Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Web 2.0 with the Connecting Librarian

1st April and I managed to escape any April Fools jokes. Instead, I got to listen to Michelle McLean talk about Web 2.0 and libraries, which was time well spent.

I was in Sydney attending a two day course title "Revolutionising Library Management" by the Ark Group. There were only 11 participants so there was a high level on interaction and conversation.

Michelle had the floor for the whole day and her energy never seemed to fade. She gave an excellent overview of the Web 2.0 world and touched on lots and lots of examples. Michelle is partly to blame(?) for me getting this blog going again. Thanks Michelle!

Anyhow, here are some dot points I picked up from the day:
  • in the 2.0 world, the user is at the centre, not the content
  • tagging is almost universal across 2.0 tools and not limited to a few
  • use del.icio.us account to to tag websites to do with 2008 Olympics, and then feed to website with RSS - instant subject guide!
  • must explore yahoo pipes again...
  • mobile devices (phones, PDAs) used to be fussy about what online content they could display. This is changing and devices are being made to read any online content. Great possibilities for libraries...
  • new ideas come through conversations - the web is one big conversation
  • use a widget to create a quick survey on library website
  • some libraries building OPAC search applications for facebook
  • use feedburner to track stats of blog subscribers (have since set this up with this blog - it works!)
  • Michelle made good use of Google Maps to map out mobile library stops and branch locations for her library service

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