Delicious

I've had a look at how the Judge Business School and the Casimir Lewy Library are using Delicious and it may have potential for some resources we currently have listed on our 24hr Library pages. Tags would be useful to help readers find information in a particular area (see the tag cloud at Thunder Bay Public Library). In one of the items for further reading which Emma suggested, Tags help make libraries Delicious, I read an interesting comment:

“If our web-savvy users notice [that the library] is using del.icio.us...our hope is that they will recognize our position in the community as information providers, visit our web site, work with our virtual collection, and become engaged library users.”

At Education we continually try to think of different ways to present information so that our readers will find it easy to access what they need for their assignments. Which is why we currently use CamTools as a platform for all our resources because of it's flexibility and we are able to make immediate changes to information available on wikis.

I created a personal account a while ago just to familiarise myself with what Delicious does. I'll now look into creating a Library account to bookmark those sites which may be relevant to Education students and link it to our web pages and CamTools sites.

iGoogle & feeds (Things 1 & 2)

Revisiting some familiar territory...

I came across iGoogle last year and started to explore how useful it could be. I played around with the different themes available, added a few standard things like the weather, BBC News feed and the obvious virtual pets! Since I became involved in the Cam23 programme, I have revisited iGoogle with my post for Things 1 & 2 in mind & have now added the following gadgets & feeds:

• RSS feed for Cam23
• Google Calendar
• COPAC
• Delicious
• RSS feed for the BBC News Education site - as I work at the Education Faculty, it's important for me to keep up to date with all the changes happening since we've had a new government
  

For fun, I've also added a gadget that regularly shows me a different Italian scene & some vocabulary to learn each day. Today, it's Venice! Who knows what I may learn tomorrow...








iGoogle & libraries

But what about iGoogle's role in libraries and with library readers? I can see that by making catalogues available as gadgets & providing RSS feeds for different services, libraries are using iGoogle as another platform for their users to access information. Here at Education we have an RSS feed for new books, and it was interesting to see other options (see 10 ways libraries can use RSS). However, having an RSS feed does depend on libraries encouraging their readers to sign up for them. We use CamTools to promote library resources to Education students, and as most readers are made members as soon as they start their course, they automatically have access to relevant information to support their studies, plus they receive announcements when something has changed or a new resource has been added (e.g. a new library Newsletter, powerpoint of a library presentation, change in opening hours, etc).

iGoogle is a very straightforward tool to use as it's fun to change the theme & contents when you like, and it's useful to have all your interests in one place. I can see myself using it as a personal tool for the foreseeable future - until the next thing comes along, anyway!

The journey begins...

My Cam23 journey started in April when I was asked to become part of the Project Team for 23 Things Cambridge. I saw this as an opportunity for me to:
1. Work with other colleagues within the University
2. Learn more about Web 2.0 technologies
3. Discover what tools could be used to improve services to readers

I had already started using iGoogle & Delicious before the programme started, and Wikis are part of the CamTools VLE which I use daily. I don't use Facebook, but I've searched YouTube, read blogs, etc, but hadn't engaged with them in any detail.

We all have to start somewhere on the Web 2.0 road and I see the 23 Things Cambridge programme as an exciting opportunity to explore a selection of tools and see what they have to offer librarians & their libraries.