Daily Archives: January 14, 2008

6 posts

Excellent TTT Coverage

Courtesy of blogger Lauren Pressly: http://laurenpressley.com/library/?p=462  A snippet: The panel switched gears to talk about software of participation and software of aesthetics Pointed out LibraryThing has a lot of reviews, Amazon trusts their users enough to let them post reviews that say, “you know, you suck.” OCLC isn’t getting much engagement in their reviews. It’s not about letting users do things, but encouraging them to do so. Aesthetics is important: you see it with iPods, Bibliocommons, it really matters (but we don’t see it much in libraries) Aesthetics in buildings, too…. how to incorporate technology in an aesthetic way Ebooks […]

Commons 2.0: Library Spaces Designed for Collaborative Learning

 Bryan Sinclair writes at EDUCAUSE Quarterly: With the rise of Web 2.0 and social software we are witnessing a major shift in the ways students approach and use information. They no longer merely consume and download information; increasingly, they create and participate in it. They are social creatures in every way that past generations were and in some new ways, sharing information digitally and using each other as sounding boards. They value social experiences that blend communication and learning. Social software in the form of blogs, wikis, MySpace, Flickr, and YouTube is merely an extension of this socialization in a […]

Cliff Landis offers 2.o Advice to Vendors

Great reading: http://clifflandis.net/2008/01/07/my-20-advice-to-vendors/   Find out who your users are. Remember that no matter who the target audience is, you always have a diverse user population. Librarians are your users. Students are your users. Faculty & staff are your users. Members of the public are your users. People of many ages, skill levels, degree of ability and background are all your users. Each one searches differently. How does your tool cater to their needs? Let your users generate & change content. The larger your tool, the more you need this. Your organization’s workers won’t look at every remote record, but your […]