Zotero

I've found Zotero particularly useful as a sharing source for literary information.  I am currently using it with a group to share resource information on an instructional presentation.  It's been helpful to see the information others have sourced regarding our topic that I've missed.  We are having some technical difficulty however.  For some reason it has been a problem to make the group library accessible to everyone in the group for editing.  Currently, only the creator of the group has editing rights.  If anyone knows how to fix this problem, I'd greatly appreciate the knowledge.  Zotero is different than other social bookmarking in that it allows you to post the article in full format with annotation and bibliographic information.  This is particularly useful for LIS students and professionals.  I downloaded the Google Chrome plug-in as well as the Firefox as I don't usually work in Firefox.  So far, everything has gone well while working in Chrome with this app.
I see Zotero's applications in LIS as more relevant than other applications in the same neighborhood since the ability to annotate scholarly resources is crucial and time-saving.
https://www.zotero.org/annarauvenpoor/items

Delicious!

Social bookmarking as a research tool.  Interesting yes.  Efficient no.  I lost the better portion of my morning to creating stacks and then browsing other's stacks.  Delicious.com is great for browsing when you have some time to kill (use the Inbox) but isn't going to be effective as a pointed research tool.  As for creating a stack that will organize all of your research in a particular area, it does that just fine.  Add the accessibility factor and you've got yourself a powerful, portable portfolio of information relevant to you.  Of course, you could invest some time finding others with similar information interests and follow their stacks for updates and news you may have missed.  I think it is with delicious.com as with many of the other web2.0 technologies that we've encountered......you get out of it what you put into it.  The more you tend to use and frequent these tools, the more useful they become.

Full of Feeds

So, I'm learning about RSS feeds, having a good time, minding my own business when BAM!, an actual mountain of information crushed my spirit.
Seriously though, I was enjoying Google reader and the prospect of getting all my news on one "station".  I started browsing some possible feeds to add and decide the comic strip Unshelved is a good pick.  Hhmmmm, what else?  Well, the links in the CMLibrary don't go anywhere and the Charlotte.com link is broken too.  Scroll down a bit, click on Technorati.  Now we're talkin, stem cell research and human embryo cloning.  Where is the RSS tag for this (this, this....wait a minute what is this?).  It's a blog and I don't know this guy or enough about stem cell research to know if anything I just read is true.  Wait, this is a blog search engine.  Not what I'm looking for.  I'm back on Google reader page and click Browse for stuff and there is a "bundle" of news feeds that look decent enough so I subscribe and BAM!, 192 items fill my reading list.  And like that, the light has gone out, my spark for RSS feeds is dead.
I walked away for awhile and thought about it.  I decided to unsubscribe to everything and then try choosing again, more selectively this time.  I did just that and started to see value in having all my news on one page, although I have to admit that it will take some time to collect the feeds from all the sources I generally enjoy.

Wiki wiki

I think what I found most interesting in exploring wikis was the notion of a learning community that polices itself. Meredith Farkas noted when discussing the ALA wiki she set up, members of the wiki community were policing the site for spam and fixing the pages on a regular basis. It reminded me of a Neighborhood Watch. It proves that wikis have value to the people who are using them.

I like the idea of a wiki as one-stop browsing. They can provide a forum that you trust where all the current information on your subject area can be accessed. A combination of Wegman's (especially back in their dry cleaning and photo developing days) and the local pub.

Libraries can and do use wikis with success. I think adding a book review wiki to a library's website or blog would add value and insight many patrons would appreciate. Pathfinder wikis could be extremely helpful not only for the patron but also for the librarian in offering reference resources. As a professional resource, wikis can provide librarians a community rich with information regarding new technologies, best practices, and even job lists.