Post on 18-Dec-2014
description
Solving problemswith “Web 2.0” technologies
Dorothea Salo9 October 2009
A 2.0 Taxonomy
What 2.0 services tend to have in common
• Interactive, not broadcast
• Comments
• Ratings
• Conversation
• Collaboration
• Network effects
• “Glue” for mashups and recombination
• RSS, PubSubHubBub, APIs...
Stuff, or people?• Stuff
• Flickr: photographs
• YouTube: video
• Pandora, Slacker, last.fm: music
• delicious.com, digg, reddit: links
• WordPress, Blogger, LiveJournal: writing
• People
• social networks: MySpace, Facebook
• “lifestreaming”: FriendFeed
• talking: IM, Twitter
Using 2.0 to solve professional problems
LISTSERVs
Weblogsdel.icio.us
RSS feeds
Instant Messenger
EmailCiteULike
TECHNOLOGY FATIGUE
Here’s the secret...
• They’re just tools. (Okay, and toys, but we’re at work, right?)
• Tools solve problems.
• No problem? No need for a tool.
• Otherwise...
START WITH THE PROBLEM
NOT THE TOOL!
Problem: Keeping up... without drowning
• I get too much email. Don’t you?
• Wouldn’t it be nice if...
• Routine notifications didn’t interrupt your day
• Routine notifications went quietly away once you read them, instead of cluttering up everything?
• You could ask questions or discuss matters without bothering people who aren’t interested?
Solution:Weblogs plus feedreaders
• There’s a catch: you need both!
• If you just start the weblog, nobody reads it.
• Eventually, everybody goes back to email because “nobody reads weblogs.”
• Three steps1. Start everybody on Bloglines or Google Reader.
2. Start the weblog.
3. Go cold-turkey on email!
• Start with a small group.
Works for professional reading too!
• Too busy to read the print literature? Me too.
• The same people who write the literature are writing weblogs!
• Andrew Pace... has a weblog. (“Hectic Pace”)
• Roy Tennant... blogs for Library Journal.
• Lorcan Dempsey... has a weblog.
• Catholic librarians too!
• http://lifeofacatholiclibrarian.blogspot.com/
• http://catholiclibrarian.blogspot.com/
Problem: Writing collaboratively
• Everything from policies to pathfinders!
• Emailing Word docs around is a hassle.
• Nobody knows who has the latest version.
• One version + three editors = three versions (or more!)
• Inbox gets clogged even more.
• Often you want the final version on the Web. Word is a lousy choice for that!
• Ugh, there’s got to be a better way!
One solution: wikis
• No, you don’t have to let “everyone” edit them! Or see them!
• Some have WYSIWYG plug-ins, so you don’t have to memorize weird punctuation.
• Tip: wikimatrix.org to choose a wikihost that’s right for your purposes.
Another: Google Docs
• Docs and Spreadsheets (docs.google.com)
• Also slides!
• Restricts access to just the people who need to see it
• Exports to MS Office, Open Office, HTML, PDF, text
• ... so if you need that Word doc, you have it!
Problem:Getting stuff on the Web fast
• Who wants to hassle with Dreamweaver or FTP?
• Who can afford to wait while one designated person puts things online?
• Who can afford to wait for changes?
Solutions: many!
• Weblogs
• for announcements
• Wikis
• for collaborative knowledge-bases
• especially great for reference
• Project-tracking sites (Basecamp, etc.)
• Twitter, if you’re brief
Problem:Keeping track of stuff
• More stuff flashes up on the Web than I can possibly remember. A lot of it is useful... but not right this second.
• But when the need arises... will I remember where the site is?
Solution: social bookmarking services
• delicious.com: granddaddy of ’em all
• Steps:1. Sign up.
2. Add a bookmarklet to your web browser.
3. Bookmark, tag, remember!
• The “social” part doesn’t have to matter.
Solution:online reference trackers
• Connotea
• I find it a bit clunky, but it works.
• Zotero
• Firefox only
• You can share citations with a group or with the world!
• PDF and website storage, full-text search
But, Dorothea...
You haven’t described my problem!
How am I supposed to know
whether there’s a 2.0 solution to
it? How will I find that solution
even if it exists?
Solutions• Keep up with one or two general-awareness
techblogs (in your feedreader!).
• I like lifehacker.com and Librarian In Black.
• Have your del.icio.us bookmarklet handy!
• Build your network of 2.0 users, on and off-campus.
• Listen when colleagues, patrons, friends talk about the tools they use! Then check ’em out for yourself.
• Eventually, you will develop your “2.0” radar... and see uses for new tools as they turn up!
“The social”what does it mean for us
and our patrons?
Networks of stuff
• Can help us share and publicize our collections
• Adding digitized materials to Flickr
• Can help us track what’s new and worthwhile
• Can offer us materials for legal use and reuse
• Flickr, ccMixter
• Open access, open educational resources, open textbooks
(A word about copyright)
• If it’s on the Internet, assume it’s copyrighted.
• “Credit” is NOT a defense against infringement
• If you want to use it
• Public domain or US government documents
• Creative Commons
• Fair use and TEACH Act exemptions
• Linking is generally okay.
Networks of people
• Connect us to our colleagues
• Connect us to our patrons
• Connect us to our family and friends
• Started as a collegiate network
• Expanded to alumni, then everyone
• Serious, repeated privacy breaches
• Still extremely popular, especially among teens and college-age youth
• “Stranger danger”? Not really.
MySpace
• Facebook competitor
• Popular among youth of lower socioeconomic status
• So if you block MySpace but not Facebook...
• Bands and musicians well-represented
• Use declining slightly
• 140-character “microblogging”
• For all the talk about teenagers, most popular among the 30+ set!
• Has its own customs
• “Retweeting”
• Hashtags
• Fun, easy to play with
Recommendations
“Do I have to?”• Sometimes!
• Are you going to turn down a workable solution just because it’s 2.0?
• It never hurts to know what your learners are doing. It may help.
• But there are also blind alleys, and beware the “creepy treehouse effect.”
• So the first thing to do is listen.
• Listen to your patrons.
• Listen to your colleagues.
• Listen to your heart!
• Play. Really.
Thank you!Dorothea Salo
dsalo@library.wisc.eduAIM: mindsatuw