Thing #15

I’m back to LCPL’s 23 Things program.  Thing #15 is just to read some articles about Library 2.0 and comment on them in your blog.  (That’s what I’m doing!)

I see the lipservice to 23 Things in the official program.  However, I don’t see the library carrying it out.  They’ve set up some things on the official website, but I would like those of us out meeting the public to be encouraged to post about our reading on a blog, or maybe to be able to tag books in our library catalog.

Taking a grad class in Content Representation while looking at Web 2.0 tools is fascinating.  Content Representation talks about metadata–how do we organize information about information?  Tagging is a form of metadata, but on the web in general it’s very nonstandard.  So it’s interesting to see these new tools interacting with libraries, and to think of the possibilities with that interaction.

Meanwhile, I’m making a blog form of my book reviews website, so I can now get comments, and interact more with other people about the books.

A friend of mine talks about limiting her son’s “Screen Time.”  But I think that calling computer time “Screen Time” fails to appreciate that a computer is much, much more than a TV.  Nowadays, computers are about social interaction, about contributing–and getting a response back, about connecting to other people.

And that’s exciting.

3 comments

  1. There’s a book I noticed at work called “Everything Bad is Good for You”. I want to read it in full sometime, because when I skimmed it (to figure out where in the world to shelve it) it looked quite interesting. From what he says, we do read less these days, because we’ve added TV and computers, and whenever you add something you do everything else less! It may be a good idea to limit “screen time” for that reason, since, as he admits, there are parts of your brain that reading a book develops. BUT TV and computers actually are good for you and develop other things (videogames develop problem solving skills, etc.), so wanting to keep children from “rotting” their brains in front of the TV isn’t a particularly good reason. Like you said (reminding me of this whole thing), computers have a very positive social aspect to them now. And that’s how I’m bothering telling you so! (=

  2. You’re right–what a nice demonstration! After all, we haven’t “talked” so much in ages!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *