On Saturday, I attended a workshop called “Public Computing in a Library 2.0 World.” I was anxious to attend this workshop because I spend a lot of time helping patrons use the public access computers and I thought I might get some good tips about how to be more effective in this role. Strangely though, the workshop dealt mostly with issues of small, rural libraries with limited or nonexistent technology budgets.
The first speaker, Barbara Gersh, who works with Tech Soup (techsoup.org) and the Maintain IT Project, gave an overview of the information found on the website maintainitproject.com, particularly the “cookbooks,” or basic instructions for keeping public computers running smoothly in libraries. This is a nice website designed to keep librarians from “re-inventing the wheel” when it comes to computer issues in libraries, particularly small, rural libraries with limited resources.
Next up was Jessamyn West, a community technology librarian in rural Vermont. Jessamyn described her job, which is basically to incorporate technology features into tiny rural libraries with extremely limited access to any hardware, training, or maintenance. While most of her speech didn’t apply to our situation in Rancho Cucamonga, she did throw out an interesting statistic: 36% of Americans have limited access to the Internet, and 23% have no Internet access at. Sometimes this is because they don’t own a computer, but more often it’s because they lack connectivity or simply don’t know much about how to use a computer. It is this segment of the population who is most in need of computer services in public libraries and who are the most in need of training and education, both at home and at the library. Jessamyn stressed that the digital divide is now less about those who own computers versus those who don’t and more about those who are tech-savvy and those who still struggle with basic computer functions.
The last part of the workshop was lead by Louise Alcorn, a reference technology librarian in West Des Moines, Iowa. Louise spoke quite a bit about the popularity of online training tools for librarians, especially webinars. She mentioned that she especially likes Horizon’s Wimba Live Classroom (www.wimba.com), which is used frequently in Iowa, and Ready Talk (readytalk.com), which works particularly well for adding a visual element to conference calls. She also stressed the importance of keeping library blogs, and encouraged small libraries to get as many staff members as possible involved in the upkeep of these.
I wish I had known ahead of time that this workshop would deal so much with rural libraries. While I did get some good information, I probably would have skipped it if I’d known that the information was targeted toward a demographic so different than our own. The description in the program mentioned nothing about a rural focus, so I was quite surprised and a bit dismayed. Still, it wasn’t a waste of time and I did get some good general information.
On Sunday morning, I (along with a group of us) went to the Empowerment conference's "Technology Trends" program featuring Michael Stephens and Jenny Levine. Both of the speakers are nationally-recognized in the library field, and as I speaker, I would put Michael Stephens right up at the top (along with Joe Janes).
I have heard Michael speaks a few other times but I still find him very interesting and inspiring. He didn't really say anything new or different than what he usually says, but his presentation style and message are so uplifting that I never get tired of hearing him talk. (We tried to get him to come to our last in-service but he was busy).
I also liked Jenny Levine. She is nowhere near as charismatic as Michael Stephens but she really knows her technology. Most of her talk centered around RSS and what it can do. Once the remodel is done, this is something I really want to do more with. In particular, I would like to have an RSS feed for all of our new books, CDs, DVDs, etc. (But there are many other applications for RSS that we could/should be doing).
I'm sure Don, Renee, Michelle, Linda and Casey will also have something to say about this program so I will stop here for now...
I went to the Empowerment series - Technology Trends workshop this morning as well. I saw Michael Stephens speak one other time (at an ALA preconference) and thought he was quite interesting. This morning was no exception.
Here are a few things he talked about: 1. He spent quite a bit of time talking about the importance of learning: - deliver training in person, online, and off site - should be part of staff development - should be part of the culture (all levels of the organization) - a well-trained staff can carry your message
2. It's important to create a library sandbox for staff to play with new technologies and online tools. Many of the sites he talked about are ones we have been using or are familiar with - Flickr, Facebook, Meebo, Twitter, etc. - but he also mentioned some others that I am not as familiar with - Gliffy (a site for creating and sharing flow charts and diagrams), Picnik (a photo editing site that Adam has used during tech classes), and Jumpcut (for video editing).
3. Libraries need to be more customer centered than staff-centered (yeah, we know this, but we have to practice it).
4. This is a world of content creaters. People want to say "I was here." He showed a hand print in a cave in New Mexico from thousands of years ago and characterized it as somone (way back then) wanting to say "I was here." He likened that to Youtube - where a new generation of people (including a lot of teens) want to say "I was here."
He began and ended by saying the library is participatory.
Two things I got out of this: 1. I need to be more aware of ways customers can participate in what we do. I think we are good at this within library walls, but not virtually. 2. I think we should do a video contest for teens. Encourage them to make a video of their favorite book or library program or video to market the library. Then, air the winning videos on the telethon.
Thanks, Michelle, for recommending the Technology Trends program with Michael Stephens and Jenny Levine. I was familiar with both their writings, as I had used them as references for a paper on Library 2.0., so it was enlightening to hear them speak live and in person! Two things I learned from their workshops were: 1) only 1% of people with an information need to to a library website, while 84% go to Google 2)our staff is very well-versed in these technology trends! Yay for our library!!!
On the upside, this one convinced me we are way ahead of the library curve in acknowledging and integrating the latest technology into our practices (here we are blogging…). David Lee King from Topeka, gave a brief overview of things like RSS, Blogs, wikis, social networking software and used Ann Arbor Library District’s website as the primary example of 2.0 tech integration. He was joined by Ing Kalchtahaler from Pennsylvania, who talked about blogging, but really didn’t have much content beyond. A bit of a disappointment unless you were very unfamiliar with these new technologies.
I also attended "Emerging Technologies: Trends, Tools & Transparency" with Michael Stephens and Jenny Levine. In the Web 2.0 class I'm taking this summer, our instructor had recommended Stephens' Taming the Web blog and discussed some of the points he mentioned, such as the open, participatory and social nature of the “evolving Web”. Stephens showed examples of signs found at libraries that could make them seem welcoming - or not (“No cell phones – violators will be banned!”) and suggested addressing behavior (e.g., rowdy patrons) rather than banning technology (such as access to MySpace). He encouraged libraries to be user-centered rather than librarian-centered, to foster a participatory culture and open and honest conversations among users and staff alike; to speak in a human voice; to use technology but remember that it is just a tool. Some examples of technology that libraries could use were Flickr, Twitter, online patron reviews and tags, start pages, and even a computer availability chart on a library Website. I really enjoyed Stephens’ gracious and inspirational presentation style. Among his closing comments were that “The library should encourage the heart.”
Jenny Levine talked more about some of the specific technologies that could be used in library Web pages. She had some great ideas for use of RSS, such as a “What’s New” page of the latest DVDs (automatically generated from the catalog). I especially liked her idea of aggregating the latest headlines for all the library blogs on the library home page (or even promoting the library by including them somewhere else on the City Website).
Overall I thought this was an outstanding program. I’d definitely recommend checking out either of these speakers if you have the chance in the future.
On Saturday at 1:30 p.m. I attended the Social Software Showcase. Described as an "unconference", it featured six presenters (Lorena O'English, David Lee King, Rachel Vacek, Cindy Trainor, Jason Griffey, Robin Hastings) giving 5-minute summaries of longer presentations they posted online. After that, each presenter sat at a different table and led discussion groups with all of us attending.
I sat at David Lee King's table - he talked about tools that could be used for online community building, such as book reviews (blog-based or even video, through free sites like http://ustream.tv), online storytimes, virtual drop-in lessons (using software such as Elluminate). I liked his suggestion of adding staff photos or avatars and brief biographies to the library Website. I asked him for suggestions to increase the traffic to library blogs, and he mentioned marketing in person (showing patrons the blogs while at the library), writing for participation (including things like top 5 lists or questions for patrons to answer), and cross linking to related blogs. It was interesting to hear the experiences of other tech library staff; it sounds like we're more fortunate than many libraries in our good relationship with City IS and the high degree of freedom and control we have over the library Website. I saw former Rancho employee Christina (Parenteau) at this program.
On Sunday at 10:30 a.m. I attended "What Is the Future of Face-to-Face Reference", put on by ALA's MARS subgroup ("Machine Assisted Reference Service") and featuring four speakers from university libraries.
Sara Davidson from UC Merced talked about how their new campus and library (only 3 years old) had no reference desk, just a one-stop circ/information desk staffed by student assistants. She was short on specifics of whether students were happy with this approach. Geri Purpur and Louise Ochoa from Appalachian State University in Utah described a Second Life-type virtual graduate school and library. Char Booth at Ohio University described her library's experiment with virtual reference via library video kiosks using Web calling and instant messaging (Skype and Meebo), which had not had as much use as they'd hoped. Overall the presentation covered some interesting technology but was not especially applicable to our public library.
As RK mentioned I was one of the group to hear Michael Stephens and Jenny Levine on Saturday morning. This was one of the better sessions I attended. I kept thinking what a great time one would have in library school with Stephens as an instructor.
Lots of food for thought particularly as Don, Margaret, Heather and I meet soon to determine what Internet access we want to provide children. Do we prohibit access to Facebook and MySpace over concerns for children's safety or to prevent behavior problems in the library? Or only allow that access in the Tech Center with parent permission?
I appreciate the user-centered approach of both speakers and would like to see patron reviews of materials on our catalog and website.
Hey Kristen, one of the blogs used as an example was that of the Darien Public Library where the circ staff blogs and calls themselves the "Desketeers". I suppose we can't steal that . . .
On Sunday from 10:30-12, I attended the "Library 2.0 and Children's Services" program. David Lee King, the Digital Branch & Services Manager for the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library talked about what Library 2.0 is. Everything he mentioned are are up speed with at Rancho!
The second speaker was Ing Kalchthaler from Bethel Park Public Library. Her part of the program was on Children's Services and how 2.0 technology can be integrated. Her most prominent idea was that we have a blog for programming...
Two things that I took away from the program are:
1) I need to use a bookmark manager because sometimes I use up to 6 computers per day!
2) There is an actual word for using social networking sites like Myspace and Facebook; it's called "friending."
The last program I attended was "PACS in a Library 2.0 World" on Monday at 10:30 a.m., which featured four speakers talking about Web 2.0 features their libraries had added to their online catalogs.
Ross McLachlan from the Phoenix Public Library described how they had used a program called Endeca to build their own customized OPAC (Endeca provided the templates and training and the library staff put together the site themselves). Phoenix PL also used BISAC (Book Industry Standards and Communications) in the catalog, to be able to sort and search for books by the same subject headings as bookstores use. These changes worked well for them, increasing their circ stats by 15% and Web stats by 27%.
Grace Lillevig from the Harris County Public Library in Houston, Texas talked about the various available options to add patron reviews to a library Website: from free add-ons like blogs (good for staff reviews) and wikis (suitable for staff and public reviews) to more expensive options like custom databases or commercial services (ChiliFresh.com, AquaBrowser, Evanced).
Kitty Little, from the multiethnic Queens Borough (N.Y.) Library, talked about ways to add multiple languages to the library Website. Of course Websites can be translated by multilingual library staff, but I wasn't aware that Google Language Tools or Yahoo! Babel Fish provide machine translation, converting an existing library Website automatically to different languages.
I was especially interested to hear Amy Cantu from the Ann Arbor District Library. Ann Arbor's Website consists primarily of blogs, including the home page. The site is made up using Drupal, and all staff (from maintenance workers to the Library Director) are invited to blog (and some are required to do so). Her suggestions for good blogging were to make it relevant (local events, "hot and new", staff interests), make it fun (bylines and beats, informal style), and make it simple. There were questions about objectionable blog comments, and Cantu said this hadn't been a problem; comments were not reviewed before posting, but staff simply kept an eye on their own blogs or posts. (Another option: a member of the audience mentioned his library's system of automatically emailing new blog comments to staff members for review.) I don't know that I'd want blogs as the primary content of the Rancho Website, but it's interesting to consider our options for using them.
Some interesting tips I got from the Q&A at the end: (1) Patron book reviews are interesting, but staff book reviews are apparently given more weight by patrons and can increase circulation for reviewed titles. (2) One option to publicize both books and blogs is to have a library display of books currently featured on the blog. (3) Reviews from Amazon.com and Rotten Tomatoes can be incorporated into library catalogs either for free or for a nominal fee.
This was not a program I attended, but rather a website from a a blog mentioned at program I attended.
The blog is popgoesthelibrary.com and it's about "Using pop culture to make libraries better."
This site I think is interesting is called 7 Things You Should Know About. "7 Things" are short monthly publications (PDFs) about emerging learning technologies (sounds Web 2.0ish to me). Each one focuses on a single topic like Second Life, Google Apps, Flickr. For example, the July 2007 entry is for Twitter; April 2007 is for RSS. The publications answers 7 questions:
What is it? Who's doing it? How does it work? Why is it significant? What are the downsides? Where is it going? What are the implications for teaching and learning?
12 comments:
On Saturday, I attended a workshop called “Public Computing in a Library 2.0 World.” I was anxious to attend this workshop because I spend a lot of time helping patrons use the public access computers and I thought I might get some good tips about how to be more effective in this role. Strangely though, the workshop dealt mostly with issues of small, rural libraries with limited or nonexistent technology budgets.
The first speaker, Barbara Gersh, who works with Tech Soup (techsoup.org) and the Maintain IT Project, gave an overview of the information found on the website maintainitproject.com, particularly the “cookbooks,” or basic instructions for keeping public computers running smoothly in libraries. This is a nice website designed to keep librarians from “re-inventing the wheel” when it comes to computer issues in libraries, particularly small, rural libraries with limited resources.
Next up was Jessamyn West, a community technology librarian in rural Vermont. Jessamyn described her job, which is basically to incorporate technology features into tiny rural libraries with extremely limited access to any hardware, training, or maintenance. While most of her speech didn’t apply to our situation in Rancho Cucamonga, she did throw out an interesting statistic: 36% of Americans have limited access to the Internet, and 23% have no Internet access at. Sometimes this is because they don’t own a computer, but more often it’s because they lack connectivity or simply don’t know much about how to use a computer. It is this segment of the population who is most in need of computer services in public libraries and who are the most in need of training and education, both at home and at the library. Jessamyn stressed that the digital divide is now less about those who own computers versus those who don’t and more about those who are tech-savvy and those who still struggle with basic computer functions.
The last part of the workshop was lead by Louise Alcorn, a reference technology librarian in West Des Moines, Iowa. Louise spoke quite a bit about the popularity of online training tools for librarians, especially webinars. She mentioned that she especially likes Horizon’s Wimba Live Classroom (www.wimba.com), which is used frequently in Iowa, and Ready Talk (readytalk.com), which works particularly well for adding a visual element to conference calls. She also stressed the importance of keeping library blogs, and encouraged small libraries to get as many staff members as possible involved in the upkeep of these.
I wish I had known ahead of time that this workshop would deal so much with rural libraries. While I did get some good information, I probably would have skipped it if I’d known that the information was targeted toward a demographic so different than our own. The description in the program mentioned nothing about a rural focus, so I was quite surprised and a bit dismayed. Still, it wasn’t a waste of time and I did get some good general information.
On Sunday morning, I (along with a group of us) went to the Empowerment conference's "Technology Trends" program featuring Michael Stephens and Jenny Levine. Both of the speakers are nationally-recognized in the library field, and as I speaker, I would put Michael Stephens right up at the top (along with Joe Janes).
I have heard Michael speaks a few other times but I still find him very interesting and inspiring. He didn't really say anything new or different than what he usually says, but his presentation style and message are so uplifting that I never get tired of hearing him talk. (We tried to get him to come to our last in-service but he was busy).
I also liked Jenny Levine. She is nowhere near as charismatic as Michael Stephens but she really knows her technology. Most of her talk centered around RSS and what it can do. Once the remodel is done, this is something I really want to do more with. In particular, I would like to have an RSS feed for all of our new books, CDs, DVDs, etc. (But there are many other applications for RSS that we could/should be doing).
I'm sure Don, Renee, Michelle, Linda and Casey will also have something to say about this program so I will stop here for now...
RK
I went to the Empowerment series - Technology Trends workshop this morning as well. I saw Michael Stephens speak one other time (at an ALA preconference) and thought he was quite interesting. This morning was no exception.
Here are a few things he talked about:
1. He spent quite a bit of time talking about the importance of learning:
- deliver training in person, online, and off site
- should be part of staff development
- should be part of the culture (all levels of the organization)
- a well-trained staff can carry your message
2. It's important to create a library sandbox for staff to play with new technologies and online tools. Many of the sites he talked about are ones we have been using or are familiar with - Flickr, Facebook, Meebo, Twitter, etc. - but he also mentioned some others that I am not as familiar with - Gliffy (a site for creating and sharing flow charts and diagrams), Picnik (a photo editing site that Adam has used during tech classes), and Jumpcut (for video editing).
3. Libraries need to be more customer centered than staff-centered (yeah, we know this, but we have to practice it).
4. This is a world of content creaters. People want to say "I was here." He showed a hand print in a cave in New Mexico from thousands of years ago and characterized it as somone (way back then) wanting to say "I was here." He likened that to Youtube - where a new generation of people (including a lot of teens) want to say "I was here."
He began and ended by saying the library is participatory.
Two things I got out of this:
1. I need to be more aware of ways customers can participate in what we do. I think we are good at this within library walls, but not virtually.
2. I think we should do a video contest for teens. Encourage them to make a video of their favorite book or library program or video to market the library. Then, air the winning videos on the telethon.
Michelle
Thanks, Michelle, for recommending the Technology Trends program with Michael Stephens and Jenny Levine. I was familiar with both their writings, as I had used them as references for a paper on Library 2.0., so it was enlightening to hear them speak live and in person!
Two things I learned from their workshops were:
1) only 1% of people with an information need to to a library website, while 84% go to Google
2)our staff is very well-versed in these technology trends! Yay for our library!!!
Library 2.0 and Children’s Services
On the upside, this one convinced me we are way ahead of the library curve in acknowledging and integrating the latest technology into our practices (here we are blogging…). David Lee King from Topeka, gave a brief overview of things like RSS, Blogs, wikis, social networking software and used Ann Arbor Library District’s website as the primary example of 2.0 tech integration. He was joined by Ing Kalchtahaler from Pennsylvania, who talked about blogging, but really didn’t have much content beyond. A bit of a disappointment unless you were very unfamiliar with these new technologies.
I also attended "Emerging Technologies: Trends, Tools & Transparency" with Michael Stephens and Jenny Levine. In the Web 2.0 class I'm taking this summer, our instructor had recommended Stephens' Taming the Web blog and discussed some of the points he mentioned, such as the open, participatory and social nature of the “evolving Web”. Stephens showed examples of signs found at libraries that could make them seem welcoming - or not (“No cell phones – violators will be banned!”) and suggested addressing behavior (e.g., rowdy patrons) rather than banning technology (such as access to MySpace). He encouraged libraries to be user-centered rather than librarian-centered, to foster a participatory culture and open and honest conversations among users and staff alike; to speak in a human voice; to use technology but remember that it is just a tool. Some examples of technology that libraries could use were Flickr, Twitter, online patron reviews and tags, start pages, and even a computer availability chart on a library Website. I really enjoyed Stephens’ gracious and inspirational presentation style. Among his closing comments were that “The library should encourage the heart.”
Jenny Levine talked more about some of the specific technologies that could be used in library Web pages. She had some great ideas for use of RSS, such as a “What’s New” page of the latest DVDs (automatically generated from the catalog). I especially liked her idea of aggregating the latest headlines for all the library blogs on the library home page (or even promoting the library by including them somewhere else on the City Website).
Overall I thought this was an outstanding program. I’d definitely recommend checking out either of these speakers if you have the chance in the future.
On Saturday at 1:30 p.m. I attended the Social Software Showcase. Described as an "unconference", it featured six presenters (Lorena O'English, David Lee King, Rachel Vacek, Cindy Trainor, Jason Griffey, Robin Hastings) giving 5-minute summaries of longer presentations they posted online. After that, each presenter sat at a different table and led discussion groups with all of us attending.
I sat at David Lee King's table - he talked about tools that could be used for online community building, such as book reviews (blog-based or even video, through free sites like http://ustream.tv), online storytimes, virtual drop-in lessons (using software such as Elluminate). I liked his suggestion of adding staff photos or avatars and brief biographies to the library Website. I asked him for suggestions to increase the traffic to library blogs, and he mentioned marketing in person (showing patrons the blogs while at the library), writing for participation (including things like top 5 lists or questions for patrons to answer), and cross linking to related blogs. It was interesting to hear the experiences of other tech library staff; it sounds like we're more fortunate than many libraries in our good relationship with City IS and the high degree of freedom and control we have over the library Website. I saw former Rancho employee Christina (Parenteau) at this program.
On Sunday at 10:30 a.m. I attended "What Is the Future of Face-to-Face Reference", put on by ALA's MARS subgroup ("Machine Assisted Reference Service") and featuring four speakers from university libraries.
Sara Davidson from UC Merced talked about how their new campus and library (only 3 years old) had no reference desk, just a one-stop circ/information desk staffed by student assistants. She was short on specifics of whether students were happy with this approach. Geri Purpur and Louise Ochoa from Appalachian State University in Utah described a Second Life-type virtual graduate school and library. Char Booth at Ohio University described her library's experiment with virtual reference via library video kiosks using Web calling and instant messaging (Skype and Meebo), which had not had as much use as they'd hoped. Overall the presentation covered some interesting technology but was not especially applicable to our public library.
As RK mentioned I was one of the group to hear Michael Stephens and Jenny Levine on Saturday morning. This was one of the better sessions I attended. I kept thinking what a great time one would have in library school with Stephens as an instructor.
Lots of food for thought particularly as Don, Margaret, Heather and I meet soon to determine what Internet access we want to provide children. Do we prohibit access to Facebook and MySpace over concerns for children's safety or to prevent behavior problems in the library? Or only allow that access in the Tech Center with parent permission?
I appreciate the user-centered approach of both speakers and would like to see patron reviews of materials on our catalog and website.
Hey Kristen, one of the blogs used as an example was that of the Darien Public Library where the circ staff blogs and calls themselves the "Desketeers". I suppose we can't steal that . . .
On Sunday from 10:30-12, I attended the "Library 2.0 and Children's Services" program. David Lee King, the Digital Branch & Services Manager for the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library talked about what Library 2.0 is. Everything he mentioned are are up speed with at Rancho!
The second speaker was Ing Kalchthaler from Bethel Park Public Library. Her part of the program was on Children's Services and how 2.0 technology can be integrated. Her most prominent idea was that we have a blog for programming...
Two things that I took away from the program are:
1) I need to use a bookmark manager because sometimes I use up to 6 computers per day!
2) There is an actual word for using social networking sites like Myspace and Facebook; it's called "friending."
The last program I attended was "PACS in a Library 2.0 World" on Monday at 10:30 a.m., which featured four speakers talking about Web 2.0 features their libraries had added to their online catalogs.
Ross McLachlan from the Phoenix Public Library described how they had used a program called Endeca to build their own customized OPAC (Endeca provided the templates and training and the library staff put together the site themselves). Phoenix PL also used BISAC (Book Industry Standards and Communications) in the catalog, to be able to sort and search for books by the same subject headings as bookstores use. These changes worked well for them, increasing their circ stats by 15% and Web stats by 27%.
Grace Lillevig from the Harris County Public Library in Houston, Texas talked about the various available options to add patron reviews to a library Website: from free add-ons like blogs (good for staff reviews) and wikis (suitable for staff and public reviews) to more expensive options like custom databases or commercial services (ChiliFresh.com, AquaBrowser, Evanced).
Kitty Little, from the multiethnic Queens Borough (N.Y.) Library, talked about ways to add multiple languages to the library Website. Of course Websites can be translated by multilingual library staff, but I wasn't aware that Google Language Tools or Yahoo! Babel Fish provide machine translation, converting an existing library Website automatically to different languages.
I was especially interested to hear Amy Cantu from the Ann Arbor District Library. Ann Arbor's Website consists primarily of blogs, including the home page. The site is made up using Drupal, and all staff (from maintenance workers to the Library Director) are invited to blog (and some are required to do so). Her suggestions for good blogging were to make it relevant (local events, "hot and new", staff interests), make it fun (bylines and beats, informal style), and make it simple. There were questions about objectionable blog comments, and Cantu said this hadn't been a problem; comments were not reviewed before posting, but staff simply kept an eye on their own blogs or posts. (Another option: a member of the audience mentioned his library's system of automatically emailing new blog comments to staff members for review.) I don't know that I'd want blogs as the primary content of the Rancho Website, but it's interesting to consider our options for using them.
Some interesting tips I got from the Q&A at the end: (1) Patron book reviews are interesting, but staff book reviews are apparently given more weight by patrons and can increase circulation for reviewed titles. (2) One option to publicize both books and blogs is to have a library display of books currently featured on the blog. (3) Reviews from Amazon.com and Rotten Tomatoes can be incorporated into library catalogs either for free or for a nominal fee.
This was not a program I attended, but rather a website from a a blog mentioned at program I attended.
The blog is popgoesthelibrary.com and it's about "Using pop culture to make libraries better."
This site I think is interesting is called 7 Things You Should Know About. "7 Things" are short monthly publications (PDFs) about emerging learning technologies (sounds Web 2.0ish to me). Each one focuses on a single topic like Second Life, Google Apps, Flickr. For example, the July 2007 entry is for Twitter; April 2007 is for RSS. The publications answers 7 questions:
What is it?
Who's doing it?
How does it work?
Why is it significant?
What are the downsides?
Where is it going?
What are the implications for teaching and learning?
Check it out at 7 Things You Should Know About.
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