Thing 7: Sharing Slide Presentations

I have embedded a Slideshare presentation at the bottom of my blog that was created for library staff unfamiliar with Web 2.0 tools and it gives some excellent reasons why libraries need to begin using Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, etc. When I was teaching high school years ago, there was a beginning emphasis on using collaboration in the classroom rather the lecture approach. Students coming into the community college system now are used to learning by sharing. I can see slideshare sharing as being another one of those learning tools that encourages students to share their responses with the creator and with each other. It would be interesting for the various community college libraries in our system to upload our database tutorials to one of these sites. That way, not only would we be able to get more interest and some feedback from our own students, but we would be to see and respond to the tutorials produced by our counterparts in other parts of the state.

Embracing Library 2.0 and Web 2.0 for Quality Library Service

View more presentations from Fe Angela Verzosa.

Thing 6: Chat

I have used chat before but I am not a huge fan, usually because if I am online, I am there for a purpose and do not want to be distracted. But a number of my friends use it a lot and try to coax me into chatting with them. So far, I have resisted. :) The most I use it is to chat with a support tech or agent, such as for my internet provider, my router manufacturer, or a hotel agent.

But I can see its advantage as a way for a patron to communicate with a librarian, such as LRCLive. Students who need help usually need it right then and do not like to wait until the next day for an answer, esp. if they are working on a research paper.

Thing 5: Wikis

One of the reasons I signed up for this project is to better understand terms such as wiki. If you had asked me what a wiki was before today, I would have told you it was an informational website that could be edited. And I wasn't too far off, but I did not think of all the possibilities that a wiki could be used for before I looked at the video Wikis in Plain English.

The library wikis were very interesting. I especially liked the one for Antioch University because it gave its staff a one stop location for all the information its staff needs to know. Our own library could benefit from this. Right now, directions for handling fines, opening and closing the library, etc. are scattered among various notebooks or you have to find the right person to ask. Since I work the desk by myself one night a week, I would definitely like to be able to access the information I need without having to place a phone call to a staff person's home or waiting until the next morning to find out. The one wiki I found a little disturbing was the one for the University of Limerick because it contained advertising, which turns me off somewhat. However, all the wikis listed did seem to contain useful information and I like the idea that they could be updated whenver necessary without having to go through a webmaster.