New-Gen Catalog

New Generation of Catalogues of the new generation of users: A Comparison of Six Library Catalogues by Tanja Mercun and Maja Zumer.

The authors talk about the New Generation of Catalogs creation by incorporating the movements that are a part of Web 2.0.  I think that within many Library Catalogs there is room for improvement and that some Web 2.0 aspects could be successfully integrated but some aspects might be more difficult to implement.  I actually like the idea of including comments for materials because it will make the experience more interactive.  It also gives the patron another factor in determining if this is the right book or journal for them and their needs.  I'm not really sure if I like the idea of the audio version of the review because it might seem to difficult to some patrons causing them not to do it.  One of the major things about implementing Web 2.0 aspects is whether or not patrons are going to participate in them.  If patrons are not utilizing these aspects then it makes its addition to the catalog moot.  That is why it is important to do research to determine what your patrons will actually contribute to and use.  Then add those aspects to the Catalog while also improving other aspects of the catalog that may need it as well.

Currently Reading

Fiction:

Passion by Lauren Kate

Fiction:

Linger by Maggie Stiefvater

21st Century

I really liked reading, Toward a Twenty-first Century Library Catalog by Kristin Antelman, Emily Lynema, and Andrew K. Pace.  I enjoyed the brief history of Library Catalogs that they included at the beginning of the article this helped me to further understand the progression that NCSU Libraries took in implementing the Endeca Catalog.  This article made me see that their are a whole lot more aspects to creating a Twenty-first century Library Catalog than I thought.  I guess that is why teams are created in order to think off all of the various aspects that must go into this.  Especially, the searching portion and the multitude of ways in which someone can search and have their results connected together.  Adding the browse aspect was especially smart because I personally like to browse within a section when at the library or book store.  So being able to do that while searching within the libraries collection is a great asset.  Personally, any library catalog that makes it easier for our patrons to access our materials is important.  But the need for improvement is always there to create more user friendly material retrieval.  In the world of tagging is might make this harder because people will come up with their own terminology that may not jive within the catalog system.  It is important for us as Catalog creators to link the user to related terms and similar searches within their parameters.  I think that the Endeca Catalog use at the NCSU Libraries is a great step towards better accessibility and 21st Century Library Catalogs.

Social Tagging

Upon reading Social Tagging as a Knowledge Organization and Resource Discovery Tool by Hesham Allam I thought why didn't I read this article first.  It made so much more sense than Wichowski's Folksonomies article and now in retrospect has helped me to understand that Wichowski's article a little bit better although still not completely.  I like how Hesham Allam broke down the different aspects of social tagging.  I understood the concept of Tag Clouds but TagMaps was new to me and without looking a the picture, which for visual learners is important, I understood what it was and how it worked.  In the article he talks about how people tag for two reasons either for themselves or for others.  When you tag for yourself its so that you can find what you want easier or for others so that other peoples information will be easier for everyone to find.  The motivations behind tagging are that the tags are better and more consistent when the tagger thinks that other people are viewing them than when they do them for themselves.  But once again like the other articles said there are pros and cons to social tagging.  Tagging applications may broaden horizons but then the uncontrolled use of tag vocabulary can also make some information more difficult to find.  Social Tagging gives its users the ability to control their world and offers the user organizational freedoms that traditional tools have not done previously.  Personally, I like social tagging because it gives me the opportunity to place things within categories that make sense to me.  My mind connects colors to topics as well as words but I try to avoid color coding when tagging because then I wouldn't be tagging for others.

CiteULike

CiteULike is similar in someways to Delicious but also very different.  In the new and old media article it talked about traditional media being professional whereas the new media can be created by anyone that wants to do so.  This made me think of these two sites in that CiteULike is used more for scholarly work and research whereas Delicious gives me the vibe that it can be used by anyone to upload their bookmarks.  The wording used on CiteULike is also more professional in that it says store references and find new articles and resources.  This site gives you the ability to upload journal articles and other reference materials into one place making research and organization for creating ones own scholarly work easier.  I also liked that this site had some digital journals of its own that you could search if you were having trouble finding other sources.  Organization is a key part of keeping yourself sane when doing a lot of research and tags are a great way of making sure that your articles on a similar topic are grouped together.  I'm not sure if I would actually use this site because even though I am tech savvy I still like to hold the research in my hands and make piles when writing a paper or doing a project. 

Delicious

While I was importing my bookmarks and playing around with Delicious I realized how useful this site could be not only for myself but for a few other teachers I know.  Since I am split between 2 school libraries every time I bookmark a new site on one computer I have to write it down or e-mail the link to myself so that I can add it to the one at my other school.  But by using Delicious all I have to do is add the bookmark to the site then log in and what I need is right there ready for me to use.  This site would also be useful to the technology teachers because when they want the students to go to a site they either have to write the URL on the board or bookmark it on 25 computers.  But with this you would only have to bookmark Delicious and have a generic log in for the school and the students will all be able to go to the links that you have chosen for them.  Also another teacher that I work with and tutor loves to do research and find great websites for students and fellow teachers to use.  Her desktop is a mess of links and folders of links that hurts your eyes when you look at it.  But by uploading the link to Delicious then tagging the link with a related term it will be organized and easier to find for later use and sharing.  I think I'm going to e-mail her right now and hopefully when I begin tutoring her next year their will be a whole new form of organization to her research world.

Tag Gardening

Tag Gardening for Folksonomy Enrichment and Maintenance by Isabella Peters and Katrin Weller. This article really helped to clarify what Folksonomies are and I really loved the gardening analogy used through out. The weeding process within Tag Gardening is really important because when tags are misspelled or inappropriate it becomes difficult to link the content to similar content within the community. The need for specific tags is the equivalent to a Boolean search on google so that we get more specific search results instead of a large list of search results. By linking synonyms and pulling homonyms apart into their own categories it helps to create trails within the tagging world to follow. It may be difficult to control the tags that people use but with any new gain their can also be a few losses. But I feel that the gardening techniques used in this article give use the opportunity to improve our tags. Power Tags are like the main subject heading that encompasses the use of the other tags within a persons tagging personomy. So if I have a tag about dogs then others about certain types of dogs then dogs would be the power tag and the types of dogs would be the subfield.  Newer programs are giving our personomy a chance to be used across various platforms.  TagCare imports all of our own tags so that they can be used elsewhere it will also let us know if we are using certain tags to often meaning that those tags have become to broad and should be changed.  So in a way the TagCare program is helping with part of the Tag Gardening process.  But it is up to us as users to keep the "flowers" healthy and organized through the gardening process.