I did find the blog as an effective educational tool...and continue to be surprised by the buzzing blogging community that exists around libraries, information and social software. All in all - I learned a significant amount and am very happy with this course experience.
My only suggestion: Doing our group project on a wiki, creating a blog, having a Facebook profile, tagging things, etc. enriches understanding significantly...but writing almost every week, in addition to a blog review, written presentation and a research paper didn't leave as much time to explore the applications. While I appreciate that the weekly blogging is a key element of the course (and a good one in my mind), perhaps one of the assignments could be more functional/pratical (I don't know...tell a story at a campfire in Second Life or create useful RSS feeds for an imagined researcher...ok, not very inspired examples, but you get the idea) to move us a bit away from the theory/analysis?
...just a thought....
Monday, August 6, 2007
Social Software for me
I am officially hooked on a lot of these applications now!
So...here's my quick summary of my thoughts on each of the applications that we looked at:
Blogs & blogging
Love them! I will likely keep blogging (I did blog before this course though), but - depending on what I end up doing - I may revert to the more personal, "for family and friends" blogging that I had done in the past. I was surprised at how much I didn't know about blogs and blogging. I will definitely use blogs as an information source more now - certainly they seem to be the place to go for information on Social Software!
RSS
Yep - will continue to use this...probably mostly to keep up to date on my friends' blogs. I would use it for current awareness on any specific subject that I needed to be up-to-date on and I would also use it to support researchers within a library setting and alert them via email of new publications.
Wikis
I was very pleased with my experience using wikis for our group presentation, and would take advantage of a wiki again for any collaborative project that I might be involved in or be facilitating. (PS I still love Wikipedia.)
Social bookmarking, tagging, etc.
This is the one that surprised me the most. I knew almost nothing about it at the beginning of the course and have become an avid tagger. I have a lot of sites that I use pretty often and find this as an ideal way to access them easily and to organize them. I also have started using them to share articles & sites with friends. For me, this was the greatest "oh wow - this is exactly what I need!" part in this course.
Online social networks
I was on Facebook before this course so will continue to use it - especially to stay in touch with fellow students after graduation! I am certainly more savvy about some of the potential problems and some of the possible uses of OSN now. I would be interested in setting up my own little OSN on something like Ning.com (thanks for that, Marco!). Would I use it in a library? I think so. At minimum, I would create a library profile.
Gaming & Virtual Worlds
Aye...there's the rub. Ok, I am convinced that they have value, and feel like I have learned a lot about them in theory. In fact, I have had a bit of a change of heart about gaming. I simply need to spend some time wandering in Second Life, and actually try an interactive game - sounds like a good way to spend a rainy day! Will I use them? yep! I am pretty confident (given my love of games in the non-online state) that I will become pretty hooked!
Use in libraries? I am not 100% convinced yet, but am open to it - I don't know if virtual worlds should be used in libraries, but I definitely think libraries and librarians should be in the virtual worlds!
Overall
This course has piqued my interest and I will continue to explore these applications - I do think they are here to stay and can contribute greatly to the provision of library service.
So...here's my quick summary of my thoughts on each of the applications that we looked at:
Blogs & blogging
Love them! I will likely keep blogging (I did blog before this course though), but - depending on what I end up doing - I may revert to the more personal, "for family and friends" blogging that I had done in the past. I was surprised at how much I didn't know about blogs and blogging. I will definitely use blogs as an information source more now - certainly they seem to be the place to go for information on Social Software!
RSS
Yep - will continue to use this...probably mostly to keep up to date on my friends' blogs. I would use it for current awareness on any specific subject that I needed to be up-to-date on and I would also use it to support researchers within a library setting and alert them via email of new publications.
Wikis
I was very pleased with my experience using wikis for our group presentation, and would take advantage of a wiki again for any collaborative project that I might be involved in or be facilitating. (PS I still love Wikipedia.)
Social bookmarking, tagging, etc.
This is the one that surprised me the most. I knew almost nothing about it at the beginning of the course and have become an avid tagger. I have a lot of sites that I use pretty often and find this as an ideal way to access them easily and to organize them. I also have started using them to share articles & sites with friends. For me, this was the greatest "oh wow - this is exactly what I need!" part in this course.
Online social networks
I was on Facebook before this course so will continue to use it - especially to stay in touch with fellow students after graduation! I am certainly more savvy about some of the potential problems and some of the possible uses of OSN now. I would be interested in setting up my own little OSN on something like Ning.com (thanks for that, Marco!). Would I use it in a library? I think so. At minimum, I would create a library profile.
Gaming & Virtual Worlds
Aye...there's the rub. Ok, I am convinced that they have value, and feel like I have learned a lot about them in theory. In fact, I have had a bit of a change of heart about gaming. I simply need to spend some time wandering in Second Life, and actually try an interactive game - sounds like a good way to spend a rainy day! Will I use them? yep! I am pretty confident (given my love of games in the non-online state) that I will become pretty hooked!
Use in libraries? I am not 100% convinced yet, but am open to it - I don't know if virtual worlds should be used in libraries, but I definitely think libraries and librarians should be in the virtual worlds!
Overall
This course has piqued my interest and I will continue to explore these applications - I do think they are here to stay and can contribute greatly to the provision of library service.
Social Software in Libraries
Hmmm...for this post, assessing the final "big" questions:
Does social software have a place in library service provision?
What social software applications can be harnessed by information organizations?
SS absolutely has a place within library service provision. Each SS application offers another way to get information to patrons - this is, after all, what the library is all about, non? I would argue that the questioning of SS as a valid method of service provision might be more about a resistance to change than about its inappropriateness as within the realm of library service provision. The questioning of the value of online gaming or online social networks seems to echo, to a certain degree, the value questions surrounding other new formats or methods (like the arguments against Graphic Novels as 'quality' reading).
I would not even begin to suggest that the every SS application has a place in every library, nor that the SS applications are without flaws. I do think that they need to be added to every librarian's arsenal of potential tools for information provision, so that they can be considered along with more traditional methods. In fact, I don't understand what the fuss is about. If it you think it might be effective in your library, try it - especially the free applications.
I think that all social software has the potential to be harnessed by information organizations. Certainly, different applications work better within different situations, it will be the job of the librarian to assess their own user groups.
Academic libraries seem like an ideal place to be leaders for much of this as their user group are often very computer-literate and exist within a structured community that may be better able to provide training and instruction on these resources. Public libraries serving rural populations, institutions offering distance education, or groups attempting to work together from different locations, while I think they might come up against some specific challenges (i.e. no high speed access in rural locations, remote instruction on the systems that are needed for the instruction), seem ideally suited to reap the benefits of SS.
I think that the "low-hanging fruit" of the SS applications are blogs, RSS, and wikis because:
Does social software have a place in library service provision?
What social software applications can be harnessed by information organizations?
SS absolutely has a place within library service provision. Each SS application offers another way to get information to patrons - this is, after all, what the library is all about, non? I would argue that the questioning of SS as a valid method of service provision might be more about a resistance to change than about its inappropriateness as within the realm of library service provision. The questioning of the value of online gaming or online social networks seems to echo, to a certain degree, the value questions surrounding other new formats or methods (like the arguments against Graphic Novels as 'quality' reading).
I would not even begin to suggest that the every SS application has a place in every library, nor that the SS applications are without flaws. I do think that they need to be added to every librarian's arsenal of potential tools for information provision, so that they can be considered along with more traditional methods. In fact, I don't understand what the fuss is about. If it you think it might be effective in your library, try it - especially the free applications.
I think that all social software has the potential to be harnessed by information organizations. Certainly, different applications work better within different situations, it will be the job of the librarian to assess their own user groups.
Academic libraries seem like an ideal place to be leaders for much of this as their user group are often very computer-literate and exist within a structured community that may be better able to provide training and instruction on these resources. Public libraries serving rural populations, institutions offering distance education, or groups attempting to work together from different locations, while I think they might come up against some specific challenges (i.e. no high speed access in rural locations, remote instruction on the systems that are needed for the instruction), seem ideally suited to reap the benefits of SS.
I think that the "low-hanging fruit" of the SS applications are blogs, RSS, and wikis because:
- there are so many free options
- they are relatively easy to create, use, and participate in
- their purpose and uses seem more obviously "informational" and so seem less foreign to traditional library service provision than virtual worlds and online social networks perhaps do.
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