DefinitelyFacebook and Twitter are getting to the public and they are a great way of communicating with people. It's insane you can't find someone by email or phone but you can definitely find them on Facebook. Even a movie will come out about the story of Facebook. Click here to read about it. (it already has more than 700 'tweets' by the way). The Library could really use it to promote the events, services and programs offered. When this module came out on Learn 2.x a co-worker tested out promoting the Mango Languages database to her friends on Facebook, and in a matter of minutes people where asking her more about it and how they could use it. Even though some of us might not like some of these technologies there are thousands (maybe millions) of people that do, and if we want to reach out to them we have to do it through the means they constantly use.
Well, I'm impressed on how popular is this second life concept. A few months ago I was watching an episode of CSI New York in which the case they were investigating was entirely based on Second Life... But I always though it was a game! And now I know I was wrong.
I didn't know so many companies were even present in Second Life to promote their services and provide some sort of customer service.
I think that what our library is doing so far is ok since a presence on Second Life has been established and we are contributing to this virtual learning world with projects like the Central Florida Memory Project. But we could do more in the future like offering our classes on Second Life, present the Meet the Author Programs but virtually and maybe we can arrange with authors that already have a resident avatar on Second Life to be on them first. It would be nice to offer a section in which they can pay their fines or buy books from our book store. Of course all of this has to be located on an Island for this Library and obviously the virtual building, that's why I say, 'in the future'. We should even have a presence on the Teen Second Life to promote more of our library services we have for teens, maybe we can even get 'virtual' Teen Volunteers to be present there as well and they can share their experiences at the library.
Definitely the Second Life concept is something that cannot be taken for granted because it hasn't stop growing and everyday even more widely know companies are there as well providing services to their customers. I think that since the library is an institution that provides information and is committed to: 'connect our changing community to the evolving world of ideas, information and technology. Through continuous innovation, the Orange County Library System will create a well informed, well connected community, making Orange County a great place to live, learn, work, and play.'-(as stated in our mission statement) we should continue looking into more ways of being present in Second Life. It's something different than what we are used to see, our community has changed by this evolving way to interact through technology, it's a place in which we can create anything without having necessarily to be limited by budgets or resources. And it can be used to keep us connected to a virtual world in which we can virtually live, learn work and play with this growing community!
Check out how libraries can be seen and toured in Second Life!
Well thankfully, as for now, I have not been a victim of malware. But I have received messages in my email that look suspicious. Usually the email server will warn you about it or block it from you. For example, at Hotmail you might see a red exclamation point (!) next to the subject line. Yahoo usually filters them as "spam" mail.
Frecuently some login sections on websites will let you choose a key image or seal to help you make sure this website is legitimate before you enter your login information.
Wikiversity it's great for continuing education when you don't want to go to any college or pay for courses. You can learn at your own pace and the topics even have an outline of the lessons and everything. It will help me to keep learning in my field since I already graduated.
Here you will find videos about how to do mostly everything. On the Health section you can get videos of doctors telling you the information you need. You can learn hot to fix appliances, play billiards or chess better, cook something delicious or even how to clip the wings of your pet bird!
Well, talking a little bit about the Orange Seed here at OCLS, I have to say it's very important not only for me, but for the Library itself. As part of the Strategic Goal I, OCLS wants to have a good reputation among libraries and also wants to be established as an Employer of choice. Who wouldn't want to work in a place, that among other things, will allow you to propose or suggest ideas by posting them in a web page accessible to everyone that works there so you can get help developing it? Plus having the Orange Seed, contributes to the Achievement of Strategic Goal II because it is beyond the traditional library experience, allows ideas to become an integral part of innovation and demonstrates that values the free flow of the employees ideas. It is important for me because it allows me to see ideas posted by others and interact with them and I can even post my own so my opinions and ideas can be known.
Now talking about Orlando Memory... According to Strategic Goal I, OCLS wants to use psychographics (which is the study of personality, values, attitudes, interests, and lifestyles) to develop and market services. Orlando Memory will precisely show what are the values, lifestyles and interests of the community we offer our services to here in the Orlando Area because they will not only post comments, they will post any kind of media item that is significant to them, so we can see, hear or read about what they enjoy or think. I see it as something that definitely goes beyond the traditional library experience since it's completely digital, it allows electronic communication and connects the community with us.
The strategic plan makes me see in the horizon a lot of changes specially regarding embracing new technologies. The new OCLS widget that was developed it's a great example of that. With this widget we can be part of patron's webpages, and it will be easier for them to keep in touch with us. (You can see the widget on the left hand side of my screen below my Blog List)
Also the (now being tested)new OCLS catalog which you can see here will be a great way of "connecting the community to our services and products", it is also another way of electronic communication and it will give OCLS psychographics since it will allow patons to comment, tag and rate items. Test it, search by the keyword "Dogs" and check those new features and comments posted.
This strategic plan also reminds me of how important, patron's thoughts are and how important their feedback is. Because without them we wouldn't be here. If they are not able to share their thoughts and ideas we wouldn't be able to give them the services they would prefer and they could stop coming.
It also tells me how different some libraries, the ones that embrace the 2.0 concept, will be 5 or 10 years from now.
Wow! Browsing through the Seomoz awards page (http://www.seomoz.org/web2.0#cat_117) was awesome. I saw so many cool websites. A fun one was www.hairmixer.com in which you can upload your picture and change your hairstyle, you can even see your face reduced 50 pounds!
But some of them that we can really use at the library are: Vufind in which the Library's catalog can be customized with open source software. (I know in a meeting I went to they spoke about changing the catalog to something similar, but I don't know if it was using this same software.) Anyway you can quickly sort the search results using the categories on the right of the screen. You can bookmark your searches, add tags to the items and even leave comments. If you click on the "review" tab for a book, it will display the review from Amazon.com and you don't even have to leave the page. When the search results are displayed and you choose one of them, it's going to show you similar items. This will definitely help patrons personalize and keep a record of their search, it will definetly make it easier for them to find what they want and it will let them say their opinion about items, making their opinion count. See it yourself:
Another one is www.docstoc.com which compiles a wealth of legal, educational, technical and business documents for you to download for free. You can upload your own files in a number of formats. So this can help patrons when they need help typing documents like an eviction letter, they can get the document from here free!
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