Podcasts & NetLibrary

I'm seeing a pattern starting to appear. I've tried subscribing podcasts in the past, but have invariably neglected them after a week or two. Just for the heck of it, I subscribed to NPR's Fresh Air program. I subscribed several weeks ago, and just realized that 10 or more episodes have accumulated in my iTunes podcast directory. I did start up the program from July 20, 2007 and have discovered one major advantage of subscribing to podcasts. I don't particularly like this program, so I've been able to skip through the program.

I have had plenty of experience working with the NetLibrary collection during class instruction sessions and at the reference desk. Some students are very excited to have e-books as an option, while others, when presented with an e-book ask if we have the same title or a similar title in print. Overall, I'd say that the reaction has been quite positive.

I see the NetLibrary collection simply as another option to promote research and learning at the college. NetLibrary books do not replace print books. They serve a different purpose, to allow students to access material 24/7 from the convenience of their home or office.

Tens of thousands of people lined up over the weekend to pick up the final installation of the Harry Potter series. The (printed) book ain't dead yet, nor will it die any time soon.

RSS

My aggregator of choice is NetNewsWire Lite (the free version). As far as I know, it is only available for Mac OS X.

I've made several efforts over the past few years to give RSS feeds a try, and I've always used the aggregator for a few weeks, and then went back to browsing the web as I usually do. It could just be my character, but I feel that I can go out and find what I am looking for right now. If you don't check your RSS subscriptions daily, the number of unread posts begins to build. It makes me somewhat anxious and is akin to a e-mail account with too much unread mail.

But in the interest of experimentation, I have fired up NetNewsWired once again. This time I will subscribe to book and DVD review sites. Currently I have subscribed to the New York Times Book Review section, The San Jose Mercury News Books and DVD sections, and several categories of the Reader's Club. The intention is to broaden my book and video selection tools, and so far I've selected several titles based on subscribing to the RSS feeds. The challenge will be to keep up with the inflow of feeds.

What is Web 2.0 anyway?

A technology platform, a business platform, a platform for Google domination?

For me it's much more simple. I can remember the first time I fired up Netscape Navigator sometime back in the mid 1990s. I believe the homepage was set to CNN. I was amazed to see the breaking news on my computer monitor and it came with color photos too!

In contrast I see the array of Web 2.0 web-based applications and platforms as being interactive. People leave comments on blogs, people tag each others photos on Flickr, etc. To Web 2.0 users, communication goes both ways. I guess that's why the phrase read/write web also made sense to me.

Incorporating Web 2.0 concepts in library web sites will be a challenge for us at De Anza College. Our current web design has it's roots in Web 1.0 concepts. Our "web team" consists of a few hours of one librarian's work load. If the library seriously wants to embrace Web 2.0 features on the web site, the library will need to support the librarian(s) invovled in order to provide the training, not only in the nuts and bolts of web production tools, but also in better understanding the design goals of Web 2.0.

Smiley Intervention

As part of the Week 1 assignment, we were asked to embed a YouTube video that is related in some way related to libraries. I present Smiley Intervention, which contains important information for those of us using electronic forms of communication, such as e-mail.

Getting started...

It's unlikely that someone from outside the group will come across this blog and actually choose to read this blog voluntarily. But it's a big, wide, well-peopled world, so here's the explanation.

The staff and faculty of the De Anza College Library are participating as a group to learn Web 2.0 (Read/Write Web, etc.) technologies. As those of us who work in libraries know well, our younger users spend much time at MySpace, Facebook, FlickR, chatting, and so on. I, and other De Anza College Library staff and faculty will venture into the Web 2.0 realm to help us understand the social networking and other internet tools currently being used by our library users. This blog will act as a sort of diary of my experience in the Web 2.0 virtual world.

Wish me luck!