Encyclomedia, Twitter Ninjas, and More 23 Things...

So this week was incredibly busy for me, thus the really late blog post.  This week was the two day annual conference called Encyclomedia.  Teachers, librarians, counselors, authors, illustrators and the like get together to talk about new tools and trends in education.  I always love going to this conference because I get to catch up with people I don't get to see to often from classes, former coworkers, and in my case, family members who I love to see!

This year, there seemed to be a big movement towards Web 2.0 tools in the classroom.  Almost every presentation I went to this year was presented on a wiki.  I thought this was a great move because many of the people presenting were from different areas of the state and wikis are a great way for them to collaborate without wasting gas!  However, because the presentations were on wikis and many of the people attending were not familiar with wikis, a lot of time was taken away from the presentation because they had to explain what it was and how they set it up.  I know I probably sound like a snob in bringing this up but it was frustrating to go to a presentation on new ways to promote the YA collection and having to stop and take 25 minutes of an hour long presentation to explain what a wiki was and how the presenters set up their presentation on it.  If you want to know what one is, go to the presentation on wikis and don't detract from the current presentation!!! 

One presentation I attended was called Twitter Ninjas and discussed the Twitter craze that has been catching on more and more these days.  The presenter talked about how it can be used as both a personal and professional tool and the benefits of both.  Now, personally I've never understood the need for Twitter.  A 140 character message sent to everyone about what I'm eating or that I'm sitting on the couch watching the latest episode of Lost does not seem worth it to me.  However, in this presentation I learned how Twitter can be used as a tool of customer service.  Through using Tweetdeck, customers can tweet in their problems or concerns and whoever is monitoring the account can respond to them and help them out.  I could see this being used on the reference desk or inter-departmentally (is that even a word???). 

Twitter, to me, seems like a very massive text messaging service.  People can sign up and follow your account.  From your phone, you can send a mass message to everyone about anything, as long as it fits in 140 characters.  This could be a very powerful tool to use in promoting a business, particularly a library.  I know my library has a Twitter account that is used to promote jobs and programs.  Now I'm wondering how we can take it further.  But with this type of thinking, I'm wondering how we manage that.  Will the library start paying for all of the text messages?  Will we be compensated for our Twittering, because 10 cents a text ain't cheap!

All of this Twitter text messaging talk made me think about other forms of communication.  I grew up in the days of snail mail. when receiving a letter in the mail was something to get excited about.  Now, I impatiently check my iphone for any new email.  I have my Facebook account on my phone to see if I have any new messages several times a day.  I text rather than talk.  Communication is changing, shifting into a more constant, detached form of connection.  We share anything and everything on our Facebook accounts.  Pictures on Flicker, Twitter with strangers... all to reach out to the world and feel more connected.  Even blogging is an attempt to communicate with the world from a safe, familiar place.  But our we really as safe as we think?  Are we really as connected as we like to think we are?  Do we ever see the people on the other side of our communications?  Do we really share who we are? 

I feel as we become more "connected" with the rest of the world, we wade further and further into unknown territory.  I mentioned above how my library has a Facebook and Twitter account.  More and more businesses are adopting this technology for their own uses.  However, as we become more familiar with this technology, we have to consider the implications of what this all could mean.  Policies have to be put in place to protect ourselves, our employees, and everyone involved.  It's ironic to think about but as we become more "free" in our communications we become more restricted in our limitations of what we can do with it.  This would probably be a good debate for my Comps!

Shifting gears, I'd like to mention the RSS feeds I subscribed to this week.  My library just started using RSS feeds to promote the new items in the collection.  I subscribed immediately to all my favorite catagories:  Young Adult, Movies, Music, Mystery, and the latest news on what's going on in the system.  I use Google Reader which was easy to set up and customize.  This is an excellent way to keep up on all of my blogs that I read and all the new materials and activities going on at work.

Well, I need to go study and read Dan Brown's new book The Lost Symbol.  Until next time...