Project Play

Join us for our next Play Date, “How to Avoid Cracking Walnuts with Jackhammers: Choosing the Right Web 2.0 Tools for the Job,” on Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 10:00 a.m. Here’s the blurb:

You know about all sorts of new web technologies, like blogs, wikis, podcasts, etc. etc. etc. You know that these tools can be used to help solve day-to-day problems and to create new services for your patrons. But how do you choose which tools to use for any given project?

Join Stef Morrill and a group of library staff who have implemented successful projects using Web 2.0 technologies to get some insight into this question. Stef will give background information, and library staff will share how they made the right choices to create successful projects.

Sign up now!

A couple of weeks ago, NPR ran a story called “Knowing the new rules of recruitment.” I’d encourage you to listen to the whole story , but here’s the quick summary:

The ways that companies recruit for jobs and their expectations for applicants are changing. Gone are the days of the paper resume. One executive of an online company was quoted: “If someone sends us a paper resume folded in thirds, stuffed in an envelope, it’s hard to take it seriously.” More employers expect communication via email, resumes submitted electronically, and applicants to have an online presence through blogs and sites like LinkedIn.

Libraries all over the country are assisting unemployed people with new skills to help them find jobs. After hearing this story, I found myself worrying (well, I’m a worry-wart, so any reason to worry is a good one!) and asking myself some questions:

• Along with typing and how to make a resume in Word, are we teaching fundamental email skills that are second nature now to most of us , like email netiquette?
• Are we teaching jobseekers how to create an online presence and how to make that presence reflect what they want to convey to employers?
• Are we teaching the tools for modern jobseekers, like LinkedIn?

I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I do think we need to recognize that “the way we’ve always done it” may not be helping as much as we’d like.

(Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thewmatt/1864823746/)

Stef and Beth presented “Creating Online Tutorials with Screencasting” on June 24th. Here’s the recording of the play date and our slides, in case you’re interested!

Thanks to everyone who attended. Remember, if you miss a Play Date, you can check out the archives page to view a recording at your leisure.

As I was poking around in my Delicious links to find something to post about this week, I came across a tool that I think has a lot of potential for library use. It’s easy to use, attractive, and you don’t even have to log in if you don’t want to. It’s Wallwisher.

Imagine a wall in your office that you can stick post-it notes on for anything you want to remember. You can move the notes around and group them as you wish. Now imagine that your wall is virtual, and rather than only you or the people entering your office being able to add a note, now anyone can add to your wall from anywhere in the world. AND, they can add images, music, video or pages to their note. That is Wallwisher.

Here are a few ideas for how you could use it:

• Create your own wall to save reminders or other brief notes for your own eyes only.
• Create a wall for a group you’re working with, so you can track to dos, accomplishments, or other reminders, and use it to collaborate.
• Create a topical wall on a current event that includes videos, links, and other data about that subject. Link to it from your web site.

But here’s how I’d really like to use it:

• Create a wall for your library and ask people to add their feedback, either on a specific service or on the library as a whole.

What a fun way to create a quick, attractive community survey! Sure, it’s not very scientific, but Wallwisher doesn’t make you log in and is fun to play around with. And in the end you have a kind of cool looking wall with opinions from your community posted for all to see.

I created a Project Play wall, so you can play around with adding notes and moving them around on the wall. Go to http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/projectplay and see what you think. Be sure to try to include music or a video or link, too! It will be fun to see what gets posted.

It’s been a particularly hectic week for me even though I haven’t had many meetings on my schedule! So, I’ve been procrastinating on my Project Play post this week and keeping my eyes and ears open to ideas on a topic.  I didn’t have any flashes of inspiration or wonderful ideas so I thought I’d share a couple of interesting topics that came across my Google Reader this week.

First, LibraryThing introduced Collections this week.  You may recall (I’ve only told you a few times, right?) that I love LibraryThing and I think I’ll love collections, too.  Many people use LibraryThing to catalog their actual home libraries.  Location tags such as office, den, spare room are often used to describe the location of a book in someone’s home. You can create separate collections for each location!  Some people use LibraryThing to keep track of their Wishlists or their “To Be Read” lists and the new Collections feature make tracking these books easier.

I think that collections will eventually make my tags more meaningful.  For example, if you’re looking at the tags of The Teashop Girls you’ll see tags like 2009, ARC, done, for review, and own.  Do those tags really describe the book? Not really.  One of my main tags is 2009 Book List because of the way I keep track of the books I’ve read.  I’m thinking of creating a collection for this tag and letting my tags be about about the topic of the book.  Fellow LT users, try it out and let me know what you think in the comments!  How else are you or would you use the Collections feature?

On a similar topic, have you heard of Ravelry?  My colleague Shawn is a knitter and introduced me to Ravelry a couple of months ago.  Ravelry is a social networking site designed specifically for knitters, crocheters, and other fiber artists (I’m a crocheter).  Most of the pieces that I make, I give away.  I sometimes remember to take a photo, but not always.  Ravelry gives me a place to keep

Doily

track of my crocheting projects - including who they’re for, adding pictures, the pattern, the yarn that I used and more.  Ravelry is like LibraryThing for knitters and crocheters!  How cool is that? Membership is free, but you’ll need to submit a request for an invitation.  That usually only takes a day or so and is well worth the wait.  If you join, look for me (pandalibrarian) or Shawn (zeldagoat).

The reason that I decided to add Ravelry into the mix for this week’s post is because someone else blogged about it this week.  Cool Tools (another of my favorite blogs) posted about Ravelry this week and it stuck with me.

So, that’s what I found interesting this week.  How about you? Anything you’d like to share?  I’d love to hear about it - let me know in the comments!