Week 7, #16, #16A, and #17

I looked at a sample school wiki, a Grade 10 English class wiki, and the Book Lovers wiki from the Princeton Public Library. The most useful for my purposes was the last. This summer my school district is offering training in BlackBoard, so I am planning to use it for a Book Review club in the fall. I thought that the comment on the page that the library "upgraded the catalog to include reviews" instead of initiating another wiki for the next summer was telling as well: sometimes a one-stop experience for a patron is best. I'll look at incorporating student reviews, book trailers, etc. into the school library catalog when it goes online. The Top Ten lists are also a potentially good idea for middle school students.

I was really impressed with what's available on the wikis. I particularly liked the webquest for school library websites that Joyce Valenza has on her wiki. I think that the template is right on target, and there are lots of good sample sites to explore. It is so important to establish a good presence for your students through your website and to promote your library in that way, and I have been looking for good models. Lots and lots to think about--too much for just one week!
And the ideas for curriculum connections using wikis have lots of potential, too.

I had already edited the sandbox on the CA wiki site when I tried to register at the PA wiki and failed. Maybe it was a bad night for that page, so I'll try again later.

I was able to add to the PA wiki a few days later, so I posted on the page about wikis.

Week 6, Thing #13, 14 and 15

I'm pretty satisfied with pulling my favorite web sites from the drop down in the address bar, and even though I'm sure that del.ici.ous works well for some people, I found that it just clutters up my home page. It slows down the start up of iGoogle as well. I think there's a lot to be said for a clean interface; after all, that's been part of Google's appeal for going on nine years. I learned a lot from a professsor in library school about the reference interview: ideally, you ask questions that help the patron determine just what they need, and you help them find just that. You don't assume you know what they need, and you don't give them piles of material that overload them. It's way too easy to fall into internet overload.

I guess the same reasoning applies to how I feel about blogs and Technorati. I'm glad that they are there for the people who like them, but I'm not one of their fans. Celebrities come up near the top of the most popular searches--no surprise. The few posts that I read, even those that are library-related, did not have me wanting more. Many web 2.0 tools are wonderful, but the blogosphere makes me feel like I'm being swept over a Niagara Falls of words. It might be because the blog is often written so personally to such an anonymous audience that the effect is jarring. Too many assumptions on the part of the author.

Wendy Schultz has the best perspective on the "new" library that I have read so far. Too often the idea of the library as an important physical space is discounted or ignored in discussions about technology. She writes, "But Library 4.0 will add a new mode, knowledge spa: meditation, relaxation, immersion in a luxury of ideas and thought. " I think she's right, but I would argue that this isn't a new mode at all. That sort of atmosphere has always been the draw for libraries; it's what Barnes and Noble and Borders began to trade on; and it's what libraries had come full circle in trying to imitate. "You know, the library," as Schultz says. Yes, as the library has always been and should continue to be.