Saturday, October 27, 2007

Library 2.0 thoughts - blogs v wikis

Reading other people's blogs is a great way to learn and to find inspiration. I have found the following library 2.0 blogs reallyhelpful especially for someone who doesn't have a lot of time to spend figuring out how these tools work.

http://www.newblog51.blogspot.com/ (L.I.S.T.)
http://www.dali7au.glogspot.com/ (Pandora's box)
http://www.secretaddict.blogspot.com/

I have also found some really fun (& time wasting) blogs including:

http://bfgb.wordpress.com/ (a good book blog)

http://cupcakestakethecake.blogspot.com/ (all about cupcakes)

http://mfrost.typepad.com/cute_overload/ (very cute animal photos)

http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/ (odd,not old, maps)

On a professional level I am interested in reader development and would really like to have a resource like the Williamsburg Regional library blog (above) or the Book lovers wiki from Princeton public library http://booklovers.pbwiki.com/Princeton%20Public%20Library in our library. It is much more helpful to have reviews by other staff & perhaps borrowers with their opinions on novels than using a traditional reference book. I think readers would also like to access this information and add to it. I have a RSS feed to the good book blog and find getting a recommendation a day great fun (even if i'm never going to have time to read them all!) but I'm not sure which would be better a wiki or a blog?? At present i'm slowly becoming familiar with blogs and how they work and enjoying it (well most of the time)but i intend to work on creating a wiki and discover the differences for myself. The wiki will be for my library staff containing procedures & policy at our branch level, it would also be useful for non-local relieving staff to refer to. The wiki would be added to as information is needed & deleted when no longer relevant and always accessible (as long as the server doesn't go down or the power cut off). I agree with what i have read that the strength of library 2.0 is in our links to the community and everything we do should be for the benefit of our communities (which includes library staff of course).

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi Cathy,

Thanks for the link to our book blog. I think that for this sort of review source, a blog, with comments enabled, makes the most sense. It has been a great tool to reach out to users in a new way and to engage in conversations with readers. Good luck with your project.

Barry