Discovering Web 2.0 Tools

Exercise 19: I like OmniDrive which is used to store your personal files like music, photos and documents via the internet. This makes these files available to you from any location. You are given 1 GB of free space to upload your files. I am going to use this site to backup all of my countless music files that I have stored on my PC. I don't really feel safe posting up personal documents. The website is said to be using 128bit SSL encryption that keeps your files safe while they travel the web but hackers can still get through that kind of encryption especially if you are using a unsecured wireless network. I don't want my personal business floating around the net and then have people contacting me trying to blackmail me. In a library setting I don't really see a good use for it unless there is a document or application file that needs to be installed on everyone's computer in the office. You could upload that application to this site and then go to each person's computer and download the application. I don't really think thats needed since we have other virtual drives that can perform that same task.

Web Based Applications

Excercise 18: Zoho writer is a great tool to utilize when you have a group project to complete.  In my courses that I am taking we work in teams to complete team projects.  We use Zoho writer to share documents and make revisions to the document.  It was very time consuming when we were all typing our information into separate word processing programs because we would then each have to post our information separately and then combine efforts.  With Zoho writer we were able to make our additions to the same document which saved us a lot of time.  Zoho Writer is very similar to other word processing software and contains the spell check and word count tools which are tools that I constantly use for my classes.  I am publishing this information to my blog directly from zoho writer. 

Week 7: Wiki's

Exercise 16: I visited the St. Joseph Public Libraries wiki and liked the autobiography section. In this area you can create your own biography and they have resources available to help you do this. There is a link to a book called "Your autobiography : more than 300 questions to help you write your personal history" which has call number information. When you click the link it takes you directly to St. Joseph's catalog of books.

Wiki's can be edited by anyone and aren't reliable sources of information. I use Wiki's as a starting point when I doing any type of research. At the ending of Wiki's there are usually links to more reliable sources. Since the author's of these Wiki's took the time to do some research and post it for me to see I piggy back off their efforts and continue my research with their suggestions. This cuts my research time down considerably.

I think the library should use Wiki's to encourage local historians to write about island history. Wiki's allow different authors to add to existing articles and I think that the history of these islands are available in a piece peice manner. You get some information from one historian and another one has the finishing piece to the puzzle. For some reason Virgin Islanders don't record their history and its very difficult to find information. Current events can also be posted into a Wiki. Any articles that are found relating to a particular topic can be listed on the Wiki page.

Exercise 17: I checked out the PBwiki and added my blog to the favorite blog list. I added three movies to the favorite movies list. I followed Bethany's lead and added a link to my movie slections from the imdb movie database. I noticed that your are able to save the lists on this site as a pdf and see the last person who edited the page.

I think we can use this technology in various departments within our unit for supply lists. As a person needs supplies they can post it on the list. Since the list is open to everyone with the correct password a complete supply list for a department can be compiled.