The rest of the site is currently under construction, but for now you’ll find:

Web 2.0 & Libraries: Best Practices for Social Software (2006) - http://thehyperlinkedlibrary.org/libtechreport1/

Web 2.0 [...]]]> I am happy to announce the full text of both of my ALA Library Technology Reports are available now at the new TTW companion site The Hyperlinked Library.

The rest of the site is currently under construction, but for now you’ll find:

Web 2.0 & Libraries: Best Practices for Social Software (2006) - http://thehyperlinkedlibrary.org/libtechreport1/

Web 2.0 & Libraries: Trends & Technologies (2007) - http://thehyperlinkedlibrary.org/libtechreport2/

Special thanks to my SJSU SLIS grad assistant Patrick Siebold who worked very hard the past few weeks inputting the content. I know the examples from ’06 and ’07 may seem out of date and quaint in some ways, but I’m very proud of the framework we used for the works back then. Conversations, Community, Connections, Collaborations – all those great C words Jenny Levine and I used throughout our early social software roadshows in 2005 & 2006 provide a useful context for looking at Web 2.0. I hope these works are still useful to some of you. Comments are open for adding more to the chapters and I plan on doing some types of updating as time permits.

The site will also serve my course Web sites and other items related to my teaching. 

Karl Fisch, whose blog I really enjoy, posts about an assignment his daughter has: to create a travel journal and write to friends to ask for postcards. Karl thinks like I do. What about the online component?

I think this assignment is fine as far as it goes, and we mailed it off to [...]]]> http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/2008/09/please-help-abby-with-her-homework.html

Karl Fisch, whose blog I really enjoy, posts about an assignment his daughter has: to create a travel journal and write to friends to ask for postcards. Karl thinks like I do. What about the online component?

I think this assignment is fine as far as it goes, and we mailed it off to a friend in Kentucky on Friday. But, and you’ve got to know what’s coming, I thought this assignment was ripe to have a “virtual companion” to it. So, I haven’t asked for much on this blog (well, other than changing the world), but I’d like to ask those of you who are still reading this blog to consider contributing to Abby’s travelogue wiki. There’s an explanation on the wiki itself, but here’s the basic idea:

1. Add your information to the wiki (first name, last initial, city, state/province, country).

2. Upload or link to a picture (a “digital postcard” if you will) that’s representative of your city.

3. Write a short description of your city.

4. Then, if you want, send the link to the wiki on to friends or family that you think might be willing to participate. (Note – please not “send this to everyone in your address book!” – I don’t want this to be Fischbowl-generated spam.)

5. Then, if you really want to go the extra mile, actually send a postcard to Abby at her school (pdf).

Now, I really have no idea if we’ll get five or five hundred responses, but I figured it was worth a shot (and it takes a lot less postage). Not only would you be helping Abby and her classmates learn more about the world, but also helping other students (and adults) that visit the wiki learn about the world. I think it would be especially nice if other students added to the wiki, in addition to adults, but we’ll see what happens.

If you have time, swing by Abby’s wiki.

Have you heard of 23 Things, the self-guided program for learning about 2.0 web technology? It was developed by Helene Blowers a couple of years ago at the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County and since then has been adopted across the country by public and school libraries, districts, and even entire states. It [...]]]> Brian Kenney writes:

Have you heard of 23 Things, the self-guided program for learning about 2.0 web technology? It was developed by Helene Blowers a couple of years ago at the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County and since then has been adopted across the country by public and school libraries, districts, and even entire states. It consists of a number of “things,” or small exercises, that you do online to expand your knowledge of the 2.0 web and social networking, from blogs and podcasts to wikis and Twitter.

For a while now (and prodded by our Technology Editor, Kathy Ishizuka) I’ve realized it would be a great idea if all of us here at SLJ went through a “23 Things” like experience. After all, we are always writing about different 2.0 applications, shouldn’t we experience them as well? Walk the walk, talk the talk, and all of that…So I resolved that we’d do it this summer.

So that’s what we are going to do. But Iwe’re not going it alone; we’ve asked 2.0 guru, Dominican faculty member, and season trainer Michael Stephens to join us for the ride. Beginning Monday, July 21, Michael will author a blog here on SLJ.com that will lead us through the different exercises, offer guidance, answer questions, and even provide a little hand-holding. We’re calling it “All Together Now: A 2.0 Learning Experience.”

There’s no need to sign up–just show up. Again, we’ll begin on July 21 and wrap things up in early September. 

http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/3064/

Josh Fischman writes:

Long a standard reference source for scholarship, largely because of its tightly controlled editing, theEncyclopaedia Britannica announced this week it was throwing open its elegantly-bound covers to the masses. It will allow the “user community” (in the words of the encyclopedia’s blog) to contribute their own articles, which [...]]]> Via Gerry McKiernan:

http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/3064/

Josh Fischman writes:

Long a standard reference source for scholarship, largely because of its tightly controlled editing, theEncyclopaedia Britannica announced this week it was throwing open its elegantly-bound covers to the masses. It will allow the “user community” (in the words of the encyclopedia’s blog) to contribute their own articles, which will be clearly marked and run alongside the edited reference pieces.

This seems to be a response to the runaway success of the user-edited online reference tool Wikipedia. (See for yourself. Do a Web search on a topic and note whether Wikipedia or Britannica shows up first.) Scholars have been adamantly opposed to Wikipedia citations in academic papers because the authors and sources are always changing. Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia’s co-founder, agrees with this, but in next week’s issue of The Chronicle (click back to our home page on Monday for more) he also points to some changes in the reference tool that may make it more palatable to scholars.

At Britannica, “readers and users will also be invited into an online community where they can work and publish at Britannica’s site under their own names,” the encyclopedia’s blog explains.

http://tinyurl.com/556pof

My Plan Do quick look ups of nineteen terms and concepts discussed in Clay Shirky’s book Here Comes Everybody to see what reference sources would be more helpful to the students I work with.

Methodology Using quotation marks around search terms to force phrase searches, I looked in [...]]]> Stephen Francouer writes:

http://tinyurl.com/556pof

My Plan
Do quick look ups of nineteen terms and concepts discussed in Clay Shirky’s book Here Comes Everybody to see what reference sources would be more helpful to the students I work with.

Methodology
Using quotation marks around search terms to force phrase searches, I looked in the following resources:

• Wikipedia
• Encyclopedia Britannica
• Gale Virtual Reference Library
• Oxford Reference

In any given set of search results, I would look first for main entries that mirrored my search terms exactly and record any such precise hits in a table. If there were no exact hits, then I looked for any entries in which most of my search terms were in the main entry (such as an entry on “social network services” when I searched for “social networks”). If none of my search words were in the main entry, then I looked for entries in which the search words appeared in the body of the entry and were adequately defined and explained (as opposed to simply cited or referenced in an offhand way).

<snip>

Results
As you can see from the updated table of results, Wikipedia and Gale Virtual Reference Library both do pretty well and Encyclopedia Britannica fared the worst.

Take a look at the results and the rest of Stephen’s post. For emerging thinking, a discussion of newer terms or a clearinghouse of links for that new read, Wikipedia may be a useful resource. For example, reading the entry for “radical transparency” might be a good first step for exploring the concept.

http://librarystream.wordpress.com/2007/12/17/learn-more-wikis/

If you gather a committee, write a draft document, and solicit feedback, you might receive scores of revisions in email and on paper. Compiling all those changes back into a single coherent document could be a long and [...]]]> Check out Steve Campion’s newest installment – yet another perfect resource for your Learning 2.0 endeavors!

http://librarystream.wordpress.com/2007/12/17/learn-more-wikis/

If you gather a committee, write a draft document, and solicit feedback, you might receive scores of revisions in email and on paper. Compiling all those changes back into a single coherent document could be a long and tedious task. On the other hand, you could create a wiki. That would enable everyone to work on the same collaborative document and compile changes on the fly. A wiki is basically a read/write website open to anyone with permissions.

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has said teachers who refuse younger students access to the site are “bad educators”.

Speaking at the Online Information conference at London’s Olympia, he played down the long-running controversy over the site’s authority.

He said young students should be able to reference the online encyclopaedia in their work.

Mr Wales [...]]]> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7130325.stm

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has said teachers who refuse younger students access to the site are “bad educators”.

As long as an article included accurate citations, he said he had “no problem” with it being used as a reference for younger students, although academics would “probably be better off doing their own research”.

I advocate for this with my students: use Wikipedia as that “stepping stone” but also as a way to tap into the collective knowledge on a topic – especially pop culture, technology and basic historical entries. I also urge librarians to take an active role in editing pages devoted to their towns, colleges or corporations, etc. Someday it may be in a librarian’s job description to be the “Wikipedia Liaison” for his or her library.

Pew reports that 36% of online American adults consult Wikipedia. A table included in the report details to top sites used for reference and education. Wikipedia has 24% use in a table provided by Hitwise of those types of sites.

The National Library of Medicine is featured, but all of the others are [...]]]> http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/212/source/rss/report_display.asp

Pew reports that 36% of online American adults consult Wikipedia. A table included in the report details to top sites used for reference and education. Wikipedia has 24% use in a table provided by Hitwise of those types of sites.

The National Library of Medicine is featured, but all of the others are not library sites. That’s a given if you add in OCLC’s finding that 1% of folks start with the library Web site when they need information.

Implications:

Librarians should be answering questions through sites noted in the table, such as Yahoo! Answers, etc.

Librarians might was to be working in wikipedia as well, crafting articles and building in library presence.

What else?

Teresa Walls, the chair of Children and Technology Committee of the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) wrote to announce the committee’s new wiki at:

http://wikis.ala.org/alsc/index.php/ALSC_ChildTech_Wiki

I’m impressed with this fledgling wiki. The Currently Reading page looks interesting. I hope more librarians add to that page and the others. Let’s watch this resource [...]]]>

Teresa Walls, the chair of Children and Technology Committee of the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) wrote to announce the committee’s new wiki at:

http://wikis.ala.org/alsc/index.php/ALSC_ChildTech_Wiki

I’m impressed with this fledgling wiki. The Currently Reading page looks interesting. I hope more librarians add to that page and the others. Let’s watch this resource grow!

http://web2.wsj2.com/the_best_web_20_software_of_2006.htm

Amongst the choices are some of my favorites as well: Netbvibes and YouTube.

File this under “Using Wiki Software for Training & Reference.”

http://askacpl.pbwiki.com/\

My favorite part, on the front page:

ASU’s University Technology Office Strategic Technology Plan 2005-2006: http://www.sannier.net/wiki1/index.php?title=Main_Page#TECHPLAN_WIKI_CONTENTS

http://meredith.wolfwater.com/wordpress/index.php/2006/07/07/wiki-webcast-youre-invited/

http://librarygarden.blogspot.com/2006/06/giving-our-summer-reading-club-20.html

Check out the Summer Reading Club’s wiki!