Wiki, wiki, who's got a wiki?

Thoughts on Thing 17.

I love those "something, something, something in plain English" videos. And, that guy is so cool. I want to learn how to flick paper off a drafting table like that.

Anyway, now I understand wikis like I never did before, but what happens when a whole bunch of friends (the camping group, for instance) all start editing and saving at once? If three of them suddenly realized they needed a tent and offered their own, does the "what we have" list show three tents? Who dominates (oooh, that's a loaded word)? Who edits for criss-crossed posts? The owner of the wiki?

A curious mind wants to know.

Ciao. Barb

Playing catch-up with Thing #15

I read most of the material Heather provided through the links on the Thing #15 ELL page. Now that the stuff has marinated a bit in my brain, I don't think anything I read sums up my thinking on Library 2.0 better that Rick Anderson's article "Away from the Icebergs." Here's the salient quote from the end of his piece:

"No profession can survive if it throws its core principles and values overboard in response to every shift in the zeitgeist. However, it can be equally disastrous when a profession fails to acknowledge and adapt to radical, fundamental change in the marketplace it serves. At this point in time, our profession is far closer to the latter type of disaster than it is to the former. We need to shift direction, and we can’t wait for the big ship of our profession to change course first. It’s going to have to happen one library—one little boat—at a time."

I'm not inclined to elaborate at length (that's different for me), I'll just add that this ELL program, the up-grades to our sites, our blogs, our Loft 2.0 features, and the like are exactly the right things to be doing now.

I have two worries:

Are we leaving the non-digitally connected segments of our population in the dust? Are we moving too fast for them?

What happens when we lose the power grid? Even a temporary shutdown wreaks havoc on things. I see more of that happening not less. (Yeah, a pretty dystopic view of the future, isn't it?)

On that cheery note...
Ciao. Barb

Thing 11--Library Thing

OK, I put in some titles, mostly books waiting to be read or reads in progress. I am not inclined to take full advantage of all the Library Thing features. I attend one bookclub (sometimes two if I go to the North Branch session), and talk books with people all the time. I have no urge to do this virtually. I do understand that it's a blessing for many who can't get out, prefer to chat and share ideas online, want to be anonymous and the like, and I say, "Go for it!" to them. If I were to start using this site regularly, I don't know when I'd get time to read. Here's the link to my site. Wanna talk? Call me....

click here

Ciao. Barb