Week8: Optional Exercise #18 Post to blog through Zoho Writer

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart quotes

“[T]o talk well and eloquently is a very great art, but that an equally great one is to know the right moment to stop.”

"Music, even in situations of the greatest horror, should never be painful to the ear but should flatter and charm it, and thereby always remain music.”

"It is a great consolation for me to remember that the Lord, to whom I had drawn near in humble and child-like faith, has suffered and died for me, and that He will look on me in love and compassion.”

"Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.”

"I pay no attention whatever to anybody's praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings.”

Week8: Exercise #18 Take a look at some online productivity (word processing, spreadsheet) tools.

My exploring process of Zoho Writer is fruitful. I like this online work processing tools for several reasons.

First, Clean Interface:
Comparing the interface with Microsoft Word and Zoho Writer, the latter one obviously looks nicer. The tool bar is user friendly with pictorial icons or words. icons or written buttons, and more user friendly.

Second, Comprehensive features:
As an online word processing tool, Zoho Writer has all the necessary features such as import, export, e-mail, share and so on. I especially like its feature of History which does not only allow me to know what I had done; I can also sort the documents by name, date and time. This feature also applies when I test the blog posting. The feature of Format gives the user a quick option to start the document. Other features provide options too. For example, the feature of e-mail allows mail-in or mail-out; the feature of share allows read only or read & write options.

Third, Connect to blogs:
Zoho Writer has a wonderful feature to allow the user to post the writing to the Blog directly. I think this is a very convenient feature to many users who have their personal blogs.

Week7: Exercise#17 Add an entry to the SJLibrary Learning 2.0 SandBox wiki

I added my posts under Favorite restaurant (Sweet Tomatoes) and Favorite movie (Fiddler on the Roof) and Favoirte Blog (PLA official blog)

Week 7: Exercise #16 Learn about wikis and discover some innovative ways that libraries are using them

Wiki was once my favorite before I went to library school. Whenever I had a question, Wiki was the first place that I went for the answers. I was also quite satisfied with the answers that I got. Wiki was like a panacea and I just love the fact that it never turned me down. However, my adoration to Wiki was shattered after I took online searching class in the library school. When the instructor pointed out the criteria to judge the credibility of a web source including Authority/Credibility and Timeliness/Currency, then I found out my favorite Wiki is actually a “masked beauty”. After the class discussion and the experience sharing from the classmates, I learned that the answers that I got from Wiki might not be true all the time.

I became disappointed that the content of Wiki might have gone through several “cosmetic surgeries” by different persons. After that, I did not revisit Wiki for a long time. This week’s exercise absolutely gave me a chance to unveil Wiki and rediscovered its values.

I explored some library’s Wikis. They are all done beautifully. What I like best is its usage as a pathfinder and the special event tool. I am especially impressed by SJCPL’s Subject Guide. The layout is so simple, clean and uncluttered. The content is also well organized. ALA used Wiki to post its special event. Apparently it was a wonderful communication tool to inform many people without least efforts.

To conclude my blogging about Wiki, I want to say “Wiki, I still love you! “

Week6: Exercise #15 Read a few Perspectives on Web 2.0. Future of Libraries

I have gone so far toward learning Library 2.0. I would say Library 2.0 means a lot of things to me. It is more than learning the new technology. Most of all, it is a transformation of my mindset to redefine the term “library” and to reexamine the role of a “library service”.

I agree with the concept that Michael Stephens points out in his article, the library is human. In my opinion, the two fundamental requirements for a library to be human include openness and accessibility. The librarian’s attitude of adapting changes and accepting challenges decides how the library serves its community. Library 2.0 is thus a good tool to spot the popular taste and technological trends.

In addition, I concur with Dr. Wendy Schultz’s viewpoint: the library should be barrier-free and the library service must be globally accessible. To me, it means the virtual services and electronic resources are absolutely necessary for the public library to compete with many online 24/7 information stores. Library 2.0 is therefore an adequate tool to organize and to inform the diverse activities and programs that the library can plan.

Week6: Exercise #14 Explore Technorati and learn how tags work with blog posts

I had explored Technorati in the previous exercise and I loved it. I revisited once again in this week’s exercise. I had more understanding about it.

One new finding that I observed is Technorati really makes its search function easy to use for all levels of users. I made an experimental search with the phrase Learning 2.0. I got different number of results while I set the field into three categories: All Blogs, Blog Directory and Tags. There was no surprise that I retrieved the most results in All Blogs, which were 31,863. However, I went to advanced search and refined the phrase into the EXACT phrase. I got only 715 results. The number of results obviously dwindled drastically.

In addition, Technorati gave me options to limit my search into various suggested categories such as Libraries, Web2.0, library2.0 Librarians etc. What does it mean to me as a librarian? I think I can use this powerful feature to organize good blogs for reference purpose or even I can use it as an educational tool.

As far as Technorati’s Favorites and Popular, I do not feel very impressive. To me, it is just another site for the unofficial picks. However, I do like Technorati’s timeliness and accuracy of the links which I think is very important.

Week6: Exercise#13 Learn about tagging and discover Del.icio.us (a social bookmaking site)

This week's exercise is useful. I learned a lot by exploring watching the video, reading the articles and exploring Del.icio.us. I am tired of using Yahoo to bookmark the Web sites that I frequently visited. Also I have been trying to find a better tool to organize my favorites. Now it seems I found a good bookmarking tool- Del.icio.us.

I enjoyed watching the short video tutorial since gives me an overview of the very basic functions of Del.icio.us. Ms. Kathleen Gilroy introduced several fundamental advantages of using Del.icio.us : Find good materials on a topic, Build a shared reading list and Connect with other people. While I explored Del.icio.us, I confirmed the feature of sharing and connecting is excellent to be used in the library. For example, if the staff in the library picks a unique tag, then people can connect with each other and sharing the information. I think it would be an efficient tool regards communicating and sharing.

The two articles gave me more understanding about Del.icio.us. The help menu from Del.icio.us is also very thorough. I particular think the Popular tags is a good feature which helps to know how many people had saved this link. In my opinion, this is a very useful function that the librarians can use to organize the links for library’s online catalog. For example, Library Thing has 8375 subscription so I can know that this source is valuable. Therefore, I can introduce it in the library blog or online catalog.

Overall, this week’s lesson is helpful. I am sure that I will use it in the future as a bookmarking tool for both work and personal use.