Web 2.0 and Government

A couple of weeks ago, I gave a presentation to the California State Webmasters' User Group on how governments around the world are incorporating Web 2.0 tools into their official (and not so official) sites. It seems to have sparked quite an interest among the state's webmasters. Yes!

One thing I did learn from the presentation is that librarians are some of the most technologically savvy people around. (Don't ask how I learned that...) We keep it pretty quiet. Perhaps it is our desire to get people the information they need in the most efficient manner or to deliver the information to the customer in his or her desired manner. Whatever it is, it certainly prompts us to explore the ways in which technology can be used to do what we do best -- bring people and information together.

Back to government 2.0. It is great to see blogs, rss feeds, tag clouds, video, and podcasts showing up on government sites. I've seen a number of local and federal government agencies on Twitter. And some on Facebook. I wish the Facebook folks would set up a network for those of us who work the state in CA.

It intrigues me that government is also showing up in Second Life -- I had a wonderful time visiting NOAA's Island there. Interestingly, libraries of all sorts have really taken an active role in using virtual worlds to provide services.

Second Life course

Sadly my Second Life (SL) course came to an end. I still am not comfortable in SL and I find that I am as shy in SL as I am in RL (that is to say, real life). It is a fascinating place and I do want to spend more time there. Am thinking about taking the next set of classes.

Second Life Reference and Facebook

What a wild time. I spent an hour shadowing a reference librarian in Second Life. There were a lot people who showed up just to hang around. A few had questions, mostly about Second Life (SL). I will plan on going back once I figure out how to make my avatar walk like a normal person!

Facebook -- another intriguing place. The interesting thing is that I found my 20 something niece on Facebook. Did she have any other choice but to add me as a friend. Beyond finding out about my niece, I have a few contacts that are involved in web 2.0 stuff.

I will have to spend more time exploring both SL and Facebook. So much to learn!

Finished! Or maybe just started

I have finished my 23 Things and had a great time working through the list of items. For just about everything there seemed to be some library-type use although not necessarily for the State Library.

I have already started to incorporate some of the 23 Things into my work as well as my personal life. I don’t know if it will make me any more organized or allow me to work any more efficiently, but it certainly has gotten me more involved with my co-workers and others in and out of the library world. That is a good thing in libraries!

Out of all the 23 Things that we did, the one that I found the least useful was Technorati – I will most likely cancel my subscription to that. Everything else I found some use for even if it was not really work-related.

I think there are couple of challenges for my library –
*To continue to use the 23 Things and not treat it as a project that has ended so we can return to the status quo; and

*To explore and use other social networking tools such as Second Life, Ning, or Facebook.

For me, the 23 Things was just the start! Next is to create one convenient, central location so that I can easily access Bloglines, LibraryThing, or whatever Web 2.0 tool I want.

Online productivity tools

These are great -- or may be great if I can remember to use them. I am trying to think some reason why I need to share a document with someone and work on it together at the same time. It would be interesting to see how well that worked.

I must admit, I like that I wouldn't have to email a document to myself to work on it. I try to ignore work-related things that I email to myself at home. It will be an interesting experiment.

Blinking

I am reading an interesting book, Blink: the power of thinking without thinking. The book is about what happens during the first two seconds of looking at something. It makes me wonder what happens during the first two seconds someone looks at a web page. Could it be that if people like what they see, they will think that the page or site is more authoritative than it really is (the book refers to this as the "Warren Harding" effect (i.e., voting for a handsome but hapless president).

Joomla in Libraries

A friend of mine and I were discussing the use of Web 2.0 tools in state government. She mentioned an open source content management system that sounded wonderful -- Joomla. I visited the Joomla website, but wanted to see if any libraries were using Joomla. So I did a Google search and found Joomla in Libraries. On that site, I found a list of libraries using Joomla, including at least on State Library and a National Libraries. Time to spend time on the Joomla in Libraries page to find out more!