Friday, November 21, 2008

Weekly Reading Week 12

Required Reading Week # 12
I found the article about Weblogs really interesting. They are similar to an electronic journal where individuals can share their ideas and points of view. Other individuals can respond to others point of views. One of the challenges for me in this class was being required to set up a blog. It was my first experience blogging, and I have actually enjoyed it.
The articles on Wikis and library service were both really informative. Wikis are a good tool for librarians to share ideas and to help with daily functions that they all deal with. Librarians can create their own wikis about frequently asked questions, upcoming library programs and questions from patrons. This is something new that we are beginning to offer at our branch library. In our profession, good customer service is extremely important.
The Creating the Academic library folksonomy article was really informative. The article reinforced the importance of tags and that it takes wiki/ weblogs to the next level. Generating common sense tags in relation to a topic will allow them to be quickly accessed or found when someone is conducting a search.
The history of Wikipedia was fascinating. I did not know that it was run by volunteers. I think its beginning was a noble one. We all can remember how expensive encyclopedias were.

Muddiest Point Week # 12

The example of the digital library given at the beginning of the lecture seemed like a really interesting site. I am glad the web address was given so that we can play around with it at a later time. I also found the example of the second Science Direct digital library useful to retain its address for future classes

Monday, November 17, 2008

Comment on Liz Griswold's Blog week #11

https://courseweb.pitt.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_9047_1%26url%3D

Comment on Maggie's reading week 11

https://courseweb.pitt.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_9047_1%26url%3Do, Love your webpage

Friday, November 14, 2008

Required Reading # 11

This weeks required reading Digital Libraries makes us aware of the ways in which Federal funded projects assisted several institutions in their digital library research. Each University focused on a different area of expertise. It reminds us that this technology is relevant aide to our profession, and continues to develop.
Dewey Meets Turing, Librarians, Computer Scientists, and the Digital Libraries Initiative discussed the impact Digital Libraries have on various professions. As I was reading, I wondered how long would this topic continue to be considered new and what will be the next great think? Institutional Repositories… This article discuses both the benefits and potential dangers of Institutional Repositories. The author seems concerned that the power of the faculty will be lost, and enforced behavioral and cultural will be forced on the campus community. I found this article extremely interesting and it gave me a lot to think about.

Muddiest Point 11

I found the Inverted File portion of the lecture the most interesting. In this day and age of needing information quickly, especially when one may be helping a patron who is in a hurry; we need to be able to find the sought after information as quickly as searching the index of a book.