IL Thing #6 Flickr

Flickr can be used in many different methods. It can be used to explain the progress or development of construction or a process through images. Flickr can use photos to supplement a project or coursework. I've seen Flickr used to share library design around the world. The Martin County Library System is the public library that I work for and we use it to share library events, programming, and new developments in library renovation.

As a web 2.0 technology, Flickr's possibilities are endless. With a push for work collaboration and digital instruction, an image sharing storage like Flickr allows libraries, instructors, and professionals to become more visual. It is for this reason that the University of Puerto Rico at Carolina used Flickr. As Hernandez and Dominguez (2010) illustrate, the university's Information Literacy and Technologies Program used a blog along with Flickr to store images and news relevant to IL in order to teach best practices in finding and using information.

The Library of Congress even has a photostream on Flickr to help users find historical photographs:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/

Searching through Flickr I found useful, interesting, and fun photos posted from the public that explain information literacy through charts and diagrams. Enjoy!:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/danahlongley/4472897115/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cilass/2986562330/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23396182@N00/4091325622/



Hernández, Y., & Domínguez, N. (2010). Blogs as Content Management System for an Information Literacy Program: Experience at the University of Puerto Rico at Carolina. Current Studies in Librarianship, 30(1/2), 69-77.

IL Thing #5 Delicious

Tagging is another concept I had a difficult time understanding the first go around. Think of the game tag and apply the concept of the game to the Internet and web 2.0 tools to be more specific. If you like a particular blog or website you would usually bookmark it on your PC, but as John points out in his blog posting: http://www.beelerspace.com/index.php?p=890 people tend to use more than one PC. Delicious allows users to organize their bookmarks in a much more extensive approach.

Delicious can also be used to create pathfinders to useful and authoritative websites, scholarly online journals, or digital documents within one specific library. As Grassian and Kaplowitz (2009) explain, tagging allows users a more active approach to using library resources in a more social setting along with other library users. Thus, a library could create an open social bookmarking for patrons so that the patron can simply focus on searching for the appropriate resource and share tags with others.

In fact, when I searched for information literacy on Delicious I found an abundance of libraries and organizations participating in social bookmarking and applying it to information literacy. For example, the UCLA library uses tagging to create How to Guides:

http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/college/11605.cfm

The UCLA How to Guide provides some of the following tagging categories:

Web Evaluation

Web 2.0 Guides

Web Searching

Using Information Effectively

In addition, here is another great site that has made the most out of tagging and applied it to information literacy and library instruction:

http://www.libraryinstruction.com/info-lit.html

I think that this is a very practical way for libraries to use social bookmarking because today's user is more technologically savvy. Tagging is another quick and accessible way for patrons to learn about a specific topic and for librarians or teachers to instruct information literacy.

Grassian, S. E. & Kaplowitz, J.R. (2009). Information Literacy Instruction: Theory and Practice. New York, NY: Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc.

IL Thing #4 Wikis

I once had a hard time understanding Wikis, especially the first time I did 23 Things. A simple way to explain a Wiki is to think of a way to share information on the Internet with everyone and allow others to edit and add information. Thus, it becomes a continuous source of information constantly being updated and added to. So, now looking at the idea of the Wiki a second time I have to ask - how can I apply Wikis to libraries and information literacy? Thankfully there are some incredible libraries and associations using Wikis in an extraordinarily way:

ALA offers 42 different Wiki pages used for everything from Tech Casting, E-Government, to Bookmobiles and Emerging Library Leaders:
http://wikis.ala.org/readwriteconnect/index.php/ALA_wikis

I particularly like the Every Child Ready to Read Wiki:
http://wikis.ala.org/ecrr/index.php/Main_Page

In addition, there are several different Wikis on Information Literacy:

http://infolit.bibliotech.us/wiki/tiki-index.php

http://infolit.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

The St. Joseph County Public Library developed a Wiki to create subject guides:

http://www.libraryforlife.org/subjectguides/index.php/Main_Page

The subject guide list is plentiful and illustrates magazines in the library collection as well as reliable links to further resources about any particular subject that patrons may be looking for. A Wiki can be even more advantageous in this case as opposed to a blog. For example, if other librarians are able to edit the subject guides they may be able to edit in additional resources or links that another librarian may have missed. The Wiki does not have a great deal of visual impact but for hands on learners they are able to explore many different options when searching through the subject guides. This can offer a variety of choices that are quickly accessible for all learners seeking information and can easily evaluate the different sources.