more wiki editing

As a follow-up to last week's wiki exercise, I decided to test out my editing skills in Wikipedia. In the entry on John Cage, I added a small bit of content clarifying the location of his mycology collection and a link to the collection's finding aid. Not difficult at all, and now researchers will be able to find the mycology materials more quickly!

Thing #17- Online Applications

Creating the Zoho account and uploading documents was easy. However, my formatting didn't exactly import as I'd had it, and it was a little troublesome to edit my document. I may have to play around with that.

And I couldn't publish the document to my blog. It kept telling me my login and password were incorrect. I tried several times and carefully typed the correct info. So maybe this is a bug in the beta version?

Otherwise, this seems like a useful tool- it'd be easy for librarians and teachers to share documents with their students instead of emailing attachments!

Yay for Patti Smith!

Patti Smith is sooooooo awesome in concert! Just got back from a fantastic show downtown- really glad I've seen her live, now! She's got an amazing amount of energy, an absolutely magnetic stage presence, and one of the most incredible voices I've ever heard. It oscillates between low, husky and scratchy; strong, aggressive, powerful; and gentle, breathy, with a sweet tone. I really wish I could sing anywhere near that well!

She did lots of songs from her new album, which is all covers. They all suited her voice and personality so well: White Rabbit, Soul Kitchen, Perfect Day (encore), Smells Like Teen Spirit, Are You Experienced. She also sang a bunch of her own songs including two of my very favorites, Dancing Barefoot (1st song) and Because The Night. I'm really glad I noticed her name on the club sign one day- I'm usually out of the loop on cool concerts!

Just a random "fun things" post in between all the library exercises..... ^_^

Thing #16- Library 2.0

I agree with certain parts of all the perspectives on Library 2.0. From the more social, tech-savvy perspective, I do see the role of libraries and librarians changing and shifting to accommodate their patron base. There is a certain elite satisfaction in being THE source for information, as libraries once were, but the world has changed; the users have changed. The overall goal is now to at least get the users INTO the library and to use it for their research, and to do this, librarians should be flexible enough to adapt their teaching and techniques to the current resources and technologies available.

I also agree that we should do as much as we can to make resources available electronically, since that's where the world seems to be going. Improving online resources, as OCLC is doing, and increasing the amount and quality of metadata for items will be a crucial step in keeping libraries in the information loop.

I don't think "traditional" libraries will be replaced by virtual ones altogether. These are two groups of resources that can effectively augment each other, not entirely replace one another. Of course, this perspective may be ifluenced by my years of experience in a department that focuses on retaining and preserving original materials, items and collections, but archives aside, I think that people will always want to have "real" books around... with a slightly more modern packaging. ^_^

Thing #15- Custom Search Engines

This feature actually turned out to be more useful than I thought it would. I created a "Rare Books" search engine in Rollyo with a number of booksellers that I consult when trying to find specific titles. Instead of having to search for "The Winter of our Discontent" on eight separate sites, this search engine retrieved results from all of them with only one search. Of course, there may be some entries it missed that I could find by going to the ABAA site specifically, but in general, it seemed like a good start for a book search. This could be a useful tool for librarians or professors who want to quickly guide their students in the right direction. It can be frustrating to weed through tons of search results that have little relevance to the topic you're researching!

Thing #14- Online chatting

Just sent a message to the Library 2.0 team online. I've used IM programs before- they can be very effective and helpful if you want to quickly communicate with people. However, it's easy to get stuck online for a while, chatting and chatting.... so I prefer to send email. But a feature like this would be an excellent tool for reference staff!

Thing #13- Editing Wikis

Okay, I added a URL link to our Spec Coll page and edited the text a bit. Actually editing wikis is not difficult.
I think complications tend to arise more with content in general, such as images, copyright, permissions, etc.