Week 3 Discovery Exercise - Social Networking Tools

Learning about social networking tools has been a very interesting exercise for me. When I first set up my profile in Facebook I was very dubious about it and limited what I said about myself. But then I started having fun with it. When I found that both of my daughters had profiles I was surprised and intrigued and wanted to learn more. So I stepped outside my comfort zone and did more with it. Basically it is fun, but one can eat up a lot of time with it.

Initially I didn't think Facebook had any use for our library. And then I learned that my institution has a profile in Facebook. I was amazed. After studying this profile, I have decided to put one up for the library, add a link to our catalog, and other tools. Perhaps it will be a good way to connect with our students. It's worth a try. I plan to explore this with my staff.

I liked the look and feel of Linkedin. It definitely has a professional flavor and I am inclined to use it in the future. I think a site like this for MLA would be great.

MySpace was a total turn-off for me. Too much stuff on the screen for me.

All of these tools have privacy concerns. And yet, I am intrigued and will continue to investigate the possibilities of these tools.

Week 2 Discovery Exercise Wikis

Blogs seem best suited for one way communication to many. While a Blog allows others to leave comments, it is not a collaborative tool like a wiki. There is really only one primary author of a blog. A wiki on the other hand, is collaborative. It can be a useful tool for brainstorming and building ideas and creating content.

I see a blog as a useful tool for an electronic library newsletter. We've had an electronic newsletter that we send out to users via email. I think it would be better to transfer this function to a blog. It would be easier to maintain. And it would allow users to easily ask for additional information on topics. We could also add updates via RSS feeds.

My staff have several wikis they are using. Some are used to share agendas and meeting minutes. Another is used by our clinical teams for evidence based medicine work. The class wiki that I started is to allow staff to participate in planning for our library move to a new facility. We've done some face to face brainstorming on the plan. The wiki will allow us to do this online and help us all keep better track of ideas as we build our task lists and calendar.

Week 1 Discovery Exercise - Blogging and RSS

RSS feeds could be used at my library by both staff and clients to manage their search results, receiving table of contents from their favorite journals, and also as a current awareness tool for institutional publishing in PubMed.

Staff can integrate the use of RSS feeds in their online searching classes.