Reading Notes for Week 12

Creating the Academic Library Folksonomy...

Several of my colleagues and I participated in a library-sponsored Web 2.0 project this past summer. The project lasted nearly the entire summer and consisted of several assignments that introduced us to different tools and websites. Del.ico.us was one the tools we used. I thought it was a cool concept especially for someone like me whose Favorites and Bookmarks page had grown to the point of being unmanageable! I had not heard of "institutional" social tagging like the PennTags programs. I think that something like that would really encourage collaboration and knowledge sharing between students, faculty, and library staff. I can imagine using it during library instruction sessions where the concept is introduced and we add to it as part of the class.

Wikis in library instruction programs...
At this point our library only uses wikis in order to prepare for social-type gatherings. Staff can see what items are needed, volunteer to bring them, and then mark those items off the collective list. Gone are the days where we have 47 bags of chips and no ice! The reference staff is in the process of revamping all of our subject guides. We have tossed around the ideas of using wikis, but have to yet to make a decision. I really like the collaboration aspect, especially being the newest member of the reference team. However, I am a bit concerned about the consistency and appearance of a wiki-based subject guide. For the sake of our patrons, we want them to have a familiar and easy-to-use look and format. Other wikis I have seen tend to look a bit unkempt.

Behind-the-scenes of Wikipedia video-
I have mixed feelings about what I learned in the video. On the positive side, I feel better about the validity of the information provided in Wikipedia entries. I think it's great that they maintain such a strict neutrality policy and they do have more of a information-vetting process than I realized. I do think, however, some of the claim of the self-proclaimed creator rang a bit false. He claims that they only need 5000 dollars a month to operate. Yet they are practically begging for money on their home page. Plus their own entry on their site lists that they have a foundation that is worth over 3 billion dollars. Granted this video was made over four years ago and perhaps things have changed since then.

Weblogs in Scientific Libraries
We have yet to use any kind of blogs in our academic library. There is an interest in writing one geared towards informing our patrons but also a fear that those patrons (especially our students) simply won't read it. Perhaps if we educated highlighted RSS feeds as well as the blog, it would be more effective. I certainly rely on Google Reader to follow personal blogs as well as those of my fellow 2600 classmates.
In the past, I have followed project-based blogs like those mentioned in the Reichardt/Harder article, but I am not aware that our university has ever used one. They make a great point about a blog being a much easier way compared to e-mail to keep a group of people informed and up-to-date. I just cleaned out over 5000 messages from my work inbox, so I am certainly aware of e-mail overload! As far as blogs for reference staff, I think our staff is bit too small for this to work. I certainly see the benefit for libraries with large reference staffs.