I’m trying to finish my application for 5 weeks. It would be a great opportunity–and just the gentle jumpstart I need to keep things cranked up here. My Dean is on board now–he’s now sending me articles! It looks like consensus is really building around adding IM to our Virtual Reference offerings. Which thrills me beyond measure. It looks like I’m going to do a class on IM for the faculty and staff in January.

More “viral 2.0″ fun at MML today:
Wiki’s are catching on at MML! I just got asked by one of my colleagues to help her with her pbwiki bibliography. Also, I’ve been tasked with finding a speaker for our regional Library 2.0 conference this spring–it looks like it’s really going to happen! Then, another colleague told me she is publishing on the Longtail after hearing my excitement about it from ALA. And finally my supervisor just asked me to discuss an article I sent her on making libraries more accessible (or how UMass has made their library more accessible) in tomorrow’s Reference Dept. meeting (see it at Boston.com).

I feel the urgency of being left behind, but we are moving forward–even if it’s just baby steps. I wish I had more people to talk to about this work–I should really just comment on some of the blogs I read. Maybe that would be a way to get into a discussion, but everyone seems to be light years ahead of me. Reading other blogs, I’m mostly just keeping my head above water to absorb the blogs themselves. Who knows what I’d even say in a comment. Ha! This blog is helping though…it’s good to just lay it all out on paper and think other people might be reading it. People who might speak up if I was hurtling down the wrong path. I’d love to be hurtling right now.

I’ve been working on the research guide wiki for my liaison department, but I’ve gotten stuck on how much information to give them about the resources I’m suggesting (“seeding it”). I’m worried that if I put too much, it will intimidate them and keep them from adding their own stuff. Or keep them from telling me what I’ve put up isn’t worthwhile. I’ve gotten a little stuck. I may just send it to the library rep and see what he thinks.

I’m back in the saddle again after the break–leftover turkey and dressing in Louisville after an adventure taking Gran to the Golden Corral for lunch in Jackson. The classic comment from my hard-of-hearing, Delta-bred, small-town grandmother with (very) discerning tastes: “Amanda (imagine the accent if you can)–I nevah knew there were places like this… These people, they just eat and eat, and they’re already so fat!” I was mortified and tickled at the same time. I guess you can say whatever you want when you are 89.

Today I’m attending this institute (?) at my desk. I’ve heard about wikis, mashups, 2nd life, and some pedagogy stuff about instruction. Even though I teach workshops and bibliographic instruction, I don’t have any training as a teacher. Not one class. I’m sure that would horrify some of the faculty who’s classes I teach–except I don’t think many of them have either. We’ve just started a Center for Teaching and Learning here at MSU, and I’m on the Faculty Advisory Board, which turns out to mean relatively little. We’re supposed to be focused on training the faculty about teaching–so I’ll hope for that. But Jeffrey Trzeciak’s discussion about ADDIE and the Nine Events Instruction was very informative. Right now, I’m not really attached to a class in a way that most of it would be relevant. We do have librarians who do a section a week of some classes (English, largely). So, my “lesson plans” are relatively limited–an hour and fifteen minutes normally. However, I am starting to develop these classes for the staff that are going to introduce them to these social networking ideas, and it may be that I could apply what I’ve learned today to that series of workshops. I’m thinking about it.

So–I got some stuff about wikis today that I didn’t know. Good ideas about starting a wiki with my graduate students–seeding it, providing documentation, doing marketing via training programs, etc. (this came from Meredith Farkas, who was excellent). So I’m going to go ahead and set up the wiki I want us to work on as a group and put in all of the research guide stuff I have already. Then I’m going to try to visit them and do some training on wikis. We’ll see… Big ideas. Also plug-ins for spam protection–I don’t have that on mine right now, but I’m going to get it. I never got an answer about free wikis that have levels of permissions/passwords. Pbwiki wants money for that. And I learned that you can calendar and blog on some wikis. Not sure that I want to, but it’s good to know.

I’m against Second Life altogether now. I’m sure of it. There are too many other things I need to focus on–I’ll leave that to people with more energy for it. I can’t see its benefit for my students, and that’s all I’ve really got energy for right now. I can see real and immediate use for wikis and social bookmarking and even myspace and facebook stuff. Some of the mashups I heard about look really interesting, too. I haven’t used the LibraryLookup from Jon Udell yet, but I love the idea of being on Amazon and then looking for the book in our library using a booklet.

I’d heard of LibraryThing, but I saw it for the first time today and I’m considering buying a barcode reader so I can scan in all my books. That’s definitely sort of a fantasy of mine to have my own catalog. Sigh.