Thing #19 - Web 2.0 Awards

I like Pandora. I'd never heard about it before, and it's a good way to discover artists you wouldn't get to know on your own. I like the feedback tab too. I also looked at the travel winners: farecast and realtravel, and these look like they will be useful when I plan my next trip. I usually use Yahoo travel.

Thing #18 - Web Apps

This is a great tool. It saves all of the back and forth goings-on - the attachment to this one and that one as described in the mini video - and makes editing and contributing to a document efficient. I don't currently have a project at my branch that could make use of a Web application such as this, but OCL's program brochure may be able to be done this way. An aside: Firefox wouldn't let me into Google Docs. I had to use IE.

Thing #17 - Play in the sandbox

I had trouble with this one. The instructions that were emailed to me were incongruent to what I had to do to get my comment posted. I never got the screen that asked me for a password, and I had to delete my post twice because it displayed my email address instead of my "name." During the log-in process there were times when I got 2 boxes (name and email) and times when I got one. I tried the lengthy URL first, and then the tiny URL and both sets of instructions did not apply. Did anyone test these? Aside from this, I can see the usefulness of an application like this. It saves a million emails on the same subject and having to be married to Delete.

Thing #16 - Wikis

I visited the "Library Success" wiki and will revisit it soon. I found some of the links to be very useful like the "Online training resources for librarians, Readers' Advisory, and Reference Services and Information Literacy." It's a good way to share ideas and information; but some marketing and community posts made no sense - not enough information was given. It also appears to be a work in progress with some categories housing little or no information.
I went on the OCL's article on Wikipedia, and interestingly, it gave me an abbreviated view with no ability to expand when using IE as my browser, but when I asked Jill I. about this, she said it's probably because of IE and to try Firefox, which worked. I later tried this again using IE and it worked. Why? Anyway, with regard to Sparks and his/her being magenta and not pink - I read the article and found Sparks in Trivia, noted the magenta color is referenced by footnote #28 and scrolled down to that link and clicked on it, which brought up the Sparks Tree House site.

Thing #15 - Library 2.0 and Web 2.0

I hope Wendy Schultz's "To a temporary place and time" was not written tongue-in-cheek, because of all five viewpoints in this Thing #15 I think she gets it. She takes us full circle from being "management biobots" to Web 3.0's virtual reality information coach to Library 4.0's knowledge spa where with a little time on our side we realize that we like a comfy chair, good lighting, and the quiet to absorb what we came to learn or enjoy. But behind the scenes, we're working to keep the well full and sparkling; to incorporate some of John Riemer's suggestions on libraries beefing up bibliographic data and making more available in one's result list. If this is done "across institutions" who rounds these institutions up to make this work, and who pays for it? Right now to me, it's like pinning down fog. I'm partially in favor of his idea that "libraries should welcome the submission of reviews and other forms of user participation." I welcome reviews by those with expertise in the field but I cannot suffer nonsense reviews. They cheapen the product.

Thing #14 - Technorati

When I searched "Learning 2.0" I got 1,054 blogs. I read some and could see that the availability of information is just exploding. Everything is easily linked and there's no wait time. I got 28,099 blogs on education when I clicked on "Hey Jude's" 'Emerging technologies, the development of Web 2.0, and what this all means for schools and school libraries.' I also checked out "When in Doubt Ask a Librarian - Leaders of the Digital Age," and "2 cents worth's" web 2.0 newsletter. I like his "Content as raw material" which gives insight on how younger generations view text, photos, music, etc. Such a different way of looking at things.

Thing #13 - del.icio.us

I've had a del.icio.us account for about a year and the best thing about it is that it "travels" with you; you don't have to be on a specific computer to access your Favorites. I often use it for research, and use familiar subject headings for my tags. I've looked into other peoples' sites who have tagged the same link to see what else they may have tagged, which can be interesting. I also learned about Furl and Live Bookmarks in Us.ef.ul's site.