Wiki Posting Frenzy

Wow - don't you think that PBwiki is totally The Bomb?! I am hoping to use it to begin a wiki for my section here at BCL. Hey, maybe a total COMPIS wiki would be even better??? That way, everyone in Periodicals, Interlibrary Loan, and the Computer Center could put in their collective two cents; believe me, between us we've got a LOT to say! Anyhow, I added this blog to the NSUlibs Wiki and also to the BCLtlc wiki page, where I put in the obligatory Kilroyesque shout-out. But the best part was adding a couple of entries to the NSU Wiki FAVORITES! I started by putting in a link to ShareILL, an interlibrary loan wiki to which I contribute. The ILL Custom Holdings there are a perfect fit for wikization, because they a constantly evolving. Then I had to decide between linking or embedding my Favorite Brian Setzer Xmas videos under Favorite Music - I decided to try one of each in the wiki. Since the holidays are upon us, check out the very hippest & most compact version of The Nutcracker you'll ever hear. I guarantee that you're going to love it, ho ho ho!

WackyWikis

These are my two Wiki gods; they assist me in both finding and editing interesting wikis! I took a good long look at Charlotte-Mecklenberg's wiki, along with the swell Library Success: Best Practices wiki. I also think the 2006 ALA wiki is mega-convenient for those that attended AND those that did not get to go. As far as I am concerned, one of the best things a library can do with a wiki is use it to replace their tired old staff intranets, ZZzzzzzzsnoreZzzzzz. Wouldn't it be great to check out a brand new BCL WIKI on a daily basis?!!! I suspect that lots more staffers would contribute than the few who are 'editors' in our current info incarnation. I really like the oh-so-democratic concept of a wiki: everyone can put in their own two cents! (please see Amy's 2 cents below.) Also, I am hoping to begin an Interlibrary Loan wiki here amongst our wee staff so that we can all contribute to a Standard Operating Procedures manual. Obsolescense overtook me everytime I began an SOP Manual in the past using conventional word processing; the procedures for both lending and borrowing always changed before the ink was even dry!

Rolling my own with Rollyo

Okey-dokey, that's pretty cool. I was thinking that I could just visit all my regular Interlibrary Loan sites (one at a time, natch) to search for whatever I needed in the Resource Sharing community, but now I see how this one ILL search engine could be uber-convenient. My own little search engine - not too shabby! For example, today I had to draft a response to a Rumor Mill question regarding the price of an interlibrary loan. Since this is a secret more closely guarded than the whereabouts of the key to Ft. Knox, naturally I went to tons of ILL sites/databases to find the cold hard facts. Ha!!! If only I had rolled my own ROLLYO ILL Site earlier, I could have gone home on time! Plus, it was totally simple to boost the Rollbar up in Firefox, no sweat. Please feel free to try it, right here on the old blog - go on, put in some swingin' ILL terminology you've always been curious about... I'll bet you don't know what IFM is, do you? After all, don't inquiring minds want to know?

Select...Interlibrary Loan RollingSearch The Web

Library Thing

Library Thing has got to be the greatest site of all time. It is so easy to use! Please scope out my catalog anytime - I mostly read mystery & history. The cataloging via tags is new to me; I am used to looking at regular bib records all day so it may take a bit of getting used to... I definitely see the need to be consistent with my tags, for my own ease of use as well for facilitating searches by other Library Thing users. The best part is peeking at other people's catalogs!

Image Generators

This was the most FUN exercise yet! I could happily generate wacky images all day long... A quick search showed me dozens of other slide show generators; hope you enjoy this one showing my travels around Oregon following the NW ILL Conference.

http://www.blyberg.net/card-generator
http://www.signgenerator.org/books/dummies/

selfish Library 2.0 thoughts

I shall keep my thoughts on this vast topic limited to a few brief comments on the relationship of 2.0 to Interlibrary Loan, aka Resource Sharing. At the recent Northwest Interlibrary Loan and Resource Sharing Conference, the keynote speaker was Dr. Joseph Janes of the University of Washington. He kicked off the conference (themed ILL 2.0: tools to meet the demands) with a thought-provoking and amusing presentation that had us rolling in the aisles. Please take a look at his PowerPoint; too bad I don't have a video of his accompanying performance because he hopped, skipped, & jumped all over the stage, all to drive home his point: if we do not evolve, we are going to get left in the dust.
As part of the Discovery exercises, I read Chip Nigles' essay entitled "To more powerful ways to cooperate." He stresses the importance of the Open WorldCat website on several levels. First of all, it does something the WorldCat database cannot do: once a user has established an account, he/she can build (via marking) an entire bibliography, refered to as a "list" on the site, and subsequently share it. What a great tool for students doing a research paper together! In the database, users can only convert one bib record at a time into a citation, then paste them into a Word document to build their bibliography.
In both formats, however, user participation is encouraged (wiki style) using their Review This Item feature. I am proud to say that when this new feature was added to the database, long before the emergence of Open WorldCat , I was among the first to add a very brief plot summary (OCLC #365453) under Add/View Comments! (It is called Public Notes on the website.) There I was, using Web 2.0, without even knowing it!!! Also, Open WorldCat has the easiest social sharing link of all time - simply click on Share It and you can send to Facebook, Del.icio.us, etc.
The next step for ILL at BCL is for our customers to request interlibrary loans from the Open WorldCat site, instead of from the WorldCat database. This is already being done in the Northwest via the experimental WorldCat Local program. Since customers vastly prefer the site to the database, this is coming soon to a library near you! Unless, of course, BCL wants to get left in the dust...
P.S. I would like to hear what my MARC-oriented colleagues think of LibraryThing, in terms of Web 2.0. Can y'all really be that loose?!!

Schadenfreude of tagging, technorati, geeks & stars

I viewed the Geeks on Tour site but did not find the labeling aka tagging section real helpful on the HOW behind it. I found a more academically-minded cite site (sorry) entitled CITEULIKE. This organizes papers via tags; as an ILLer, it may help me locate some grey literature. Anyhow, you can see that I have tagged this post with LOTS of labels; also changed my blog settings so all labels appear as a separate sidebar as well as just beneath the body of the post.

I would rather not blog about a hobby (boring!) but I will just briefly mention the recent preponderance of celebrity Schadenfreude.
It seems that people are taking more and more pleasure in the misfortunes of others lately, especially current movie/pop stars. Don't you think that's sad & bad?! Anyhow, I hope someone comments on the many tags I chose for this post! I commented on another BCL staffer's labeling but looks like most are forgetting to assign tags to their posts.

I also got this semi-rant claimed via Technorati! Once I registered to CLAIM my Blog, I copied/inserted the necessary code in the Edit HTML screen - easy! Then I edited all my prior posts so that they would have the Technorati Faves icon, too.

del.icio.us certainly is

I've always been a mega-bookmarker, but like most nerds I rarely went back because I could not find the good stuff. Not to mention the fact that I had different favorites on my home computer, library computer, and laptop. Thus, I am an instant fan of del.icio.us, because tagging to just one place makes a lot more sense to me.
I have already mentioned how much it appeals to me to get other people to do my research for me. I had stumbled across a few librarians' websites and/or del.icio.us accounts of interest to me, and subsequently set them up to feed into my newsreader. However, the domino effect of viewing so many del.icio.us networks of mutual interest (and subsequently RSSing them) has made this my new guilty pleasure. It's so easy (the new Firefox toolbar install sure beats IE) and so fun to navigate around del.icio.us that I almost feel like a really nosy neighbor...

Blogging about Technology

Real writers say you should write about what you know - and as the mother of two sons and two stepsons, what I know is waaaaaaay too much about video games. What I've always hated about them is that they are basically all alike, no matter what guise they are sold under. From Pacman to Grand Theft Auto, it's all about one thing: point and shoot. Some are less violent, some are more violent - but basically, all I see my sons doing during this television and/or computer screen time is pointing and shooting, with more or less blood per game.
However, all that changed when Guitar Hero came along! This is the best $100 bucks I ever spent. Now my sons are learning songs I danced to in high school and college; you just gotta love it. There is a swell article about this wonderful revolution in several national newspapers this month, but columnist Cynthia Wahl says it alot better than I can.
Also check out this ALA tech blog on the very same subject. If we don't want to get left in the dust, BCL definitely needs more of what Deerfield Beach is doing right. My sons are waiting for ALL of our branches to stock good games like Guitar Hero! Maybe by the time Rock Band comes out later this month, we can actually put a HOLD upon it...
http://www.techsource.ala.org/blog/2007/10/coming-up-for-air-guitar.html