Social Intelligence

An interesting collection of reading for this week from computing clouds to mobile devices and how the changes in technology will affect libraries for the present and in the future. I am curious how many of you out there  would search the library catalogue from using your cell or iphone? I have a feeling that I am a bit of a dinosaur in this area in that I am only really using my phone for making the occasional call or sending text messages. I am happy to head into my local library and check for holds in person or pick them up if I get an email that they are available. I found that when I was getting text messages from an institution versus someone on my contact list I was getting severely charged for the priviledge so I will get out of my apartment, check my email, or my library account to keep on top of my holds and the books due back.

However, I may be part of a team looking after a library website at some point or communicating with providers of library software or online databases. I need to be aware of what my options are for making the library resources more searchable and accessible. I will be interested to see what direction mobile technology takes in the coming years and what people will be wanting in the way of accessible services.

QR codes and their uses caught my attention when Amanda shared the information about them in this week’s video post.  I went looking for more information about this topic and now I am going to share this post by The Proverbial LoneWolf Librarian’s blog. Thanks for providing us with more potential uses of this technology.

As to the augmented reality applications I find them slightly disturbing!!! Yet if you sent a tweet to someone tweeting about issues with research it might be a quiet way to help students, but they might consider it an invasion of their privacy.

I think that whether it is the decision to put part of your resources or all of your resources online on a third party site out in the cloud or to put the hours and technical time into designing applications for different mobile devices much research and thought must go into the implications of the decisions. Consultation is an important part of the equation. Why transfer the resources off site if your internet connectivity is not consistent enough to allow them to be accessed easily? Why take the time to design an application or a service if there is not a wide enough user base interested in utilizing it either within the library community or outside it? Are confidentiality and legal liability going to be concerns if certain files are stored off-site? Is it reasonable to store a portion of the libraries resources off-site and in the cloud so that your library is doublely covered in case of a technological or a nature disaster? Are some resources already located off-site because your library access them via a licensing agreement?

Another week is halfway done and I feel like I could continue my research and work on our group work project for many days to come because I love researching food writing and reading about other people’s literary and culinary adventures. The only problem with doing this sort of research is that it makes me hungry and as such when I climbed on the scale this morning it told me I had gained instead of lost weight. Can you gain weight just by reading about food and looking at pictures and videos online?

In helping to create a Facebook group about cooking and books with my band of merry maids I realized how little I truly utilized the power of all of Facebook’s many applications and options. I had previously been using it mostly to communicate with old friends and new acquaintances from around the country and the world. I had not done any extra exploring or participated in any groups online. I have my virtual zoo,  my email, and my time instant messaging people back  and forth. I may occasionally post a note on someone’s wall, but I am still very much a Facebook virgin.

I found that because I had not set up the network section of my profile online I could not access the first group that was created. The network issue is something I will have to straighten out at a later date. We decided that if I was having trouble and had spent some time online and with Facebook that the group structure needed to be more easily accessible to others, who might not have spent any time online or in a social networking environment such as Facebook.

I like the option presented by Matthew Williams and the other librarian, who use their personal profiles to communicate with their patrons as I find that I have enough trouble taking the time to properly check my various school and personal accounts in various software without adding further accounts to the list. I would prefer to use the time to look for interesting links to share and updating the blogs and accounts I already have on the go. My personal account has some character to it, but not anything that I would find professionally embarrassing as I figure that my digital footprint will likely outlive me by centuries.

After taking part in the UStream video and chat yesterday I see it having great potential for a variety of functions within the library environment from professional development to information literacy sessions with distance  students. The idea that you could share ideas and resources in a session and get relatively immediate feedback from your audience even if they could not get to your physical location is amazing. The idea that small libraries within a system could share programming responsibility for a book club or storytelling program. One week the librarian in one community could share her chosen story with discussion and or project with step by step instructions. The following week or month someone else in the system could share their part of the program. You can do a cooking demo and book discussion from your kitchen while still including your audience as long as they are comfortable signing  up and accessing the websites required, in our case Facebook and UStream.

I thought I should include links for our Facebook group, Cooking the Books and our group post that Dayna posted for us. I hope you all check out both links and enjoy the content.

Here are some interesting examples of people thinking in similiar ways about  social networking. An online comic artist draws comics live through UStream communicating with audience by writing chat responses in the comic.http://www.ustream.tv/blog/2008/04/19/penny-arcade-draws-comics-live-creativity-to-the-max/

Another interesting post I discovered this week was an A to Z of Social Networking for Libraries which appealed to me as a fan of alphabet and number books. I enjoyed many of the other posts on this blog, but felt that this would have been something fun to post on a professional bulletin board at work. I am thinking I will add it to my Facebook wall with a note as it is the best explanation I have come across for why I am spending hours online of late and will likely spend many more to come.