I have to say, I use Wikipedia quite a lot. I'm not going to reference it in an essay, and I'm not going to provide it as a source for a student who comes to the reference desk - but if I want to know about something in a nutshell, Wikipedia is the first place I turn.
It is great for local information, like about places or buildings. Great for the finer points of philosophical ideas - I have been using it a lot lately when I git a new idea in Heidegger - just to get the gist. And it is great for popular culture references - some of my favourite Wikipedia articles are about the use of Chinese Language in the Science Fiction show Firefly and the history of brothels and in the Wild West town of Deadwood, and how the television show by the same name differs from the actual history of the town.
There are also beautiful gems of writing. One of my favourite pieces of writing ever comes from a Wikipedia article: "Although there are still large areas incapable of sustaining regrowth due to the acute slopes and lack of soil formation, the rate of vegetation recovery will render the mythologies arising from the appearance as only partial truths in time.".
Someone at my husband's work was looking up something about American History on Wikipedia and came across an article that was basically a history of America from the Mormon perspective. Not at all factual, it disappeared within seconds, and someone else came along and flagged it. Luckily before it disappeared, she managed to print it. In some way preserving a cultural artefact that only lasted a moment.
So it is reassuring to know that there is quality control of sorts in such a collaborative endeavor. But I also find Ellen's comment (on the reference list, or maybe a working group meeting) that only a small proportion of internet users actually participate in this sort of collaborative work.
I belong to several wikis that are used for internal communications purposes. Better than a group email, better than a conference call, they allow you to keep a record, revise, track changes etc etc.
Will have to do the rest of this post later.
Monday, April 14, 2008
RSS feeds changed my life
I feel very guilty that I am very far behind with my Learning 2.0. Not so much because I am intimidated by the technology, probably more because I am too busy using it.
I have been very very busy at work, and keep meaning to do my 2.0 assignments at home in the evening - but instead find myself uploading photos to flickr, adding links to delicious, reading all the craft blogs I have on bloglines, talking with my friends on facebook etc etc. I'm using it all, but neglecting to make the time to talk about how it relates to libraries.
I love my bloglines account. I started it to keep track of all the interesting library 2.0 blogs out there, but soon clodded it up with craft and design blogs, which send me sweet little capsules of whimsy to inspire and motivate me to get home and start sewing/or clean the house!
When I do use bloglines as a professional development tool, I find that I use it in tandem with delicious, tagging things of interest as they come up, organising them to refer back to later.
This is the thing that I have always found annoying about blogs - the fact that the information is fleeting, a new blog post always comes and then you forget all the great ones that have come before. Using Delicious AND an RSS Feeder has finally given me a way to organise and store all the interesting blog entries I come across. Bloglines has a feature for saving posts as well, but it only lets you save in folders - you can't tag posts - so it's not very useful.
We have created a googlereader feed for Readers Advisory Blogs on the NSW Readers Advisory Blog - which is great. I think that Libraries could use feeds like this on their website to promote their blogs, especially if they have several like Manly!
Hint - don't sign up to a feed on bloglines if you are never going to read it - it will completely clog up your reader and just become a nuisance. Be discerning and only link the feeds that you actually read (or would like to read) daily!
I have been very very busy at work, and keep meaning to do my 2.0 assignments at home in the evening - but instead find myself uploading photos to flickr, adding links to delicious, reading all the craft blogs I have on bloglines, talking with my friends on facebook etc etc. I'm using it all, but neglecting to make the time to talk about how it relates to libraries.
I love my bloglines account. I started it to keep track of all the interesting library 2.0 blogs out there, but soon clodded it up with craft and design blogs, which send me sweet little capsules of whimsy to inspire and motivate me to get home and start sewing/or clean the house!
When I do use bloglines as a professional development tool, I find that I use it in tandem with delicious, tagging things of interest as they come up, organising them to refer back to later.
This is the thing that I have always found annoying about blogs - the fact that the information is fleeting, a new blog post always comes and then you forget all the great ones that have come before. Using Delicious AND an RSS Feeder has finally given me a way to organise and store all the interesting blog entries I come across. Bloglines has a feature for saving posts as well, but it only lets you save in folders - you can't tag posts - so it's not very useful.
We have created a googlereader feed for Readers Advisory Blogs on the NSW Readers Advisory Blog - which is great. I think that Libraries could use feeds like this on their website to promote their blogs, especially if they have several like Manly!
Hint - don't sign up to a feed on bloglines if you are never going to read it - it will completely clog up your reader and just become a nuisance. Be discerning and only link the feeds that you actually read (or would like to read) daily!
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