. I have to admit that although I do occasionally tag things for the IS account, I rarely use it and only then if I remember that I tagged site earlier -- I don't look to see if anyone else has added something that might be useful to what I am doing at the moment. "Doing at the moment" ... maybe that's it. I can see using it with co-workers if we had a singular mission (if we were a bunch of teachers or forensic scientists or environmentalists) and we were tagging things work-related, but we have an entire universe of topics that may come across our desks and the thought that the few of us might have tagged just the site I need to answer a particular question just doesn't occur to me. Also, the randomness of the tags always leaves me feeling that I might just be missing the right one -- what did they call it and how was it spelled?

I have found some good sites by surfing other users' tagged sites but found even single users are inconsistant in their tagging. Using children and kids for seemingly the same types of sites does not group the sites for the future -- one needs to remember what one used as a tag last time to make it useful. Merged words and underscores further muddy the puddle. It makes me yearn for some standards, some rules, some list of agreed upon tags ... oh, there I go, thinking like a librarian.

I am bored (or boring?)

So, I haven't found anything to love so far. I am bored by MySpace but maybe that's because I am boring -- I don't care to surf other people's sites and don't know many people with accounts and really, would rather email or call them if I want to contact them. Does that make me boring? Old? Of a previous generation? Or just busy? Not sure, maybe all. I do think it or something like it has potential for library use. I don't buy the arguement that kids don't like to see things like libraries on "their" turf. As the users age (that is, grow up) and new users find us already there, this will become an increasingly moot point and the expection will be that we (and everyone/thing is there). I helped a grandma find her military grandson's page that other day, so yay for this project!

Meebo might catch my fancy if I had friends who used it but we all have gmail accounts and chat there. I can see the value of using it in the library and teaching patrons to use it.

I have discarded Bloglines entirely and have gone back to my Pageflakes ways. Use it everyday.

I think it is valuable to be familiar with 2.0 trends and to have time to try them out. I'd like to see this be an ongoing program with, maybe, one new site/program/trend every month so once everyone has gone through this initial ramp-up.

MySpace is all about me -- me, Me ME!

As my brother-in-law said after accepting me as a MySpace friend: "Welcome to the (slightly embarrassing) world of Myspace." It seems so "contemplating your navel" and "Here's my navel, look, look!" and then "Oh, yeah? Here's MY navel! And the navels of all my "friends" as well!

Okay, that's overboard. It does seem like a good way to keep in touch with lots of people. I found my husband's far-flung cousins all reading each other's blogs and replying as if they were all in conversation with each other. I surfed from one cousin to the next through their friends lists which was nice because they all use psuedonyms and I won't have found them otherwise. I know this is how my brother-in-law keeps up with his friends all over the country.

So, the library has lots to say to lots of people. People who might want to be able to "converse" in a way. And the library showing off its navel may be just the thing to get a younger demographic
interested. Or maybe just being in their vision might be helpful.

Some library sites that have nice applications:

• One library MySpace site I particularly like is Alameda County Library. They even have a way to search their catalog from MySpace! Cool!

• The Brooklyn Public Library RIF site has a nice display of book cover which appears to be connected to its Frazy account.

• Pawtucket is using the calender feature.

• ALA uses their Interests section well, with changing their interests regularly and embedding images and video.

• Florida's AskALibrarian service embedded their chat box.

Meebo Mistake

So, I carefully followed the instructions for adding a meebo chat box to my blog but, alas, they were the wrong instructions. Holly clearly asks us to make widgets whereas I made a full-on room. The room is fun, the room is cool, the room has uses but I do think the simple widget would be easier for library use since each new user opens a new chat box and cannot see or participate in the other chats going on at the same time. And the logged conversations would be quite a problem :)

Am trying the Firefox extention by meebo to see how easy it might be to use in "real-life."

Meebo, Youbo, Weboo?

Meebo is an interesting option for the library's website. I love the widget that can sit on the website inviting use and that patrons can grab it and put it on another site (although this might bring messages from people who don't know that they are "asking a librarian"). My limited experimentation with meebo at other libraries was not encouraging since I found them offline or just plain unresponsive -- if we do this, we must have a person there to answer immediately if only with a "I'll be with you in a moment" or have it set to offline any time we are away. Offline is discouraging, of course, but there is a way to leave a message -- how do does the patron get the answer? Got me.

I didn't see any library meebo windows with anything happening and I'm still not clear whether the chats would be available to anyone who was looking at the site from another computer at the same time. Privacy seems a big issue even is private chatting is possible.

Is there any way to have canned responses at the ready with Meebo? Hmmm. Cut down on typos.

I use Google chat in my everyday life since most people I would chat with have gmail and my account sits open all day. The fact that messages are converted to email if the other person is not signed in is a handy feature. I won't be switching to meebo unless friends do it first and I'm dragged along.

FVRL RSS

RSS would be another way to promote the library's programs, new books, closures, etc. Many libraries have director's blogs, librarian blogs. Sam's oneminutecritic is an example of a project that would benefit from RSS "advertising" -- a marketing tool! dIScover, librarian picks, new books, topics, tools... we could keep a blog going for quite sometime if several librarians worked together.

Bloglines v. Pageflakes

I played with Bloglines for a few days to give it a good try and I have to say I prefer Pageflakes. Bloglines's email-inbox feel is not what I need -- more pressure to get through what's there. I like that Pageflakes simply provides a window on the blogs that I choose and the headlines just move along with or without me -- no (78) entries that I need to act upon. So, I'll stick with Pageflakes for my news, blogs, weather, calculator, etc.