Conclusion

Following the conclusion of 5720 at UNT I would like to incorporate wikis and blogs in to my classroom activities. I have learned and seen so many possibilities for these two pieces of technology. My students have always had such incredible voice. I feel using wikis and blogs gives them the opportunity to express themselves more often and more freely. Students are comfortable with technology and enjoying using it as a way to express themselves. It is important to tap in to whatever will work for students to enhance learning and encourage interaction and discussion. Hopefully when I am in a library I can quickly put wikis and blogs in to play on my own website. The best advertisement for a library is one that is created by its patrons. Wikis and blogs lay the foundation for that advertisement.

The Job of Organizing

Now no longer only the domain of professionally trained catalogers and indexers, organizing books and materials has become more of a public domain with Web 2.0. While one might assume this is a threat to the job security of librarians, it actually broadens the options available to the patron and gives the librarian more of an opportunity to be a guide in the search for information. The subject headings offered by publishers and included in the catalog can be limiting. With input from the actual users of the information, items can be tagged more specifically for patrons. As a librarian, it is not likely that I will be reading EVERYTHING that comes in to my library. I will need to rely on the publisher’s suggestions for cataloging purposes. Involving the patrons that have chosen to partake in a particular resource allows for expansion of the possible audience for the item. The more specific a tag, the more likely a patron is to use the item.

While most of the aspects of public involvement in organizing materials are positive, there are some negative aspects as well. In the “hands of everyday folk”, this organization can get out of control and random. As a patron who has read a book or used a resource, I could have focused on an idea that received only 1 sentence worth of space in the material. If I then tag this resource for the minutia I am skewing the true value of the resource for other patrons. You may also have users that tag or organize based only on titles and not on actual use and value of a resource. This can be very confusing in a search for valuable content.

When tagging resources with Delicious, the tags are far from traditional subject headings. The tags I used, some of which were suggested and others were not, are quite a bit more specific. Traditional subject headings are very broad. A random site that I bookmarked at the suggestion of a friend was only tagged with the suggested tag: health. The site focuses on preparing to run a 5k. I could have given this site so many other tags: 5k, running training, fitness, big butt, etc. Being able to tag sites myself is way more helpful that being bound to a basic traditional tag. I will remember my own tags and their meanings more than a broad traditional tag.

Web 2.0: The Machine is Us/ing Us

Professor Wesch’s video "Web 2.0: The Machine is Us/ing Us" is a powerful visual representation of the ideas put forth in the Cortney text. While the original creation of the Web was based on input only from programmers, as it has developed, the Web has become more collaborative. The Web is now more grounded in user content. The “machine is us” because of this collaboration and user content focus. However, the “machine is using us” because without the user, it is unable to grow and expand. I struggle with this because the machine does not exist beyond the users. The Web does not have an independent mind of its own so it is really incapable of using anyone. Without the user, there is no Web or machine!