Thing 2: What is Web 2.0?

Yes, time is an issue. Time is the reason that I had to suspend working on the 23 Things for a while. I will have to work hard in order to find the time to complete them by using my time wisely. making it a priority, and cutting out some other things, not the least of which will be (obviously, from the time of this post), some sleep.

I think that it is important that we, as librarians, keep up with the new technology, but not just for the sake of being "techsavy." My primary function at the reference desk isn't to provide computer or website technical support. It is to help patrons to use these tools to find information. My purpose is participating in 23 Things is not just to learn about Web 2.0 technology. I also want to learn about how these tools are being used in libraries and how they might be used in libraries in the future. I am believe that many libraries could make far better use of these tools.

The explosion of information and technology has made it a challenge to keep up to date without getting overloaded. I enjoy learning about technology, but I'm not one to rush to the latest technology just to get on the band wagon. I'm interested in what it can do to improve service to patrons. In what ways does it allow us to do our jobs better, faster, or more efficiently or to provide a new service that is needed by our patrons?

Back again!

I have had to put my 23 Things project on hold for a while, but I have now resumed my quest to explore Web 2.0 technology. Since I last posted to this blog, I have been exploring sites like Delicious, Facebook, Flickr, Google Reader, Twitter and YouTube in an informal way, but I have decided that the time has come to return to a more formal approach.

I had two separate Google and Blogger accounts, so I started out by figuring out how to move the blog so that all of my blogs are combined in one account. I did this by signing into Blogger with the original account, adding the second account as an additional author, and sending an invitation to myself at the second account to which I wanted to move the blog. I then signed out of the first account and signed into the second account in order to accept the invitation. After I had accepted the invitation in the second account, I logged into the original account again and granted administrative privileges by clicking the link next to the second account and clicked the remove link next to the original account.

Thing 1: Set Up a Blog and Register - Part 2

Yesterday, I listened to the first part of Solinet's Online class "Promoting Library Services Using Bloggs and RSS." Our homework last night was to set up a blog using WordPress. Blogger is very easy to use. WordPress is not quite as easy and user friendly.

Today, I decided to go back into my blog and "tweak" it. I rearranged some of the page elements and added a blogroll and a photo. I originally wanted the photo to be across the top of the page and to have the title and description be underneath it, but the only options that Blogger gave me were to have the photo instead of the title and description, or to have the photo be behind the title and description, which looked cluttered. There wasn't an option to have the photo to one side or the other of the title and description. In the end, I decided to add a gadget that would allow me to put a small photograph on the side of the page under the title and description.

Thing 1: Set Up a Blog and Register

I created this blog last night as a part of NEFLIN's 23 Things Project. A couple of years ago, I took a class where we created a blog using Blogger but never posted to the blog I had created. This will be my first attempt at blogging. The process of setting up the blog itself wasn't difficult. I had done it once before. The most challenging parts were trying to come up with a clever title and choosing a url for the blog. I finally gave up trying to come up with something clever and decided to take the easy way out and go with what I considered the obvious choice.

I mentioned to one of our IT people that I had set up a blog and he told me that he had never set up a blog. I have to admit, it was kind of a good feeling to think that I have now done something that someone on our IT staff hasn't.

There are three of us that I know about here at this Library who are participating in the 23 Things Project. I told one of the other participants that I think that blogging about my experiences will probably be the most difficult part of this for me, not because I find the process of blogging difficult from a technical point of view, but because I am a very private person and I don't feel comfortable sharing my experiences with the world in the form of a blog.

I hope that over the next few weeks the experience of participating in the 23 Things Project will inspire me to stretch myself and to try some things that I haven't tried before and perhaps to become more comfortable with others. I'm looking forward to exploring new technologies and their potential application in our library.