LIS 9763

So I know there was no real deadline for this last post, but I think I am extremely late!  I had a wedding to attend in Ottawa this weekend and got home late SUnday, so I apologize for such a late post.  WHile last week I pretty much went through what I liked best and how some social softare could be used in the library, I;ll keep this last post short!

I'm not sure if waiting so long to do my last blog post had more to do with the insane amount of work I've had to do this week, or the fact that I knew this would be my last post... Hard to say... sniff, I'll have to think on it. That being said I have really enjoyed the course and want to thank Amanda and all of you for your excellent comments all semester, I found myself looking forward to checking my replies every week.

Since I spent all of my effort last week reflecting on my personal experiences with social software, my impressions of the types we covered in this class, their applicability and usefulness with regard to the library, as well as best practices for libraries that wish to implement some of these tools, I will limit my musings this week to a final reflection of the course itself.

Well, the 14 weeks have flown by in a hurry. I've taken a lot of distance courses during my time at FIMS, and this has been the best in terms of feeling very interactive. I think Amanda deserves credit for choosing to go with Drupal, rather than WebCT or one of those other clunky online course providers. The library I'm working at now will probably be moving our site to Drupal in the near future, so it's been beneficial to make extensive use of a Drupa site, and get a feel for what it can do. I also love that I've been able to keep track of new posts through RSS.

We've thought quite a bit about best practices across this term and for me there have been several that popped up repeatedly and regardless of the social software tool. Each of them anticipate some of the challenges and issues that might arise when considering the use of social software in libraries and other information organizations:

I decided to keep the the Week 13 element of evaluation for this week, since my thoughts on the evaluation of this course, Web 2.0, Library 2.0 and my own use of social software all connected together rather conveniently.

Hi everyone -- I just wanted to post a quick update here because I've been having some problems with my email recently (which just became apparent last night):

This course has provided a great overview of social software in all its forms and especially on how it can benefit libraries and help them to build their online presence in the community.  Social software is free and easy to use and there's a lot of potential out there for libraries as they gradually develop more advanced social software based services. While I had used social software such as blogs, RSS, and YouTube before starting the course, now I have a much better idea of the potential uses and pitfalls.

Best Practices:

I’ve listed some of these before, but for the record, here are my best practice suggestions. Some of them will apply to all social software, others to one specific type.