WIKI WIKI WIKI

I have to say that I had never really explored wikipedia before. And I guess that it can be a helpful tool. I will admit that during the early 80's I was a Duran Duran fan, so I did a search and found out that there was way more information than I expected. I also found it funny how some people editorialized like this for example : "John Taylor and Nick Rhodes were very happy people." How does this person know that not only they were happy but VERY happy. So I can definitely see where problems could arise with having everyone in the world being able to add information. Just because they truly believed some data to be true doesn't mean that it is true. I think I saw a story where a teacher purposely edited a wikipedia entry with false information to see how many of his students referenced the fake fact. I think that he used this as a lesson in checking the validity of research information. So I think that wikis have there place in society and can be useful tools.

The Future Of Libraries

I do see libraries changing in the future with our society becoming more and more dependant on technology. But in many ways I'm not sure if everything is a good thing. I see more and more kids coming in and have no clue how to find books here in the library. Or they question why they need to have a journal article, or a book to complete their research paper. They seem to think that all of the information that they need is on the web. But one critical skill that I think that many of them are missing is how to analyze if the information given by the website is truly valid.

But in many instances I do see technology helping libraries in the future. I think that it is more important than ever for us to stay atop emerging technologies. Which is why I am really enjoying do the 20 things. Many of the things we have explored I had never heard about.

Technorati, Rollyo, Web 2.0, Library 2.0

Well I do have to say that I agree with many people on Technorati, I guess if I am going to read blogs it is going to be people I know and not random people that i could care less about. And I really don't get the point of Rollyo at all. It just seems as though a person might be limiting themselves to perhaps getting information that might not agree with their point of view. I do have to say that I do belong to a Web 2.0 community (MySpace). I don't really do much with it though. I have Friends who seem to post all kinds of bulletin and comments all the time, but to me it seems as though they are not really living life except through the computer.

Del.icio.us

I can see where this could have been really helpful when I was in college doing research on a public computer. This way I could have saved all of the website that I wanted to this site instead of copy and pasting the urls in an email and mailing to my self. In this instance I can see where this would have been a big help.

LibraryThing!

Was a little skeptical about the whole thing at first but I actually thought that it was really quite neat. Needless to say I don't necessarily own all of these books, but picked some of my favorite books. It is really cool to see how those books rank and what other people say about them. One of my favorite books only 15 other people own, which is a shame because it is a really funny book. But there are all kinds of things you can also do on this site.