Social Networking

In week 3, I did social networking. It may be used by MLA members for perpetual contact with each other, constant updates on who you know, competitive intelligence, and free publicity. It allows people to be in a community that consists of people far away from each other. A commuinity consists of people who know each other very well, including favorite games, what they are doing on Friday night, and the names of each other's dogs. Social networking allows people to know all that and keep up with each other from a distance. The social networking is free marketing for a library and it is an instructional tool. It is ideal for self paced education on what a library or organization does and people can learn about it. It is also free publicity for the individuals in the community.

Blogs vs. Wikis

What is the difference between a blog and a wiki? A blog is owned by one person. A wiki is shared by a community of people. Things that might be more suited to a blog are things that one person researched or has an opinion on and wants comments on it, but the creator wants his product or report to be emphasized over the comments. A wiki is the product of a community of people on a subject. Creating the wiki had me invite people with email addresses to contribute to it. The wiki emphasizes the discussion and has many users contributing to its content. A wiki is a report of the opinions of a community of people instead of the report of the opinions of one person. Things appropriate for a blog: The opinions of one person, one person's report on the trends in a subject, how the author of a book wants the content interpreted, and a presenter's ideas on how a power point presentation went. Things for a wiki: A team completing and discussing a project, a meetup group socializing and describing their subject, or a committee of people with ideas on how to do something.

Sip water from a firehose

It seems like in most library blogs and journals, people comment on the misperception that libraries are not necessary because people can google everything. Everything is on the internet. The internet is like a huge library but all the books are on the floor. The catch is that not all the information is of high quality and anyone can put anything on the internet. Wikipedia is not a good source of accurate information. Wikipedia may be good as a starting point for a serious search for information, but it is not good for serious research on anything. It may be good to search the sources that the Wikipedia author used, but the sources may not be more accurate. Google will come up with thousands of hits for anything, but most users only look at the first ten hits. Searches need precision. Trying to get a specific piece of information in the world of i-pods, podcasts, blackberries (more like crackberries) and constant advertising is like trying to get a sip of water from a fire hose. A few people have the skills to make searches that are precise enough to get that sip of water. Lexis Nexis is good for getting legal research. Before Lexis Nexis, legal researchers had to look at one book for cases in one area of law, then get another book for the cases in that jurisdiction, then get another book for the codes, then get another book to look at codes in another area. With Lexis Nexis, people can look for legal code in a selected list of sources, they can select the areas of law and the local jurisdiction and the cases that are relevant. Medical research is similar with NLM Gateway, Medline, Clinical Trials, ToxNet, and PubMed. Searches can be very precise for anyone with the right skills. The correct information is there, but it buried under mounds of useless information that people are flooded with every minute.

RSS Feeds

How do I think I can use RSS feeds at my library? I think I can use RSS feeds to link to sources I use for book reviews, to learn about trends and developments in medical research and libraries, and to develop and learn to customize the library and learn about what services are available. I can use RSS feeds to quickly learn about changes in how library services are used, easy quick access to case studies on ideas that were used and tried, and I can use them to keep up with the news about what is going on. By being selective about which RSS feeds I subscribe to, I can only pay atention to the RSS feeds I trust and ignore the overwhelming load of information I don't have use for. RSS feeds can be used to find ideas on how to cope with budget cuts, downsizing, inaccurate perceptions, and other problems the library is facing by seeing what other libraries have done to cope. The RSS feeds might also be a valuable source of information on newly emerging technologies. How do you find out if a new technology is worth acquiring if you don't know who is comfortable using it? An RSS feed might also help a librarian gather information on what the customers want to see in a library and what they are comfortable using.

How might library patrons use RSS feeds? They can subscribe to the library feed and find out immediately how library services are changing, what they can do with the library services, they can find out when the library subscribed to a new database that a patron might want, and they can learn when new library instructional sessions are coming up. They can subscribe to library news, research news, ideas on how to do research and evaluate the credibility of their sources, and they can learn to efficiently use library services. Patrons can also use RSS feeds to receive instruction on library services and adapt the instruction to changes that take place in the library. They can also use RSS feeds to quickly receive updates on information that changes quickly. Medical discoveries and regulations change and researchers need to know quickly. Laws change and legal RSS feeds can quickly alert people on the changes. Patrons can subscribe to RSS feeds to track their area of interest and learn what new literature and trends are taking place.

My first blog post

I am Cliff Bushin and I just created a blog. The internet world could use a lot more of me. I am sure a lot of people want to hear my opinions. That is what blogs are for. Thanks to blogs, everyone is a reporter, just like Scott Adams predicted in "The Dilbert Future." This blog is getting me credit for Continuing Education with the Medical Library Association. I am not sure what my typing speed is but I might get it up to 70 words per minute. Last time I checked it was 40 words per minute. I am taking a course on Web 2.0 in order to improve my skills as a librarian and I hope I will eventually find a job as a librarian.