Librarian Bloggers: Librarians who blog
July 7, 2009
I just discovered and joined the Librarian Bloggers site. I have to say that the site is really well done. I created a profile and simply added an RSS from this blog and dragged it to the center of my profile so that when I blog from here, it posts there. Have a look at my profile. Really simply designed and user-friendly site – wouldn’t expect anything less from my librarian colleagues 
Seems like a great site to join for networking opportunities, information sharing and learning about other librarians who blog. I still need to explore all of the options and configuration choices for the site but on first use, I have to give it huge props!
Laika’s MedLibLog and EAHIL 2009
June 9, 2009
My colleague in the Netherlands has an excellent blog where she was kind enough to write a post about the course I taught last week in Dublin at the EAHIL Workshop on Web 2.0 and health information. It is a great summary of the course. I highly recommend subscribing to her blog if you are interested in anything related to medical librarianship, Web 2.0 and health information and many other topics.
I will do as she has done and embed my two Slidecasts below. Thanks, Jacqueline for the summary of my course and great finally meeting you in real life! (we originally only knew each other on Twitter)
Web 2.0 course at EAHIL Dublin
June 5, 2009
Right now, I’m at the EAHIL (European Association of Health Information Libraries) Workshop in Dublin. On Tuesday, I taught a Web 2.0 course here – it was held in one of the libraries at Trinity College Dublin – very cool
I think it went well. I might have rambled a bit, but it’s easy to do when talking about web 2.0 tools and apps, especially Twitter which I have a particular fondness for as of late. Some of the issues raised by people in my course that I thought were of interest:
- How does one have time to use all of this web 2.o stuff? – good point. I say use as much as little as you like and ONLY what benefits you.
- What about security? – good point, not everyone should “tweet” everything their org or company is doing!
- What if you are behind an annoying firewall or intranet that won’t even LET you use these tools? – I have no answer there. Become friends with the IT folks!
The presentations are here if you’re interested.
Mind Map: Best Online Collaboration Tools 2009 – Robin Good’s Collaborative Map – MindMeister
A few years ago, I created a “Guide to Online Collaboration” page for my organizations’s website. This page quickly became out-of-date as the number of free, online collaborative tools skyrocketed. Now, there are so many out there and new ones are launching everyday all with varying degrees of sophistication, reliability and security that one can’t possibly keep up with them.
This so-called “mindmap” gathers together a nice list of these very helpful tools including things like:
- mindmapping & diagramming
- whiteboarding
- event scheduling
- chat
- IM
- VoIP
- video conferencing
- screensharing and co-browsing
- and many others
I’ve now added this as the top link on my “Guide to Online Collaboration.” Saves me a lot of time and research. Thanks to Robin Good for this mindmap!
How Web 2.0…
March 29, 2009
I’m giving a presentation on Tuesday (31 March) here in Freiburg on Web 2.0 and medical information for a workshop for librarians, researchers, etc. I uploaded the presentation to Slideshare to show it to some colleagues for feedback last week. I received an email on Friday: “Congratulations, your slideshow has been chosen to be the spotlight presentation on the “health and medicine” portal of the Slideshare site.” I haven’t even given the presentation yet and am actually still tweaking it and now it’s had over 200 views on Slideshare!
Clay Shirky’s mantra “publish then filter” at work here – I can receive useful feedback for a presentation I’ll give in the future. I think it’s fantastic how the web is becoming truly real-time in this way – Twitter as a real-time web indexing tool, wikis as collaborative real-time knowledge stores, etc.
What Bruce Sterling Actually Said About Web 2.0 at Webstock 09 | Beyond the Beyond from Wired.com
March 25, 2009
What Bruce Sterling Actually Said About Web 2.0 at Webstock 09 | Beyond the Beyond from Wired.com.
Very good article on what Web 2.0 has done and why it might be/is/must come to an end. Or, at least that what it seems he’s saying. I’m not sure I agree. I have always seen Web 2.0 as nothing but a paradigm shift in how people interact with the web. Phrases I like to use:
- “Joining the conversation”
- “Tuning the web”
- “Publish then filter” (Actually Clay Shirky’s phrase but I think it’s right on the mark)
The paradigm shifts inherent in Web 2.0 aren’t going anywhere in my opinion. They’ve joined the “grid” and will “link” up with semantic web technologies to bring the web close to it’s full potential. Or?
Web 2.0 and health information
March 25, 2009
I’m giving this presentation next week here in Freiburg, Germany for the German Cochrane Centre’s ‘Literaturrecherche’ Workshop. Hoping to encourage a group of (mostly) German medical research folks (librarians, researchers, academics, etc.) to explore using Web 2.0 tools and services to assist in their work.
