Library 2.0

School Library
New Tools Web Tools for the Modern Librarian

Alex Isaachsen
Director of ICT
Cheltenham College
Monday, 22 June 2009

For centuries school libraries have been at the heart of research and information
sharing in schools. Some consider however that, emerging internet information
services like Wikipedia and YouTube are beginning to present school librarians
with some signiﬁcant competition.
There are no easy answers ( well at least not from me). While the threat of what
the Governor of California raises many important questions - I am not here to
answer them.
I have been asked to introduce some new (and some not so new) tools that are free
and readily available on the web.
You need to ask yourselves if you can use them to make an advantage for your
library.
I am also going to talk a little about how modern pupils learn.

Background


Director of ICT at Cheltenham College
Teacher of 14 Years


Clay Shirky - Here Comes Everybody
ISBN-10: 0141030623

“Communications tools don’t get socially interesting until they get technologically
boring... It's when a technology becomes normal, that the really profound changes
happen.”

-
Writes about the social importance of new technology
-
how the overheads of organising ourselves have all but disappeared with the
advent of new technologies.
-
and consequently how people are organising themselves without organisations
-
Wikipedia is a ﬁne example - despite only having one employee wikipedia has
millions of articles
-
He coined the phrase “the internet runs on love” and I think he really means it.


Charles Leadbeater - We-Think: Mass innovation, not mass production: Mass Innovation Not Mass Production
(Paperback)
ISBN-10: 1861978375

Argues that Participation rather than consumption or production will be the key
organising idea of future societies


Marc Prensky - a hugly respected futurist and speaker on transforming 21st Century
education.

Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants
http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital
%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf

He is best known for coining the phrases ‘ digital native’ and ‘digital immigrant’ to
illustrate our relationship (and that of the next generation) with technology.

“today’s students think and process information fundamentally differently from their
predecessors. These differences go far further and deeper than most educators
suspect or realize.”

He claims that his difference is as a result of the ubiquitous [digital] environment that
students have grown up in and the sheer volume of their interaction with it,


The Hacker Ethic - Pekka
Himanen - ISBN-10: 0436205505
preface by Linus Torvalds - responsible for the collaboration behind the development
of the worlds best known free and open-source operating system.

refers to

Hackers - as the heroes of the computer revolution (Pro Am - or Hobbyists) could be
applied to other ﬁelds
Slackers - the apparent disengaged youth ( who work till 3 am on something that
interests them)
Crackers - or Black Hats often Script kiddies ( Bad Hackers)

According to Himanen, the three main features of hacker ethic are:
■ enthusiastic, passionate attitude to the work that is enjoyed
■ creativity, wish to realise oneself and one's ability, often in teams that are formed
spontaneously (project orientation)
■ wish to share one's skills with a community having common goals,
■ along with the need to acquire recognition from one's "tribe";
■ one is motivated by inner zeal rather than external awards:
■ Very often the fruits of one's work are donated to everybody for their advances
and further developments


23 Things

Public Library of Charlotte & Meck-len-burg County

http://plcmcl2-things.blogspot.com/

Started a web 2.0 training blog for a small group of librarians - which has been re
used around the world.
Shows the power of a blog.

Something that was developed by a pro am - published - and passed on by electronic
word of mouth.

So how do young people
think?


Lets have a brief look at how generations differ in the way they like to think and learn
A context for understanding why the web tools I am going to share with you in a
moment


Just in Time
Just in Case (it’s in the exam)


The costs of publishing have collapsed

Filter then Publish

Then: Writer > Publisher > Editor > Library > Public

Publish then Filter

Now: Writer > Public

This presents its problems reliability / vs currency


Linear Research - like a ladder ( Fermat’s Last Theorem)
Andrew Wiles - 6 years working on his own on a proof for a 300 year old theorem.
Like a history’s slowest relay Race this baton was passed from one brilliant mathematician to another until the ﬁnal
goal was reached.

Freeform Research - Like a Web ( Human Genome Project) Co-ordinated by the U.S National Institute of
Health - allowing 200 research centres around the globe to map the genes of human DNA

put another way...


Just look at the games we play

Pong - 1972
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPkUvfL8T1I


World of Warcraft

How can these slackers assimilate so much information so quickly?

I guess they are just used to it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGDlZj6bU1A&feature=player_detailpage

So what is Web 2.0?


A second generation of web development:
focussed on content generated by users to communicate and share with others.


What is a web tool?
No installation or downloads required
Works straight off the web


What is a web tool?

No Fee
Paid upgrades and advertising


Are They Easy to USE

If you have ever managed to book a fare on a budget airline without getting
unwanted insurance or lottery tickets then yes it is easy.


What is a web tool?
Encourages User Generated Content
They make you feel valued

Is this where the love comes in mentioned by Shirky?

The Tools


A second generation of web development:
focussed on content generated by users to communicate and share with others.

This is my selection of tools there are thousands of other available - visit - http://
www.go2web20.net/

Beware: Always consider with things that you share on the web that audiences
beyond those you intend - if you are worried that something might be unsuitable then
don’t publish it.

Some of these you will already be aware of:

1.
Try them all - maybe you won’t be able to understand the benefits at first - but all
of them are worth a go.

2.
In the first instance - Share with your colleges in this room and at this conference
none of these tools work well in isolation - you have to learn to share

3.
Share the tools you like best with your colleagues and your teachers at school,
become an evangelist if you can.

4.
Get your school to consider interacting this way with pupils too - this is a chance
to take your library to them.


Set up a blog to discuss what you ﬁnd as you explore web 2.0

www.blogger.com

I suggest twitter www.twitter.com
-
it is free,
-
promotes brevity
-
and is social and fun.

-
Tweet 140 Characters only
-
Follow interesting characters (Phillip Schoﬁeld is apparently, very popular)
-
Write about library development


explore www.ﬂickr.com

Passive Activity
Search
View
Use

Participate
Upload Photos
Comment on them
Organise them
Tag them - Geo Tag Them

Be Social
Comment on others work
Make a interest Group
Collaborate on projects
Keep in Touch


Google

Sign up to iGoogle http://www.google.com/ig
-
Aggregates lots of features onto your home page
-
set it as your homepage

Google Groups http://groups.google.com/
-
Organise information and people
-
Highly collaborative

Google Docs https://docs.google.com
-
Share documents
-
again highly collaborative - nominate users who can make changes

Google Reader: http://www.google.com/reader RSS Feeds
-
Let news come to you
-
subscribe to rss feeds
-
from news sites
-
or blog pages


Social Bookmarking

http://del.icio.us

Share your bookmarks / favourites

Signup
Buttons
Tag - learn to understand tagging - this is becoming very common
Sort
Share - your tags with like minded individuals - pretty soon you will have a network
of interesting people sharing sites that they ﬁnd interesting too
Start a network of useful and relevant sites

put another way...


Learn to love Wikipedia

www.wikipedia.org

The Search
Cite
Discuss
Edit
history
Watch - Adopt a wikipedia Page

A few notes from Richard Leveridges’s article in The School Librarian
Like a pocket calulator:
Trust but verify

Schools wikipedia http://schools-wikipedia.org


Upload a Youtube Video

- you have seen youtube
- Try uploading a video
- EuroCreator.com is a European initiative to give schools a safe place to source and
share video (and other media) on the internet.


Social Networking
One to many messages

Keep in touch
- with friends
- with colleagues
- with groups


Subscribe to a podcast

Itunes > search > Select podcasts > Subscribe


http://librivox.org

2.4k books to download free
The worlds most proliﬁc audiobook publisher
Recorded by Volunteers from around the world.

The Big Questions


I


Will books still matter in 10 Years?
Should we replace books with ﬂat-screen monitors?

Will libraries need to evolve?


Will we be using more e-Books and Kindle - than hardbacks and journals?

Pencil Thin
Can download a Novel in 60 seconds
Glare free paper-like screen
Downloads cost from £0.00
Amazon intends to make available every book ever published.
Stores 1,500 books
includes text to speech

Library?


Can libraries remain at the Heart of information technology?

Some commentators talk about a crisis of signiﬁcance for libraries.

if eBooks make real books seem expensive or out dated - then what is the point of
school libraries?

For my perspective the answer to this is simple when you consider the service that
the librarians offer:
-
In terms of guiding research and resource selection
-
In terms of education about validation and citation
-
In terms of the relationship between the library and the borrower

I hope that now with a better understanding of some of these tools we can make the
relationship between pupils and their libraries even stronger.

Library 2.0

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