LIS 9763

I’m in total agreement about how quickly this semester has flown by – shocking! Hard to believe this is my final blog post…but here we go with answers to the lucky 7 questions:
 
1.      Has your view of social software changed since starting this course? If so, how?
 

I truly believe that the introduction of Web 2.0 into the workplace is going to have a profound effect on how business and organizations view their lower level employees and their patrons. In the past, upper-level managers had the simple task of developing ideas and brining them to life via the expertise of their subordinates. They also had the privilege of telling the customer what they need. But now, lower-level staff and even the customers themselves are becoming the driving force behind change and innovation. This is a fabulous shift, but unfortunately conventional o

Individuals dictating the course of government, consumer goods, these were crazy ideas not too long ago. In the web 2.0 world we have; Obama, consumer forums, and YouTube. The way the world conducts business is changing. Yet there are still naysayers that doubt the existence of this culture change—one of those naysayers is my sister.

Two main philosophies strike me when I thin of social software:

I cannot believe how quickly this semester flew by.  There is still time to talk about web 2.0 and social software on a grander scale though, so let's do that.

Some quick notes from the articles this week:

Transparency - Certainly a good idea, and from the reading we saw that this even incorporates USING social software tools internally, such as blogs, to get information out to staff and allow them to have their voices heard.

Over the course of this term, many students have blogged about the importance of performing user analysis and evaluating library functions to determine whether implementing various web 2.0 technologies would 1) improve performance/workflow and 2) be welcome/needed by users.  The sentiment "let's not adopt web 2.0 just because it's cool" has been repeated often.  I agree with this sentiment but in reading Kathy Sierra's article, I wonder where the line is drawn between smart/e

Overall, I found this week’s readings to be very helpful. Throughout the term, we’ve read and talked a lot about the different types of social software tools can benefit libraries. But this doesn’t mean that libraries should just go ahead and create accounts in every social software tool currently known to man. We need to have a PLAN. This is something that I think many libraries (and other non-profits) often forget. Before spending the time to create profiles and upload content, librarians need to sit down and clearly define what it is they want t

The marketing and evaluation of library services is definitely a challenging responsibility. As librarians, we are full of great ideas, and the enthusiasm to see them through to fruition. The tough part often comes in getting users to take advantage of our efforts, and this includes the introduction of Web 2.0 technologies into libraries. Unfortunately, simply creating a blog announcing new programs or a Facebook profile with links to various library services is not enough to maintain our relevance with users.

I don’t actually understand the way Myspace works, so AADL’s Myspace page is just plain strange to me because of this. The oddest thing about the AADL Myspace page is that it has 284 billion friends. I am not sure how that is even possible since there are only about 6.8 billion people on earth. Who are these friends and where did they come from?