Creating a useful library catalog

A colleague of mine at work forwarded information about this to our reference librarians, but I just read about it on Jenny Levine’s blog: the idea of using Meebo’s IM widget in the library catalog to create a user-librarian interaction at the point of need. Our library has gone back and forth about using IM [...]

Read Full Post »

Connecting the dots

Good post on Infoblog about best Web 2.0 practices and the library catalog.  The idea of cross-promotion within the library by way of library catalog is a good use of Web 2.0 technologies to manufacture interest in the library and what we are doing.

Read Full Post »

Value-added libraries

Today I have been thinking a lot about book discussions and libraries, particularly academic libraries.  My library is sponsoring a faculty book discussion next week, around the book The View From the Center of the Universe, and it got me thinking about why my library doesn’t do more book discussion projects.  Time is, of course, [...]

Read Full Post »

Create your…self

Tired of that sad ‘ol picture you use to populate your MySpace, Facebook, website and other social networking tools?  Well…mEgo is here to help!  Design and build your own customized avatar to use on the web and share with your friends.  What is neat, though, is that you create the look of your avatar, even [...]

Read Full Post »

Second Life concerns

I’m currently taking a class in Second Life and we posted our first impressions of the virtual world to the class forum today.  One of my classmates posted this interesting article about a professor’s “second thoughts about Second Life”, which raises some important legal and ethical concerns about institutions of higher learning using and requiring [...]

Read Full Post »

Library 2.0 is about power shifting

Kathryn Greenhill writes about the shifting of libraries’ power and Library 2.0 on her blog, Librarians Matter.   Kathryn makes some valid points about this shift in power:  users creating their own idea of a library and the power of libraries to take risks.  I think for years we were so bound by tradition and the [...]

Read Full Post »

What are the future web trends?

This article from the Read/Write Web blog is about future web trends — and most are, except for a couple that suspiciously sound like they are here already: personalization and online video/TV?

Read Full Post »

Who’s interested in Second Life?

Many campuses of higher education are dealing with budget and staffing issues, as well as a lack of time.  Thus, Second Life has enormous appeal for all academic and student life departments, not just the academic library.  collegewebeditor.com is a web, PR, and marketing blog for higher ed institutions, aimed primarily to admissions and marketing [...]

Read Full Post »

Web 2.0 apps for students

Great compilation of 2.0 tools for students.  The tools are aimed at mostly college students, but I suppose the list could be adapted for elementary and secondary ed students.  Tools like Zoho Office Suite which has a whole cadre of free word processing, spreadsheet and presentation applications.  JotCloud and ShortText for taking notes, Facebook and [...]

Read Full Post »

Blogs, Podcasts and Wikis @ RRLC

Today I teach the Blogs, Podcasts and Wikis workshop at RRLC in Rochester.  Participants are from the Rochester, NY region and come from public, special, academic, school and medical libraries.  Tell me what you hope to gain or learn from this workshop!

Read Full Post »