Thing 2

Lots to cover in Thing 2:

I think of myself as a library 2.0 full speed ahead kind of person and am excited by all the possibilities out there. This comes naturally to me because when I was in Library School, ALA's Planning for Results (version 1.0) was one important topic. Library as a community commons was a big concept requiring us to rethink ourselves (like we are no longer the SHHHH! people anymore [within reason]; rock concerts in the library? etc.). Outreach to our communities became even more important and creating multi layered engagement between the library and its community a focus.

Well, our community is no longer the 5-15 miles surrounding our buildings -- it's our whole ever shrinking world! Which I think is wonderful!!!! I have a friend in New Zealand because we both play Runescape online. Web 2.0 applications are tools we can use to create engagement linking ourselves and our libraries with our world wide community.

What Web 2.0 tools do I already use? This brings me to another view I have of myself: as an oxymoron. Philosophically, I love web 2.0. My actual usage so far is minimal to reluctant (I'm sorry to admit). While I regularly use IMDB and other databases as well as play Runescape online, my attempts to use other applications like chat rooms, IM, etc were not successful. Partially because of bad luck: I tried lurking in a few chat rooms that I thought would be interesting only to find the foul language and attitudes disheartening. One was a chat room related to a popular ladies DIY magazine and another was a chat room related to a popular gardening magazine. I thought they would be safe first attempts. They weren't and I gave up on chat rooms. (I also found it difficult to distinguish who was talking to whom in these 2 chat rooms since more than one conversation was going on at a time. How do you follow a conversation when other partial conversations pop up in between conversation bites?)

My IM experience was actually OK because I was IMing family and they already know I can't spell and forgive me, even if they laugh at me. Before personal computers, I once wrote a letter to a friend about a horseback riding trip that I took. Unfortunately, I accidentally left the s out of one (and only one) of the times I wrote the word "horSeback riding." Still have not lived it down. Even though I appreciate the humor in the above incident, I am still quite neurotic about my spelling. This brings me to Ask-A-Librarian. I love the concept, I whole heartily believe that this is a great new service and the best thing since sliced bread. I am just not comfortable staffing the Ask-A-Librarian service desk. (This is where the embarrassing reluctance I mentioned above comes in.) I know that the people I have helped appreciated it because they have all without fail graciously thanked me for helping them. I just can't shake the fear (no matter how hard I practice) that I will eventually embarrass myself, my library district, and the whole Ask-A-Librarian project with my bad spelling. I feel unprofessional while using live chat features, because there is no spell check. I realize that the pressure is all inside me and not out there. I know that texting requires misspelling (often wondering if we are not returning to the days before Webster, before grammar, before "correct" spelling and sometimes feel that this might be going backwards and instead of forward). However I have no doubt that if I could just get with the program my spelling inadequacies would not necessarily hinder the flow of information. I know that I can do Ask-A -Librarian and I have successfully helped people while staffing Ask-A-Librarian; I just can't do it comfortably.

Blogging (with a spell checker) has been a complete joy and I am looking forward to more exciting applications to learn about, and share. I still love this 23 Things Program!!