In addition

When Helene Blowers spoke she gave concrete examples of how libraries are using Library 2.0 right now. One of these examples is the meebo widget being utilized in a catalogue. How does this work? Well, David Lee King of the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library has a meebo widget set up so that anytime a patron searches the catalogue and gets the "sorry not found" window there is a meebo widget there along with the library's hours and telephone number. Patrons may make easy contact with a librarian. Check out David's blog post and on the blog post he invites you to contact him directly (davidleeking at gmail dot com)

Helene Blowers comes to Suffolk

Yesterday (Dec 4.) we had the pleasure of again listening to Helene Blowers speak, but this time here in Suffolk at SCLA's CATS annual meeting. Ms. Blowers reiterated and went into greater detail over what web & library 2.0 actually is. For those who were unable to attend and are interested here is a slide presentation by Ms Blowers :

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Helene also blogs at: Library Bytes...at yesterdays presentation she reiterated her mantra which is "give yourself and others permission to play"...

:)

Promoting Play Through Online Discovery

Five Weeks to a Social Library and Learning 2.0 are two different online learning programs that were developed to help library staff provide new services. The focus was to developed staff members’ knowledge of web.2.0 tools through utilizing and discussing the social networking tools and thus becoming knowledge players.

What are some ways that one can become a knowledge player?
Helen Blowers The Public Services Technology Director for the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County and the developer of Learning 2.0 suggests:

First, Take 15 minutes (at least), a day to review the information that is out there.

She suggests you view these 5 blogs if you don’t know where to start,

• Librarian in Black – Great for a review of emerging technology and how that technology relates directly to libraries.
• Tech Crunch – This is tech heavy and she suggests that you just glance through it and do selective reading.
• What I learned Today – Great reflections on learning.
• Wired – The tech featured in Wired may not be as cutting edge as the tech featured in Tech Crunch, but it will still give the reader a better heads up on the technology out there vs. main stream media
• Learning 2.1 – is the progression from Learning 2.0 and focuses on 3 new items a month allowing you to become extremely familiar with the items.

Second, have a knowledge playbox. When you come across something that is of interest but you can’t look at it in-depth because of your current work flow, tag it using a social network site and look at it later.

Thirdly, Give yourself and others permission to play.