Thursday, February 19, 2009

Thing 27 Twitter

I played around a little bit with Twitter and it seemed like it could be an extremely useful tool. I could see Twitter being used in our library in a variety of ways. Twitter could be used to advertise events going on in the library, share information about new (or old) resources that are available, and provide important information about the technology in the library. A group for our student workers may also be helpful. We could send them payroll reminders; alert them to any changes to the manual, or any information that may be important for them to know right away. Twitter would be a great place to share a variety of information with our users. However, I also think that it is a tool that could very easily be over done and eventually become annoying. I feel as though one should be selective about what they are putting up there. If you were to update too often and have only minimal content I think people would start to feel bothered by the updates and begin ignoring them. I doubt that I would use it too much personally but that could change in the future. Right now most people I communicate with in this manner use Facebook for updating. If you would like to follow me my username vikingp.

Thing 26 Join the 23 Things On a Stick Ning

I joined the 23 Things On a Stick Ning during round 1. I was not overly impressed at that point and I have to say I am still not a big fan. I feel like MySpace and Facebook are much more ingrained in our culture that if people are going to look for library information on a social networking site, they will look there first. Also, I do not think that Ning is as intuitive as Facebook. This is the first time since round 1 that I have even gone into Ning. I joined the NLLN group this time around. It didn't seem like too many other people had used Ning much since round 1 either. I believe the last post in the group was from April. I guess Ning is just not my thing.

Thing 25. Bloggers' Toolkit

For thing 25 I decided to add widgets for Outbrain, Clustermap, a search box, and Meebo. I choose Outbrain because I thought it would be interesting to see how people would rate my posts. I also thought that it's recommendations for other blogs may be enlightening. Clustermap just seemed like something fun. I enjoy looking at maps on other blogs so I thought I would add it to mine. A search box just seemed like a good idea and the Meebo widget is a great way to be in contact with blog readers.

I chose to stay away from any widgets that involved pictures. I realize that these are more visually pleasing but I didn't feel like spending the time on them. The 4 widgets I added to my blog were fast and easy and did not take much time at all.