libraries

I can't believe the end is here.  Once I've finished this post, I'll be done all of the coursework for my MLIS.  I guess I should get it over with.  I've left a discussion of best practices and how I think social software can be best used in libraries until last, but I've been thinking about it all semester, with each week's topic.

Since I've been a long time gamer (in spite of not having the time or money to play so much in recent years), I was quite eager to get into this topic, especially because all of my years of gaming seemed to create a pretty black-and-white notion that gaming and libraries don't mix (at least in a practical way).  I'm happy to say that this week's readings really got me out of that mindset, though I am still cautious about mixing gaming and libraries.

I was a bit unsure of what I would be learning about this week. I don't have much experience with gaming and am mostly in the dark in general when it comes to gaming and virtual worlds.

I was interested in reading about how gaming and libraries would intersect. This first seemed like an outlandish idea, but after reading the articles by Doshi and Oblinger, I now have a better sense of what gaming could potentially do for library instruction.

I finally get a topic that I actually feel like I know the material for beforehand (in spite of my belief at the beginning of the term I had lots of Web 2.0 experience). :)

The debates for this week's readings were really interesting to me, not only because I'm a social networking site fanatic, but also because I generally consider myself a proponent of freedom of access and speech.

I've been waiting for this week.  I think this is the only topic I was really familiar with before this course started.  And I've been working with my group for the project on this topic, too, so I've been immersed in social networks for the last few weeks.

Wow, this week has really hit home for me...I had started writing an epic blog posting when I accidently hit the "delete!" button and lost the whole thing!!  I'll try to shorten what I originally had, since it really was quite long!  Like I said, this week's topic is really interesting for me, and I didn't realize it would be until I did the readings and looked at some of the blogs from everyone else.  Lee Rainie's article really jump-started my thinking for this week.

By Chris, Jennifer, Katrina, and Kristen  

Being a part of the wiki group has really given me insight into how a basic wiki works.  Look forward to my second blog posting tomorrow on behalf of my group, and enjoy our wiki!