An Online Research Toolkit - Exploring Web 2.0 for Library Research
Rebecca Hedreen, Distance Education Librarian
Southern Connecticut State University
http://frequanq.blogspot.com/
Have you ever needed the website you found last week, except that you’re out of your office and the website is bookmarked on your desk computer? Have you wanted to use an article you found last semester, except that sorting through the piles of photocopies is more difficult than redoing the search and finding something similar? Do you need to write up a paper or presentation, but the computer you have available doesn’t have the same office applications that you have at work? Can you imagine doing everything you need for academic, library research and paper writing on any computer from anywhere with an Internet connection, without worrying about downloads and applications?
You can do most of that today. Many Web 2.0 applications are designed to allow people to use and manipulate information–whether that is by simple web publishing or forming networks of people with similar interests, to give two examples. Another hallmark is mobility, being able to do complex tasks with lightweight applications by taking advantage of web server processing. The Online Research Toolkit is a site for brief reviews of Web 2.0 applications and how they can be used for library research. This presentation will give the background to the toolkit, highlight some of the tools available right now, and speculate on what the future will bring for online research tools.
Visit Rebecca’s full presentation here.
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Tags: RSS, library, libraries, higheredblogcon
April 12th, 2006 at 10:13 pm
Rebecca,
Your summary, explanation and use of various Web 2.0 applications in your blog is simply amazing. I will need to take some time over the week-end to go through each slide and listen to it to get the best out of your wonderful presentation. I wonder how do you promote this to all your distance education students. One of your posts on your blog ‘Using textbooks in an online class’ is an excellent thought provoking piece.
Jay
April 17th, 2006 at 8:21 am
Jay,
I promote this sort of thing, and more usual library news, to DE students and faculty with my DE blog, a newsletter to faculty, websites, and word of mouth. I get a lot of emails that start “So-and-so told me that you could help with…” I just started a Facebook account, but I’m not used to checking it yet, so I haven’t figured out how I’ll use that.
As far as these Web 2.0 tools, I intend to promote them mostly by example. For instance, I use Chatango for a “no download/registration required” virtual reference tool. I’m hoping to try this within our courseware system sometime. I personally use Writely for a lot of my word processing, so people see me using that regularly. It’s very useful for moving back and forth from my office to the Reference Desk.
April 17th, 2006 at 8:55 am
Owen James had a great example in the Teaching segment of HEBC on how one of these tools can be used in teaching. Owen uses a “nomadic desktop” to aggregrate teaching materials.