The Job of Organizing

For a librarian, organizing materials is something that must be done on a continuous basis. Books, magazines, periodicals, and now numerous types of technology must be kept up to date and usuable for the library patrons. Back in the day, it wasn't just anyone that could be entrusted to take care of these tasks. There was much training expected of the person in charge of all this information. Today, with the help of Web 2.0 and its many wonderful uses, a "regular old librarian" can take care of everything in her library without spending hours and hours in training. This is good news, as far as I'm concerned! The internet and all its amazing capabilities has given us more resources than we know what to do with. We can manage our catalogs, check books in and out, create webpages and blogs, visit library wikis, and connect with our campuses. That's just the tip of the iceberg!

Some might argue that because of this massive availability of Web 2.0 tools for use by the "common folk", a librarian is not needed as much in the library setting. I beg to differ. Though it's true that more and more people are learning about these tools and resources and putting them to good use, it is vital that we keep our librarians right where they are. There are so many new ways that librarians can, themselves, become a resource for their campuses. Speaking from personal experience, I know there were many technologies and tools available to me as a classroom teacher, but I had no idea how to begin using them. Most districts offer training sessions on many of these new programs, but who has the time to go to all of them? The librarian has an opportunity to be a technology leader on her campus and to help her teachers and staff begin to learn and use all the fabulous tools that are available. Because the Web 2.0 resources are so user-friendly, teachers can take the training they receive at their own campus and begin to use it in their classrooms. As new things come up in the tech world, again the librarian can model and demonstrate more options. This kind of personal resource is invaluable to teachers!

As for the "food for thought", I feel that the tags used on social networking sites, such as Delicious, are much more helpful than traditional subject headings. By using these tags, you can choose to label things any way you see fit for your own personal use. Also, being able to add multiple tags to one thing allows you to put one particular bookmark into more than one category. For example, if I have found a good website about making a red velvet cake for Valentine's day, I can tag that site with different key words for future use, such as cake, red velvet, cream cheese icing, or even Valentines. I may not always need the site for the same reason, so having those various tags allows me to find more information that is relative to my search. Traditional subject headings can often be too broad, which can result in hours of searching in order to get to one specific idea. I love tags and I look forward to using them more in future research.