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I have to admit to a love-hate relationship with Twitter, the microblogging “what are you doing?” tool that many people are, shall we say, twittering about. Some days I love being tuned into all the goings on in my community there, other days, I just need to tune out.

140 characters, enough to say where you are during a conference and find out who wants to meet for dinner. Or to find out where there’s a great session going on so you can leave the deadly dull one that you ended up in by mistake. I’ve used it a lot during conferences and had great meetups with colleagues I would have missed otherwise.

On a day to day basis, it’s very useful for sharing breaking news, alerts about interesting blog posts, posing questions and getting fast answers. Many organizations are using it to connect with customers, patrons, supporters. Political campaigns use twitter to alert supporters to the latest campaign news. Libraries use it as one more way to distribute updates about services and events. Library professional groups use it to get news out to members and the library community at large.

What you get out of it, depends on finding friends and colleagues who share your interests. And like any community, you have to give to get. So I try to respond to questions when I can and share new resources that I come across. In return I’ve gotten help with questions of my own. Will I stay with Twitter forever? Will I be fickle and love it and leave it? I don’t know, it has had some problems keeping up with traffic lately. If they continues, people will certainly move on to another tool that serves the same purpose, and there are other ones out there! For now, I’m finding Twitter a useful way to connect with friends and colleagues.

To find out more and see some great examples of how libraries are using Twitter, read Elyssa Kroski’s terrific article in School Library Journal, All a Twitter: Want to Try Microblogging? It’s an excellent introduction to Twitter. And even if you don’t get into using Twitter yourself, it’s definitely a tool to be aware of.

In something for nothing Aaron Schmidt explains how his library is using Zoho Creator for a handy and effective summer reading program sign up form that is embedded on the library’s web site. After the kids sign up, they’re taken to a page where they can download a reading log and get other info about the program. Very cool. Could be used for many other types of sign up. Free, simple, easy, effective.

As Aaron said: “I’m all for making library services easier to use, but making people’s lives easier is an even better goal.” Couldn’t agree more.

Not heading to Anaheim for ALA? That doesn’t mean you have to miss out on everything. LITA’s BIGWIG Social Software Showcase web page already has a number of videos and screencasts of presentations posted to it. There will also be some live webcasts and discussions during the conference. Check the Showcase page for times and details.

Among the many excellent presentations, Jason Griffey’s Video 2.0 and the New Media Revolution really caught my attention. In a delightful bit of recursiveness, Jason presents a video about new video tools that will make virtual participation in meetings, presentations and such much easier. In themselves, they’re very interesting, useful tools. But what happens to privacy when it becomes possible to broadcast anything, anytime, anywhere? How do we process the onslaught of media madness? Jason poses questions about what this media revolution will mean for society and what it means for libraries.

Note from the final section of the video:

We talk a lot in libraries about information literacy. We need to move beyond text. Text led the first media revolution. We need to prepare for the next revolution. You can use these tools to participate in the future of expression. If you don’t, your patrons certinaly will.

Think of how many schools, libraries and other learning organizations block internet video  altogether. Where will they be in this revolution?

This is terrific - an online learning opportunity for library customers modeled after Helene Blowers’ Learning 2.0 projects. A Baker’s Dozen – 13 Web 2.0 Technologies from Arlington Heights (IL) Memorial Library

You may have seen the phrase “social networking,” along with mention of sites such as MySpace and FaceBook. Do you watch or even upload videos to YouTube? Do you read blogs and subscribe to RSS feeds? Maybe you’ve added some photos to Flickr. All of the aforementioned sites are part of the Web 2.0 craze.

Please join AHML for the next year and 1 month for a Baker’s Dozen; each month this series will highlight a Web 2.0 topic and tool as well as feature a brief assignment (designed to take no more than a few minutes). (About Baker’s Dozen)

What a great idea. Yay to the staff of AHML for providing this opportunity. It will be interesting to watch as the 13 months unfold.

(via: Tame the Web)

We’re having a great and productive day here at Nioga Library System in Lockport NY. We’ve spent the morning sharing ideas about using 2.0 tools in libraries. Everyone shared what they’ve been doing in their libraries, their successes and challenges. Suggestions and ideas have been flying like rapid fire. Lots of the ideas are (or will be soon…) on the class wiki page.

After all the idea sharing, everyone outlined what project they want to work on this afternoon. In some cases this turned out to be something different than they had planned on doing when they arrived. All are real world projects that they’ll be able to use back in their libraries and communities.

And since I brought toys to play with, Lorraine decided to test out my Flip video cam. Here’s her quick test video. We’re having fun and getting some boot fashion tips too!

Top Tools for Learning is an invaluable list of 100 learning tools compiled from the contributions of over 150 educators who each submitted their top 10 tools for learning. The top tools include del.icio.us, Firefox, Google Reader, Skype, Wordpress and Audacity. From the list, click on the names of the tools for useful comments from the contributors.

While you’re at this site, be sure to check out 25 Tools: A Free Toolset for Learning 2008, which includes a page of learning activities for each tool.

As if that wasn’t enough good stuff, there’s also the Directory of Learning Tools with information on more than 2,000 tools organized into 40+ categories.

All of these are from Jane Hart who blogs at: Jane’s E-Learning Pick of the Day.