Web 2.0, Library 2.0 and the future of libraries [Thing #15]

As far as I am concerned, Library 2.0 is completely necessary to the development of libraries as we know them. Things are not what they were 20 years ago, and I believe that changing with the times is vital to the survival of the public library. The number of people that come to the library just to use the computer is amazing, and probably getting higher all the time. It is hard to imagine that books will ever become totally obsolete, but at the same time, online resources are becoming more and more available. If the library is not constantly keeping up with technology, I am afraid that after a certain amount of time then we will no longer be able to do our job.

Technorati [Thing #14]

As of August 2007, Technorati indexes over 94 million weblogs. I have never heard of Technorati until I began 23Things. From what I can gather, it looks like it is just a giant search engine. At first I thought that it only searched through blogs, but it looks like it goes through videos and photos as well. You can not only search through tags, but also through URL's, directories, and keywords. Anyone that knows me is aware of my complete love for Firefly, so it will not come as a surprise that I used it as test-search. After searching for a keyword as vague as Firefly, I got results ranging from blogs about a company named Firefly to news about the upcoming Joss Whedon show Dollhouse (YAY!). Of course, with the number of blogs/photos/videos etc. that are being searched and a keyword as unspecific as "Firefly", results as diverse as these don't really come as a huge surprise. I don't really know if I will use Technorati on a regular basis, not for myself anyway. I did see that Karen was able to help some one very thoroughly using this application though, which is awesome.

Tagging and Del.icio.us [Thing #13]

I love tagging. I think it's such a great feature, it makes everything so much more convenient. Tagging is a really nice way of keeping things organized. I mostly use it with livejournal, but it's also great keeping your photos organized. The concept is very simple; for instance, say you have a photo album, but don't feel like looking through the whole thing, you only want to see pictures of cats. By doing a tag search, you will get a result that only displays images containing that specific tag. The same goes for blog entries.

One thing that del.icio.us talks about on the home page is that tagging is better than using folders to stay organized, which I couldn't agree with more. The reasoning here is that unlike using folders, with tags you can create as many as you'd like. You can also tag something with more than one description. Example: I have three cats, and I have just uploaded a picture of Hattie. Not only can I tag this image under cats, but I can get even more specific, and give Hattie a tag of her own as well. This means that from now on, I will get this picture as a result of searching for cat or Hattie.

Firefly Rollyo [Thing #12]

Select...Everything FireflySearch The Web

MERLIN [Thing #9]

MERLIN stands for Maryland's Essential Resource for Library Information Networks. It is a discussion board that is dedicated to Maryland library staff to help answer questions about technology. By creating an account, librarians have the opportunity to "talk with each other, ask technical questions, pose thoughts and gain access to online learning resources". This is a great way for people to keep up on technology-related news.

Library Thing [Thing #11]

I registered my account on Library Thing and messed around with it a little. With Library Thing, you can create your own online library of your favorite books. From there, you can find out who else is reading your books, information on specific titles, and recommendations of other titles you might enjoy based on what you have already added. This is a great site if you have run out of ideas on what to read next. Like I said, I have only added a few books so far, but I plan on using this a lot more in the future.

Image Generators [Thing #10]

Technology-Related Blog Post [Thing #7]

"iRobot announces winner of Create Challenge contest"

I found this article on Engadget.com about a man from Towson who just won $5000 for creating a "Personal Home Robot" that helps out around the house. The robot can do things like water plants, control lights and appliances, play music and even remind people to take their medication.

RSS feeds [Thing #8]

RSS (or Really Simple Syndication) is a great Web 2.0 tool. You can receive any kind of news you want in one stop. For as useful as it is, it's actually very simple. I created my own Bloglines account (which is a free online newsreader), and from there was able to subscribe to several different newsfeeds. There are so many topics to choose from. If you want to keep on top of the news that's happening in library-land, you could subscribe to The Shifted Librarian. If you're a cat person, you can subscribe to About Cats. The possibilities are endless. I love RSS, because it's pretty much just one-stop-shopping for any type of news or update you could ever need. The fact that it's so easy to use just makes it even better.

Mashups! [Thing #6]

I personally find these Flickr Mashups to be pretty cool. One that I really enjoyed was the Flickr Color Pickr. I think it's such a neat concept. Basically, you have a color wheel where you can pick any color you'd like. If you're in the mood for a crazy shade of green, just click on it and a circle of photos will appear around it. These are just thumbnails of pictures that can be found on Flickr matching your specific color. To view the full size image, you just need to click on it to take you to the original shot. The pictures are just amazing, which just makes it better.