Second Life

Well, Second Life is an interesting place! I have used it before in one of my classes and right now Florida State U. is constructing a virtual campus. Soon, I will be able to visit my professor during office hours to discuss issues, concerns, etc. My professor said the only difference is that the couches in his virtual office are much nicer than the ones in his real office :-)!
I think that there is a place for Second Life in libraries...it is another avenue to reach people and offer services. It can also be used to hold programs and seminars. If you go to an art museum in Second Life you can buy a t-shirt to show off your visit to the museum, maybe our Friends group can sell virtual tshirts...at least the manufacturing cost would be minimal!

Library 2.0

Library 2.0 is a hot topic right now and of course there are a variety of different opinions about it. I think that the perspective of Michael Stephens("Into a new world of librarianship") has a lot of good points.

I think that libraries need to rely and focus on their user's needs and incorporate technology based on those needs. Like he said it is important to keep up with technology but not just for the sake of having the newest thing.

I agree that libraries need to keep up with trends and focus on a way to deliver what the patrons need! The way that people gather and search for information is very different these days!

#13 - Technorati

To answer the question to Exercise question #1 I referred to the help screen...
The Technorati Blog Directory
You can always search the Technorati Blog Directory to find blogs about the subjects you're interested in or to find blogs by their blog title.

So, with keyword I got results (even with quotations) that used the words learning and 2.0 except the results did not necessarily talk about the subject of learning 2.0 but when searching the blog directory I got more focused results.

Something that surprised me was the amount of blogging going on about political candidates. I knew people were blogging about Britney Spears but some of the most popular tags were Barack Obama and Hillary!

# 12 - Bag it, Tag it, sell to the butcher in the store...

I have used del.icio.us before and to be quite honest I have not found it to be all that useful to me personally. I mainly do work on my personal computer and still use "my favorites" to tag important websites.
Having said that, if I had a home network with multiple computers I could see myself using it more because I could find my favorites on both computers.

In the library I could see us using it as a way to keep recommended websites easily accessible.

Rollyo

I think Rollyo could be very useful for putting together legitimate sites to search. The first thing that comes to mind would be a grouping of medical sites or local area information.

I created a group of websites in order to search for live music in Richmond. Here's the link...
http://rollyo.com/jstoops/my_richmond_music/

Richmond music

Hear ye, Hear ye!

More RSS Feeds

I actually have never used any of the blog search sites before! I found that Topix was the easiest to use and I was able to find better results that more closely related to my search terms.

I mostly read mystery (when I get the chance) and by doing a search for "book reviews" I came across a great blog about mysteries that I thought I woud share!

Mystery Book Blog
http://www.mystery-books.com/2007/12/mystery-book-review-hitlers-judas-by.html