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

Facebook

• 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

Twitter

• 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