Web 2.0 Awards

It's amazing to see the bredth of web 2.0 sites out there--applications I never would have dreamed of (onesentence.org?) and some I have--for travel and reviews: yelp.com and realtravel.com are worthy of revisiting.

Playing catch up not ketchup

Playing "catch up!" I've got about 6 things left to do and I really hoped that I would be able to just whip through them while watching the Eagles play the Jets. Not so fast there...lke most of the 23 things, this takes time and thought. The Wiki lessons and sandbox are very timely. I hope we can get a wiki started to post stories about the recent successful Chesapeake City grand opening. Changing the context of my thinking about wikis for collaboration rather than information makes me begin to see all the possibilities.

I love the online applications. Google calendar is great for sharing. We're using a shared calendar among the admin staff for meetings, etc. It seems secure, interactive and goes around Mr. Gates' Outlook. Shared information wants to be on the web, not on the device. That's a lightbulb thought.

Google Docs looks pretty useful too. I'm a two laptop user so the possibilities for access to docs from wherever is useful. I'll attempt to upload this to my blog. And it works!

Veni, Vidi, Wiki

I was approached by a library board member about creating a wiki! Talk about leadership. Mike’s idea is that the library and the Historical Society could set up a local wiki to trap stories from local residents about the history of Cecil County in a wiki. What a great idea and this “thing 16” arrived at the perfect moment. I was skeptical about wikis when I first heard Stephen Colbert’s rant about them—let’s hijack the encyclopedia and make it say that elephants are extinct. That and the fact that those with vested commercial interests, axes to grind and propaganda to post can influence the truthiness of wiki content. The World Book would be the better source, thank you very much.

But this exercise demonstrates how wikis might be ideal for Mike’s idea and for intra net type staff information and collaboration and I especially loved the book lover’s wiki at Princeton public. Now just to figure out how to get started…

Never say never!

Some staff heard me express my discomfort with "loosey-goosey, willy-nilly, and helter-skelter" management/supervisory techniques recently. It seems that as we embrace Library 2.0 there could be a lot more of that in our professional futures. The good news is that there is all this interest and excitement being generated around the concepts and technologies of Library 2.0. But frankly, I can't imagine our library in a perpetual "beta" test. Instead we need to figure out how and where to take advantage of the legitimate opportunities for responsible entrepreneurship--for example "23 Things"! We need to stay committed to the values of planning, accountability and analysis, and leadership as we operate in this incredibly rich environment. It's shaping up to be a very exciting future for the libray world. I guess we could safely say, there will be no fuzzy-wuzzy in our future, either.