web 2.0

gov info - tech - web 2.0

A New Age

January 20, 2009 by 0 Comments

Today I watched my first inauguration ever. I may not be an American but I understand the importance of this event and was excited to be part of this momentous event, to be part of history. It was amazing to see him recognize the challenges and problems that lay ahead of him and to recognize the diversity in peoples and religion. Obama has a huge battle before him and I wish him all the luck and intelligence to see his country through it.

Obama represents change on a number of fronts. While I intend to follow what he does, I must admit I’m intrigued by this president’s ability to embrace science and technology and am excited to see what he does with it and what impact this has elsewhere. Obama already does weekly YouTube addresses, whitehouse.gov now has a blog, he tweets, he’s addicted to his blackberry and he promotes participation, transparency and accountability (I keep wishing Canada would follow his lead). Hopefully he will continue to embrace these technologies when he becomes overwhelmed with actual work. Libraries have been actively moving towards such technologies and Obama’s use may have a direct impact on these services we provide as others begin to use the technologies to follow and participate in their government. I watched the inauguration on CNN’s live facebook feed. This is an amazing collaboration – people changed their status as they watched history unfold – over 1 million status changes were made during the inauguration – over 4000 a minute. It became a truly social, global event and I bet that Obama’s use of technology had some part to play. I think CNN and Facebook were a great collaboration and would love to see that continue – especially during breaking news, etc. I know Twitter was also going strong but decided to save my connection for the feed itself.

Exciting times are ahead and it’s great to be part of it!

tech - web 2.0

Tweeting Away

December 11, 2008 by 0 Comments

It’s been a while since I posted anything on government, so I thought I’d share some interesting twitter news (which is also posted on the AGIIG blog, so apologies for those who follow both). As some of you may know, I’ve become quiet addicted to Twitter and FriendFeed. Librarians aren’t the only ones twittering – the US government has started tweeting too. Here’s a link to a directory that has been started that notes tweeting agencies.

Pegasus Librarian had a great post a while back on the changing nature of the biblioblogoshpere. I think she’s right in her observations that for many, blog posting have droppped off and part of this has been the increase in the use of microblogging. Blog posts have moved from the informal medium to act as a more formal medium and the informal conversations have moved to Twitter – it’s faster and resembles more of a dialogue. I know that I have been moving that way myself.

Twitter has had quite an impact on communication, for good or bad depending on your viewpoint. It’s really too bad that Canada’s technological infrastructure is preventing Twitter usage from cell phones. CBC’s Search Engine has an interesting podcast and blog on Canada as a digital ghetto – be sure to check it out and share whether you agree or disagree.

library 2.0 - web 2.0

Twitter Answers

April 15, 2008 by 0 Comments

I’m trying twitter again (it’s about the fifth try) and it’s going much better this time. It is true, if you don’t have people to follow, then there really isn’t much point to twitter. Thanks to all of the great CiL people I’ve met, I now have both followers and people to follow.

I noticed this post in Digg this morning, that pointed to twitter answerme which lets you track your questions. Simply send your question to @answerme. I’m surprised I didn’t hear more about this at Computers in Libraries. I did attend one session on twitter (a very good one), which mentioned that some libraries are using twitter to post about the types of questions they are getting but I didn’t hear a lot about libraries using twitter for actually answering questions. More thoughts about twitter when I post my CiL wrap up (which will be soon – there is much catching up to do still).

social networks - social software - web 2.0

The Meaning of a Friend

June 15, 2007 by 0 Comments

Thanks to the plethora of social networks out there (MySpace, Facebook, Ning and countless others), the meaning of a ‘friend’ is changing. Just because you are on someone’s friend list does not mean that you are a friend in the traditional sense (hang out, talk on the phone, gossip, etc). In fact, many people try to amass great lists of friends, many they have never met and some have resorted to purchasing friends (yes, you read that right).

LibrarianInBlack posts on her friending predicament and I’ve had similar feelings. This is particularly true when it comes to more professional networks, like Ning. I often don’t know the people who friend me and I may only know others I friend because I read their blog or have chatted once in Second Life. I’ve often wondered if I should accept a friend I don’t know or reach out to someone I barely know. I’ve decided that when it comes to more professional networks (if they can be called such), I will friend them. You never know when an opportunity will arise because of this loose connection. I’ve had it happen and hopefully any future such interactions will be positive.

The definition of friend is morphing into something larger than it ever was – it could be aquaintance or colleague- but I think most people realize this change is happening. Real friends still exist and just because you’re on a friend list does not mean you’re a true friend. Most people are not offended by this thought. So let the friending continue!

tech - web 2.0

McMaster Youth Media Study

May 10, 2007 by 0 Comments

Interesting post from Geoffrey Rockwell, who shares a summary from the McMaster Youth Media Study of what a typical McMaster undergraduate might be like when it comes to new media. I must confess, it wasn’t too terribly surprising. Of course, I do see undergraduates wandering around the library and campus every day with cell phones and mp3 players and facebook on nearly every other computer. I was a little more surprised to see that the typical undergraduate did recognize that technology was starting to interfere with actual personal connections.

learning2.0 - web 2.0

The End is Nigh

April 25, 2007 by 2 Comments

Yes, learning 2.0 is winding down. This is our last week of assignments and then a couple of weeks to catch up. It’s been a great program and I think a lot of people enjoyed it or at least learned 1 new thing. We now know how to keep up to date with some of the latest web 2.0 applications – which is a good thing, seeing as there are constantly new things to learn and try! Congratulations to the ETG group at Mac – it was a lot of work on your part and greatly appreciated.

This week we’re looking at extensions and add-ons. I’ve had a couple of add-ons for firefox for a while, such as the del.icio.us tag which makes tagging extremely easy, I suggest trying it if you have a del.icio.us account (which I know you do if you’re in the learning 2.0 program). I thought I’d give another a try – this time it’s Clipmarks, which allows you to clip parts of a page and share them if you’d like. Sounds like it could be useful – I’ll let you know how it goes. Add-ons are generally a great short cut to your normal routines.

In case you’re wondering, I did change my image header. It is now showing some of the hills along the coast of Cape Breton which I took during a lovely sunset on a summer’s day.

learning2.0 - web 2.0

Back in the Swing

April 3, 2007 by 0 Comments

Learning 2.0 has started up again after a break for everyone to catch up and I’m back to post my experiences. I love this weeks topic – applications. There are a ton out there and I never have time to find or play with them all. We’ve been given a list of applications to go and play with. Great assignment! I love playing with new toys! I’ve played with a number before, such as Google Docs, Last.fm (which I love – a great way to find artists similar to ones you know and love) and flickr toys. Rollyo looks intersting and I think I’ll come back and check it out again. Here’s are some avatars I made

_avatar_created3php.gif _avatar_createdphp.gif _avatar_created2php.gif

Web 2.0 applications are generally easy to use, free and neat. In all web 2.0 applications are great!

odd stuff - Second Life - web 2.0

Librarians are Hiding Something

March 30, 2007 by 4 Comments

Ok, I’m not hiding something but it feels like I might have been hiding. It’s been a while, but I have been very busy. Not a lot to share today. I’m gearing up to do a virtual reference pilot in Second Life. It should be interesting. As much potential as there may be in SL, until our students our there, we are only helping the SL community (which isn’t a bad thing, but if you’re under staffed, one needs to consider priorities). I recently gave a lecture on learning (my first time guest lecturing – lots of fun) to a first year multimedia class, some of the students seemed interested. It would be interesting to know if any come visit our space on account of that class.

Have you checked out Scribd? It looks interesting. All the web 2.0 social software for your documents. I’m not sure I want people tagging and commenting on my work just yet. I’ve been using Google Docs for collaboration recently and I think I’ll stick with that for now.

And in case you haven’t heard already, the title of this post is courtesy of Stephen Colbert.

learning2.0 - web 2.0

Tagging and Folksonomies

March 17, 2007 by 0 Comments

The next section of learning 2.0 is tagging and folksonomies. I’ve been a fan of Flickr and del.icio.us for a long time now and I think that there is a lot of power in tagging and folksonomies. To the shagrin of many librarians, I can’t wait to be able to add tagging to our catalogue. I think it will help students find what they need in a new, easier way and am always excited to see it being added to more and more library catalogues.

I’ve placed a number of my better pictures on Flickr already (you can link over to them from my blog, if you haven’t noticed). I’ve used del.icio.us for research a number of times – I’ve found a number of items that I might have missed otherwise thanks to others tags.

It was hard to limit my flickr photo to just one, but I thought this one was great! I’m a sucker for trees and fog (must be because I’m from N.S.).

tree1.jpg