Mashups and APIs

For today's exercise we visited Rollyo (http://www.rollyo.com). I found the site cumbersome and rather frustrating to use. I wound up "looping" between the same pages several times before getting oriented to the site (given that I'm quite adept at navigating webpages, this was surprising as well as frustrating). Once I was on the librarianblogs page and searched for "privacy," I had to visit a number of the blogs before finding one that actually discussed privacy as an issue. I would have expected a more useful search engine, one that could rank my results by relevance. Having to sort through page after page by hand was an inefficient use of time.

That said, the privacy-related post I eventually found was an interesting one, discussing the OCLC's position paper on privacy and trust. I found it interesting that they commented on the fact that Web-users are now "building" the Web as they go thanks to the various social networking tools now available.

By contrast, the mashup portion of the assignment was a very interesting and diverting one. I was particularly intrigued by the Healthmap mashup (http://healthmap.org/en), an interactive, up-to-date worldwide public health map. As my institution has recently opened a School of Public Health, this is useful as well as interesting for me. It was actually the only site I retrieved when I searched for "health." Using "library" as a search term retrieved two sites, and nothing came up for "librarian." Makes me think that we health sciences librarians ought to start producing some exciting new mashups!

Podcasting & Online Hosted Video

I think that podcasting is a fantastic educational resource. I've seen it used for lectures or grand rounds, and for tutorials for library users. Making information available on an as-needed basis, removing the strictures of time and place, is very useful for our end-users.

I had always considered YouTube an entertainment resource, and not really considered its educational possibilities before. However, today I found this YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_uOKFhoznI. It's a lecture from UCBerkeley, and it's about Library 2.0. It was very interesting (and relevant), and I love that this sort of resource is so freely available. Also, as described in the "scenario" section of Seven Things You Should Know About...YouTube (http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7018.pdf), students can use YouTube to develop class-related videos, either individually (with feedback from others), or wiki-style as a group.

As our incoming students are more and more geared to using social networking tools in general, I think it's very appropriate that we expand our educational "toolbox" and incorporate them into the academic sphere.

Photo Sharing

Today's exercise centered on sharing photos on-line ... both fun and useful. Apart from the obvious utility of being able (for example) to show grandma how gorgeous your kids are -- she'll certainly agree, but want the photos anyway, as proof for her friends -- it can definitely be useful at work as well. For instance, if your library offers podcasts of lectures or presentations, photos of the speakers, or photos related to the topic being discussed, can enhance the experience for the end-user. Students collaborating on a project within a Wiki might want to share photos or graphics relevant to the project. And photos can certainly enhance a blog, whether used for personal or professional purposes. I have added photos to today's blog entry; by looking at them you will no doubt be able to discern one of my favorite places.

Document Sharing

Google Docs and Other Document Sharing Programs: Is this the future of all software products?

I don't believe that this sort of document-sharing platform is appropriate in every instance, at least in cases where confidentiality is an issue. Certain sensitive information (e.g., medical, human resources) will most likely be safer on a single computer or a password-protected shared network drive within an institution.

That said, the convenience of being able to share information and collaborate on documents is very useful -- particularly as more and more of us work from home, collaborate from geographically distant offices, different time zones, etc. The fact that several different document-sharing programs are developing (and evolving in their sophistication) suggests that the tools will be available to fulfill the need in the upcoming years.

So, while I don't think that on-line document sharing will be useful in absolutely every situation, I can see it becoming more and more the norm.