Fin April 23, 2009

So, the last web 2.0 posting. I’m tempted to use the old cliche about “what a long strange trip it’s been”, but it really hasn’t been long or strange.  I’m a digital native, I know and use this stuff and it’s part of my daily life.  Like many of our patrons, when I want a quick answer I go to wikipedia, even though I know it’s limitations (okay, so that probably separates me from our patrons).  I read blogs, quite a few of them, and my morning paper comes not on my doorstep but from nytimes.com.  But, I have been primarily a receiver of digital technology, not a creator.  This assignment gave me the nudge to start a blog, sign up for twitter, and get on facebook.  I doubt I’ll keep up with the blogging, I just don’t have the time.  I do, however, really enjoy the connections that twitter has fostered between folks at different branches.  I will definitely continue that.  As much as I resisted it, facebook has helped me connect with people that I had lost touch with, and that is a good thing.

In many ways, though, this project has affected my personal life much more than my work one.  I was already familiar enough with these ideas, technologies, and applications to provide patron service regarding them.  I’m not, nor do I ever intend to be, the sort of person who will push the system into using these tools, because I’m much more of a skeptic than a believer.  I am now more connected with friends and family, and that’s what I’ll take home from web 2.0.

Delicious April 21, 2009

Should I begin this post by saying that I hate Del.icio.us because I can never remember where the periods go?  The word folksonomy bothers me too, but that’s just because it sounds like an uncomfortable medical procedure (I’d like to keep my folk right where it is, thank you).  Put these two together and you have why my “exploration” paused after wikis.

If you’ve read any of my other posts (not that I would expect you to), you’ll have realized that while I’m quite familiar with most of these web 2.0 gizmos, I’m pretty skeptical of them.  Same goes for delicious and tagging stuff.  I see why they’re useful, and I did like the San Mateo dewey categorization of websites.  It would be nice to have our system recommended sites on delicious (no . in there, sorry, can’t do it), as it would make them much easier to find and use and eliminate some of the cross-postings.  The interface would need some work before we could do that though, since you have to be familiar with web navigation in order to make it work.  I’ll be interested to see how these things evolve into their next iterations…