Web 2.0: Searching Innovations

Hi fellow library people,

I attended a great Infopeople (http://infopeople.org/) workshop on July 24, 2007 at San Jose State University. This workshop, part of a series on Web 2.0 topics, was free, but I would have paid money for it! For other workshops in this free series see: http://infopeople.org/training/web20/.

The workshop was taught by Joe Barker, a recently retired librarian from UC Berkeley, who now teaches workshops for Infopeople. We started off with a brief discussion of Web 2.0 and then moved quickly into a hands-on introduction to del.icio.us, the mobile, community-oriented, user-friendly bookmark/favorite organizer! It is mobile because it allows you to access your bookmarks from any location. It is community oriented
because you can make your favorites visible to others and tag them so that you and others can easily search them! It is user-friendly because… Well, try it out and see for yourself at http://del.icio.us/. Here’s a link to Joe Barker’s bookmarks: http://del.icio.us/joebarker.
He links to many good Web 2.0 sources. I was able to set up an account and add a number of bookmarks complete with tags during the workshop. To see my much more limited set go to: http://del.icio.us/sradcliff (I did all this during the workshop!).

We covered many other Web 2.0 topics, such as using various search engines and strategies to search for blogs, wikis, and multimedia material on the Web. Hint: for wikis use inurl:wiki. For blogs: try Technorati! We also looked at Flickr, the site for uploading, tagging, and sharing pictures. This source, I had already used extensively. You can tag and group pictures and create slideshows. For a non-library related example go to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/miknez (my pictures). Many libraries use Flickr to get photos of exhibits, library events, etc… on to their Home Pages. For an example see
http://library.coloradocollege.edu/news/. You can also search Flickr for pictures of exhibits and library signage to get ideas!

Something new I learned at the workshop was that Google now has a CSE product! A CSE is a custom search engine that you build yourself by limiting your search to a set group of websites. Or you can use someone else’s CSE that they have made public. The Google product is similar to Rollyo, which has been around for a while, but allows you to add more websites! For some examples, go to http://www.customsearchguide.com/.
For other links to CSE, go to the bookmarks on the Infopeople website for this class at
http://bookmarks.infopeople.org/. Look for web2_srchng_bk.html (another great resource for all things Web 2.0).

We also covered RSS (“Really Simple Syndication”) feeds which Joe Barker describes as “trapping what you need to stay on top of.” He recommends Bloglines as the best feed reader around. I also find it to be easy to set up and use. You can set up an account at:
http://www.bloglines.com/. You can easily subscribe to a few blogs and also set up an RSS feed for a customized Google search! Go to http://www.bloglines.com/ to register.

The workshop also covered Facebook, MySpace, and the new kid on the block: Ning.
I searched Ning and found a community of Business Librarians. Hmmm… Maybe I’ll join.

These were some of the highlights of the workshop for me though many other topics and sources were covered! I highly recommend this Web 2.0 series!
Sharon Radcliff, Business Librarian, Saint Mary’s College, Moraga, sradclif@stmarys-ca.edu