Learning 2.0 Discovery 16 AKA The End

Well, the Shire has been scoured, Saruman killed on our very own doorstep, bittersweet endings doled out to all, and now Learning 2.0 stands by the water at the Grey Havens preparing to head into the West... The CityLibraries Learning 2.0 program is winding down.

Personally, I enjoyed the exposure to things I mightn't have tried out otherwise, even (or especially) those I considered an abomination (I'm looking at you, Facebook). Tackling them with a degree of unity of time and purpose helped give a glimpse of the bigger picture of the ways in which social networking tools are being used now, and how they might be used soon, and very specifically that we can't afford to ignore them because they are being used, and by a great many of the very people we want to bring within our sphere of service. I must admit, I was also studying information literacy while doing Learning 2.0, so elements of the program plugged nicely into that.

The downside of the program was probably time, lack of -- but that's the downside of most anything you try to do these days. Sometimes I needed to remind myself that it was worthwhile scratching up some time because the program made genuinely useful additions to my customer service skill set. After all, our customers are also discovering this stuff, and they expect our help with it, and it's far from ideal if the best you can do is look embarrassed and say, "What is this thing you call... Face. Book?"

It's not that we went particularly deeply into any of the tools or services we covered, but it was enough to provide a sketch map for further exploration.

Now it's just a matter of incorporating this stuff into my daily life, my interests and hobbies, to move beyond "discovering" it and into using it as it's meant to be used.

Learning 2.0 Discovery 15

Like the villain from a horror movie who hasn't been slaughtered the requisite number of times to stay dead, Learning 2.0 returns to menace us with... thoughts on the relevance of mobile telephones to libraries.

Specifically, the exercise asks the Learning 2.0ers to add to their blog a single service a library could provide using mobile telephones.

The obvious one is notices via SMS. Not, perhaps, overdue notices. Somehow nagging about overdue books via SMS seems just a little clingy to me... just a little "I won't be ignored, Michael..." But I can definitely see the utility of texting reservation notices. People are busier than ever, so the immediacy of text allows them to find a way to fit picking up their reservations into their day.

But eschewing the obvious, I suggest a nice service for libraries to provide utilizing mobile telephones would be a "who writes like" app (or even a boring old webpage optimized for mobiles) allowing someone to tap in the name of their favourite author and be presented with a reservable list of authors held in the library's collection who'll also likely tickle their fancy.

Failing that... an app which monitors its owner's voice for volume and duration, and above a certain level emits a loud, "Shhhh!"