#19 Discovering Web 2.0 Tools

Among the Web2.0 winners Backpack and Google calendar look interesting to me. I signed up and created accounts with both of them. After signing up at Backpack a personal website was created with my username in the domain name. It includes functions like Lists, Reminders, Notes, and WritingBoard; the simple version for free. The editing utilities of each tool are all easy and convenient to use. However, its calendar is a paid product. In library operation we need a calendar that has a sharing capability. Google calendar is such a one and free. Its sharing function is powerful and easy to use. Two fields to enter for sharing, one is the person's email address and the other is how to share, whether to See All Event Details, Make Changes AND Manage Sharing, Make Changes to Events, or See Free/busy information, but no details. The calendar also provides email or pop-up reminder service. For each event you can have more than one reminder; for instance, one is set "1 day before each event", the other can be "30 minutes before each event". Its Agenda function will send an email "Daily Agenda for (your name) as of 5:05 am", each day if any events are scheduled on that day. It's like a personal assistant giving you a warm reminder list early in the morning. That's great, isn't it? There are still more, Google calendar carries weather forecasts on four days so that you can plan ahead considering the weather conditions.

When a web-based calendar is shared in our working environment, I believe everyone would feel an added sense of responsibility for the library's proper operation. It is a work reminder for all sharing team members. Google calendar is a nice free tool for collaborating with our colleagues in order to improve management and working efficiency in general.

I also explored and created an account at Zoho, the online organizer and publisher. Zoho has 14 tools, but among them nine tools, Zoho Sheet (online spreadsheet), Zoho Meeting (Web Conferencing), Zoho Show (Online presentation), Zoo Writer (Online word processor), Zoho Notebook (Online Note Taker), Zoho Creator (Online web applications creator), Zoho Planner (Online organizing tool), Zoho Wiki (Online Wiki with public, private and group permissions), and Zoho Chat (Instant messaging and group chat tool), are for everybody; the rest of the 14 tools are useful for business management. I tried Zoho Planner and Zoho Wiki. They have one thing in common, that is, easy to use. The Planner for example, on the homepage you will find six things you can do: Description, To-do's, Notes, Appointments, Attachments, and Tags. If your list is not too long, all the six things can be shown on the same page. For most people are not as busy as the big-shots or executives, one page is quite enough for a few days. Zoho also has sharing capability. By entering your colleagues'/friends' email addresses into two fields, one for view (read) only, the other for view and edit (read and write), they will see the same things as you do.

Zoho's Wiki-type publication function is nice and simple. By wiki, it means your writing published can be edited or deleted right there. The Wiki editor is just as sophisticated as the word processor. I was assigned a Wiki domain name of my own, and more than one is allowed. There is also a commenting field for readers to leave messages.

While looking for better answers for this topic, I tried omnidrive.com, the online file storage ( works as if local hard drive) tools. I found that they are not as easy and intuitive to use as the ones I already know, and free storage only 1 GB, while in Google Documens or Google email you could save upto 2 GB free a year ago, and now there is no limit and you are encouraged not to delete anything. The good side of omnidrive.com is that it incorporates with the desktop functions of Zoho so that you can write and save right there. Another thing I had a look at was YUI (Yahoo!UI), I found that it is not for me, it is more advanced for Web/Internet developers.

To summarize Web 2.0 tools for library use, among the winners I found four of them that we can make use of to improve management and to enhance our library customer services:

1. LibraryThing (as discussed in #11) for collection development, whether for the whole library, for one individual librarian, or for customers. It is the easiest way to build up collections with bibliographic information of your own interests.

2. Google calendar for collaborating with your co-workers. It will increase working efficiency by sharing planning and management/customer service ideas.

3. Zoho Planner for organizing all activities, thoughts and observations.

4. Wiki Libsuccess.org for collective wisdom of library theory and practice to improve library services.