SWICKI : a custom search portal that you easily design and put on your blog or site. "Swickis" are defined as online applications that can " grow and serve a community of enthusiasts around a particular topic." It is collaborative with others who may be using your search terms, so it grows. And anyone can "grab" it and use it, too. The one at left was made by choosing search terms you see in the tag cloud, related to art, design, and color in libraries. It pulls in all sorts of results, some relevant and surprising, some less so. With a little work I can make it better. With proper input of terms in the first place, I think it could become quite powerful. I like the tag cloud feature and the compact size. One feels that one has really created something!
If you were getting lots of traffic to your site, as the library does, a feature like this could be customized for all sorts of special events (Spring Training for example), or just Winter Visitors Information, Summer travel, School topics at certain times of the year. The Kids or Teens part of the site could have a swicki designed to aid with research, maybe. Would this be oversimplifying the research process? I guess it would depend on the quality of the results, because really good results would do a better job of preparing the student and save them a lot of wasted time flailing around through bad results.
I can see working out a swicki for the Call Center that is programmed, so to speak, to pull in results from trusted sources and also to respond to new sources added by others. . If a really well informed person designed one, a swicki could be a really useful tool to narrow down the number of search results. It is way better than a Pathfinder, but still “only as good as the expert who has designed it.” I can see creating custom swickis for patrons or teaching people how to make their own. Maybe there would be a way to "install" every patron's swicki where they log into "My Account."
Monday, March 31, 2008
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Will Online Tools Change the World?
This Google Doc isn't interactive when I send it to my blog, I notice.
The table I made below asks you to add your favorite cookie to the list, but you have to be in Google Docs to type the data. Since I like playing around with fonts, I am using Comic Sans MS font. The header was 24 pt white text color and green text background. These settings are at about the midpoint of the toolbar above. Below is a separator from the Insert menu.
By inserting a table, I can ask for your input (after I have invited you to collaborate).
| 1. I can ask for input | 5. | 9. |
| 2. What is your favorite cookie? | 6. | 10. |
| 3. Mine: Apricot Walnut Bars | 7. | 11. |
| 4. | 8. | 12. |
But of course online productivity is about Productivity, not just appearance. In order to produce, I need the input of others, so I will send my document off and see where it lands. If I am successful in inviting others, maybe this table will fill up. If the table isn't the right shape, someone else should be able to resize it too.
Jumped Right In
The little feet in this photo are borrowed from Flickr. Since we were all sent to play in the Sandbox of Wiki 2.0, here’s the link to Favorite Vacation Spots, where I added my own sandbox photo: (See Coastal Escape).
I hope to learn more features, because clearly you can do a lot in the sandbox. But, do they mean anyone can really create an entirely new page?
Onward to Online Productivity.
I hope to learn more features, because clearly you can do a lot in the sandbox. But, do they mean anyone can really create an entirely new page?
Onward to Online Productivity.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Getting My Mind Around Wikis
What is written about the wiki tells me it “allows people with great ideas to be included in the decision-making process.” It is democratic. In a library environment this might seem to fly in the face of “authority control” of processes, nomenclatures or accepted terms and languages. And how does a library help me find “the best mechanic” or Thai food, when the basis for this information may be largely anecdotal or opinion-based? Linking people and information doesn’t tell you what the quality of the information is.
Image information at right:
But I like the idea of the library catalog having a “wiki functionality” allowing anyone to add a review or keyword or tag to make the catalog more valuable to those who are searching within a particular genre or looking for a new author. And I like the Library Success Best Practices Wiki suggestion of using the wiki idea to link Library patrons, all waiting for the same book, to discuss it online. I wasn’t sure about the suggestion that they pass it among themselves rather than returning it to the library though. I also like the Princeton Public Library Booklover’s Wiki which offers prizes to motivate its customer reviewers. Sometimes just the impetus a reader needs is a word-of-mouth recommendation that someone else liked a book or movie or found an online resource trustworthy.
The Library Success Best Practices Wiki at http://www.libsuccess.org is a veritable feast of information that is inspiring in its scope. It was originally created by Meredith Farkas and is available to attribute and share for noncommercial use under a Creative Commons License. So even though it is rich in content, it is a work in progress, and contains the opinions of many different people.
I checked out http://meredith.wolfwater.com/wiki/ from an ALA conference in Chicago, sharing such things as lodging, dining, city transportation, views, and museums. I can see library patrons similarly adding their information on best places in their library for wifi, or the nearest café, quietest places, most comfy chair, best light, best area for kids to play without disturbing others, etc. On a different level, I can see Community Service organizations in an area having access to the Library’s wiki in order to maintain current information on services, contact numbers, deadlines and special offerings such as testing opportunities, flu shot clinics, bus tickets, etc. In times of crisis, (hurricane, flood, earthquake) these centralized bulletin boards could be relied on as tried and true lines of communication.
Wikis do indeed allow group efforts to be organized. Still, some wikis I have seen sometimes seem very disorganized. Since anyone can edit, point of view and “tone of voice” could mar the collaborative goal, and though the term “neutral point of view” was applauded as a goal by some sources, that doesn’t seem possible or even realistic in some cases. (An internal Staff wiki would necessarily have a very definite point of view.)
With a common goal as the ideal, there would of necessity be a bias toward one point of view at the expense of others, however polite the discussion.
The Library Success Best Practices Wiki at http://www.libsuccess.org is a veritable feast of information that is inspiring in its scope. It was originally created by Meredith Farkas and is available to attribute and share for noncommercial use under a Creative Commons License. So even though it is rich in content, it is a work in progress, and contains the opinions of many different people.
I checked out http://meredith.wolfwater.com/wiki/ from an ALA conference in Chicago, sharing such things as lodging, dining, city transportation, views, and museums. I can see library patrons similarly adding their information on best places in their library for wifi, or the nearest café, quietest places, most comfy chair, best light, best area for kids to play without disturbing others, etc. On a different level, I can see Community Service organizations in an area having access to the Library’s wiki in order to maintain current information on services, contact numbers, deadlines and special offerings such as testing opportunities, flu shot clinics, bus tickets, etc. In times of crisis, (hurricane, flood, earthquake) these centralized bulletin boards could be relied on as tried and true lines of communication.
Wikis do indeed allow group efforts to be organized. Still, some wikis I have seen sometimes seem very disorganized. Since anyone can edit, point of view and “tone of voice” could mar the collaborative goal, and though the term “neutral point of view” was applauded as a goal by some sources, that doesn’t seem possible or even realistic in some cases. (An internal Staff wiki would necessarily have a very definite point of view.)
With a common goal as the ideal, there would of necessity be a bias toward one point of view at the expense of others, however polite the discussion.
Lastly, I include the link to a Wikipedia discussion among a group of Chemical engineers whose rhetoric becomes less than cordial in their effort to agree on wiki content. The Graphic at the top of this article was accessed via this site also.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Linas/Archive10
There is still a lot to think about here.
There is still a lot to think about here.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
#15: From Cloud Cities to Street Libraries
Having read a little about 2.0 Library Futures, I'd like to mention an OCLC Newsletter article written by Tom Storey that contains a nice step-by-step screencast. This really appeals to my learning style, because it employs visual, auditory AND kinesthetic styles. There really should be more of this kind of tutorial out there. If there were, we would all be zipping through this learning experience. The source is the Santa Monica Library's link to help locate alternate sources for Library items people want. This example shows exactly the process a patron needs to search "all area libraries" for an item in Open Worldcat.
Other 2.0 related articles mention such concepts as shared cyber workspaces, collaboration, connectivity, speed and barrier removal. Such barriers as place, time, and expertise are mentioned, but I don't recall "economic advantage."
Another OCLC article by Wendy Schultz takes readers through multiple generations of possible Library Technology toward a future she describes like part 19th Century Salon, part Zen-like retreat and part health spa; all in a 3-D virtual reality. I reminds me of those fictional cloud-cities in tales where the privileged live lives of intellectual inquiry while the many less-lucky below toil with day to day realities.
This SF Chronicle story from 2000 belongs in the discussion (because I love it) and because I hope the future of technology in libraries doesn't lose sight of this enduring vision. How is the still-present digital divide being addressed? Even among the participants in this learning adventure, there is wide variation in experience, fluency, ease of use, etc. I hope there will always be steps from the low-tech world that remain encouraging, free of intimidation, elitism and a dismissive attitude.
I'm currently reading The Design of Future Things (see my Librarything) but reviews tell me this book (Everyware) is better at conversing about how we will understand ubiquitous computing in the future. I'm finding this part of the discussion interesting: not so much the content that becomes available to people via 2.0 technologies, but how people feel and think about them, interact and are changed by them, and what it really means.
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