Baker’s Dozen

Social network services are all the rage. You may have heard of sites such as MySpace, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

These are but three of scores of online communities that allow people to connect, communicate, and share pictures, music, links, etc..

Social networking isn’t just for kids and yungin’s anymore. Adults, too, are flocking to social networking sites.

Skeptical? Head on over to the Pew Internet and American Life report on the topic.

This post’s topic is on Facebook. To date, Facebook has milliions of members and is rapidly going.

Your assignment:

Sign up with Facebook; then find and become a fan of the Arlington Heights Memorial Library on Facebook. Here’s AHML’s Facebook fan page.

Before doing so, you may want to check out this article called “How Facebook Works“.

Also, watch this video called “Social Networking in Plain English”:

To repeat, another hallmark of Web 2.0 is personalization and customization . . . especially when it comes to online music.

Enter Pandora! This is Internet Radio based on the Music Genome Project.

“At Pandora, we have a single mission: To play music you’ll love - and nothing else.”

Using Pandora, you can enter an artist or song, and the service will build you a radio station, suggesting other artists (which you can rate by giving a thumbs up or thumbs down . . .). Pandora will incorporate your feedback and construct accordingly.

You’ve probably heard the expression Pandora’s Box from mythology, right?

Well, according to the company, there’s a different way of looking @ her legacy:

“The name Pandora means ‘all gifted’ in Greek. In ancient Greek mythology, Pandora received many gifts from the Gods, including the gift of music, from Apollo. She was also, as we all know, very curious. Unlike those Gods of old, however, we celebrate that virtue and have made it our mission to reward the musically curious among us with a never-ending experience of music discovery.”

Your assignment:

1. Create a Pandora account.

2. Create your own “station”.

3. Share what you think about Pandora by “commenting” on this blog post.

One of the hallmarks of Web 2.0 is creation and sharing - - especially when it comes to multimedia.

For example, an incredibly popular site for finding and sharing videos is YouTube.

You may already know that Steve Chen, cofounder of YouTube, attended nearby Hersey High School.

You can find it all on YouTube - - from guitar lessons to CNN-hosted political debates.

If you’ve ever watched one of Arlington Heights Memorial Library’s vlogs, you’ve used YouTube (perhaps even without realizing it).

Your assignment:

Create a free YouTube account

Search for and find 3 videos on your topic of interest.

Tag your videos.

(Optional) Extra credit: Those of you with the appropriate technology can create a video clip explaining three things you like about the Arlington Heights Memorial Library. You can share your link to your video in the “Comments” area.

Those of you who wander the web use a web browser such as Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Apple’s Safari, Mozilla’s FireFox, etc.

When you find a website that you like and want to visit often, you may add it to your Favorites, Bookmarks, etc.

Browser bookmarks are great; however, they are limited to one computer.

Imagine if you could collect, organize, and share all of your favorite websites over the web . . . on any web-enabled computer or device (e.g., an iPhone or Blackberry)? Dream no more.

You can access all of your collected websites with a free tool called del.icio.us.

In Web 2.0 lingo, del.icio.us is referred to as a “social bookmarking” service.

The Arlington Heights Memorial Library has begun to use del.icio.us to collect selected resources that our Librarians use at the Answer Center. Our del.icio.us account is called AHML Bookmarks.

Your assignment:

Create a free del.icio.us account

Add or post 5 of your favorite websites.

Tag each individual website with one or more keywords.

To get a better handle on the process of social bookmarking, please watch this video below:

Reminder: Please post questions and remarks in the “Comments” area. Hey, even share your newly created del.icio.us website.

You may have never dreamed or aspired to become a librarian — despite its glitz and glamor.

However, you may have thought about how to best organize your personal collection of books and other media.

Perhaps, though, you didn’t want to have to learn about classification schemes such as the Dewey Decimal System or the Library of Congress Classification; rest assured that you don’t have to — especially if you use a service called LibraryThing.

Take a tour!

(By the way, remember blogs from a previous lesson? Check out the official LibraryThing blog.)

Please keep in mind that LibraryThing offers a free account that allows you to enter or catalog 200 items!

Like other Web 2.0 applications, LibraryThing allows users to assign “tags” to items. Tags are one-word labels. Let’s say one of your favorite books is The Stranger by Albert Camus. Tags for this item could include the following: algiers, camus, existentialism, etc.

The Arlington Heights Memorial Library’s catalog actually uses some features of LibraryThing, including tags. Take a look at this entry for the following book: Killing Rommel. You’ll see a constellation of tags or keywords, known as a tag cloud.

This month’s assignment:

Create a free LibraryThing account (which requires that you select a username, password, and enter a valid email address).

Find and add (i.e., catalog) 5 items.

“Tag” the items that you collect.

Reminder: You can ask questions and post remarks in the “Comments” area.

A catch phrase that you’ll often hear associated with blogs is RSS.

RSS stands for either Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary.

In brief, RSS allows you to “subscribe” (for FREE!) to Web content. 

Review: You can find blogs with specialized search tools such as Technorati or Google Blog Search.

Then, you can subscribe to blog using a tool called a blogreader (also sometimes referred to as a feedreader or newsreader; you might hear the phrase “news aggregator,” too).

3 examples of blogreaders: Google Reader , NewsGator, and Bloglines.

Using a blogreader can save you a lot of time. Let’s say, for instance, that you are in the habit of visiting 10 separate news sites each day. You can actually have news stories from all 10 sites delivered to your blogreader.  Translation: you don’t have to find information; rather, information finds you!

Below is a video - - RSS in Plain English - - about the aforementioned process:

(Be sure to “comment” on the video; let us know what you think about it!)

Your assignment:

1. Register for a free Bloglines account.

2. Find and subscribe to a minimum of 5 feeds.

Hint: Use Bloglines’ search box to find feeds. You’ll need to change the default “Search for Posts” to “Search for Feeds”. Then try to find feeds for your favorite news outlets such as CNN, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, etc. Once, you find a feed that you like, click on “Subscribe to feed”.

And guess what? You can even find and subscribe to this Baker’s Dozen blog in your Bloglines account. Likewise, you can subscribe to the AHML Staff Choices blog and the AHML RSS Feed, which announces library news and features.

Reminder: You can ask questions and post remarks in the “Comments” area, and someone will respond to you.

One of the major Web 2.0 themes is blogs. Simply put, a blog is a type of website that arranges information in reverse chronological order. A blog resemble an online journal or diary because each entry (referred to as a “post”) includes the date and time.  Also, a blog “self-archives” its content automatically.

You may have been viewing a blog and not been aware that you were doing so; in fact, if you are reading this text right now, you are looking at a blog!

Another example of a blog is AHML Staff Choices, which highlights good reads from library employees’ perspectives.

Individuals and organizations use blogs to express themselves and share information.

You can find blogs of interest by using a specialized search tool such as Technorati or Google Blog Search.

Blogs can also foster interaction and community because they allow for “comments“.

Your first assignment:

Add a comment - - be it a remark, an observation, a suggestion, a question, an answer, a reply to another individual - -  to this very blog:

Scroll down to the bottom of this entry and click on the “comment” link.

You’ll then see text that says “Leave a Reply” as well as a large box that you can type text in.

Enter your comment.

Then, you’ll be asked to enter a code - - i.e., a series of letters and numbers (referred to as a CAPTCHA). This code, by the way, prevents automated software from posting, say, product sales and announcements.

Last, click on the “Submit Comment” button.

Someone from AHML will chime in and respond to your comments and answer questions when appropriate.