2.0 Alphabet

is for Hype Machine. The Hype Machine is here to make music discovery fun and get artists paid. The Hype Machine tracks a variety of MP3 blogs. If a post contains MP3 links, it adds those links to its database and displays them on the front page.
Some of the frequently accessed tracks are cached by the Hype Machine server, much like Google Search caches web pages, to reduce load on the bloggers' servers and protect their bandwidth.
Those tracks are NOT available for download, but you can preview them via the play buttons that are next to each track.
The blog that posted a particular track is identified under every track by name so you can read more about why they posted it. If you enjoyed a track someone posted, stop by and let them know!

The Hype Machine is an MP3 blog aggregator created by Anthony Volodkin. It enables "one-stop shopping" of postings from thousands of MP3 blogs.[1] Volodkin created the website in 2005 while enrolled at Hunter College.[2]
Some MP3 bloggers have complained that aggregators (such as The Hype Machine) allow users to download music without taking in the entire experience of a music blog, such as its editorial content. [Wikipedia]

How about a Podcast about Blogs?

NPR has done a series of stories - now available as streaming audio (not really a podcast). The term "Web log," which was then shortened to "blog," was born 10 years ago. Blogs have made their mark on American culture, especially on politics. In this series, NPR looks at the blogosphere's evolution, as well as who blogs, the language and culture of blogs and how blogs are changing our lives.

IN THIS SERIES
Blogging Becomes More Mobile
December 28, 2007 · New "microblogging" tools give people the ability to post short blogs — just a sentence long. A new generation of tools lets users publish audio and video blogs simply by using their cell phones, which means people can blog from almost anywhere and at any time.

Blogs Scoured for Book Deals
December 27, 2007 · Blogs can rocket ordinary people into sudden notoriety and fame as some book and talent agents trawl blogland to find the next big thing. Dawn Meehan, a stay-at-home mom, started blogging about the everyday rigors of family life and got thousands of readers and a book deal.

Blogs Become Serious Business
December 26, 2007 · Blogs matter more than ever — to political candidates, to a colonel managing a war, to human-rights advocates trying to deliver their message. Two experts discuss the growing impact of blogs.

The Big Book of Blogs
December 25, 2007 · Are all blogs just scattered rantings and mundane diaries? Reporter and critic Sarah Boxer trawled the Web for solid examples of blog writing and assembled them in a book, Ultimate Blogs: Masterworks from the Wild Web.

'Web Log' Celebrates 10th Anniversary
December 24, 2007 · Ten years ago, the phrase "Web log" — which was then shortened to "blog" — was born. Now there are more than 100 million blogs, and about 100,000 new blogs are created daily.

Learning to Embrace My Inner Blogger
December 24, 2007 · Blogger Andy Carvin writes about his experience keeping an online journal, and how the tools have changed over the years, resulting in the explosive growth of the blogosphere.

Timeline: The Life of the Blog
December 24, 2007 · Personal journals and professional logs, concepts rooted in ancient times, are two types of precursors to the modern blog. Read a timeline tracking the development of the blog as we know it today.

Teens @ the Library

Our discussions of blogs would be incomplete without pointing to our very own HCPLC teen blog. It was created a year ago and published in time to celebrate the first Teen Tech Week. Updated faithfully by a dedicated team of librarians and LTAs, it provides comments on just about everything that might interest teens in our community including the results of the Gaming Tournament Qualifier Events.

This Week's 2.0 Book

For more examples of how libraries are using blogs and RSS feeds, take a look at Blogging & RSS, a Librarian's Guide by Michael P. Sauers (Medford, N.J : Information Today, 2006).

Libraries increasingly use blogs and RSS feeds to reach out to users, while librarians blog daily on a range of personal and professional topics. The way has been paved by the tech-savvy and resource-rich, but any library or librarian can successfully create and syndicate a blog today. In this readable book, author, Internet trainer, and blogger Michael P. Sauers, M.L.S., shows how blogging and RSS technology can be easily and effectively used in the context of a library community. Sauers showcases interesting and useful blogs, shares insights from librarian bloggers, and offers step-by-step instructions for creating, publishing, and syndicating a blog using free Web-based services, software, RSS feeds, and aggregators.

Michael P. Sauers is the Internet trainer for BCR's Member Services Division, and a part time reference librarian for the Arapahoe County Library District. He is currently on the Board of Trustees for the Aurora Public Library and the board of the Friends of the Aurora Public Library. He is the author of seven books on technology for librarians and has written dozens of articles for library industry journals. [Amazon.com Review]

59 Blogs and counting...

Yes, that's right - there are already 59 blogs linked to hcplc=Lib 2.0! You still have until next Monday to get your blog created to be able to fully participate in the remaining training sessions - don't forget to send the URL in a comment to the workbook section #3 - Blogs & Blogging.


Do blogs really have global reach? Sure they do. Just check out a comment on Julie Troupe's very first blog posting on her Storytime Staples blog...she mentions using the book "One Frog Sang" and the author of the book - Shirley Parenteau -left a really great comment.


I guess you could say - "One Blog Sang."

How's your blogging?

Blogs: Sources of Social Knowledge

This past week we’ve read posts and articles which have discussed the many varieties of blogs and how they fit into the landscape of social networking. David Weinberger mentions in his article, Libraries in the Age of Social Knowledge, that successful social networking sites provide social objects, items that the group can share, talk about and build relationships around. Blogs can be included in the discussion of social knowledge even though they tend to be written by one person because they still offer the social functionality of comment fields. The social object Weinberger refers to in this article is knowledge. Yes, we could start a totally new discussion on whether people are sharing information or knowledge, but for the sake of this post I will refer to the social objects being shared as knowledge.

Weinberger goes on to say that libraries have many virtues but treating books as social objects is not one of them. A library book is passed from one person to another, in serial fashion, intact. You are penalized for making the book your own by, say, highlighting passages or writing in the margins, no matter how smart your annotations are…Because libraries have been physical spaces, this has made perfect sense. Your book mark-up, no matter how smart, distracts others. Your jabbering away in one of the library’s reading room disturbs other. That’s just how space and matter work.

How can libraries compete or even keep up with the social exchange of knowledge? Should we even compare our printed materials to blogs and other knowledge sharing tools? I don’t think we have a choice. Libraries will have to continually examine their role in the exchange of knowledge if we are to remain relevant in this digitized, networked world.

Weinberger ends on a very positive and encouraging note when he asserts: As works of knowledge become more and more social, we will still need humans staying one step ahead, guiding us with greater wisdom than the works themselves can muster. Those are our librarians.

2.0 on the Book Shelf

Here's two books that should get you thinking about blogs:

Blogging for Dummies by Susannah Gardiner (Hoboken, NJ : Wiley Pub., c2008. )

* In Part I, readers learn what a blog is, why they might want to create one, and what they need to get started.

* Part II gets readers up and running with their first blog.

* Part III shows readers how to make their blog stand out in a crowd.

* Part IV teaches readers how to customize their blog by adding eye-catching features like expanding a blog's sidebar (where bloggers are able to post personal recommendations, surveys, etc.), adding photos or even delving into podcasting and videoblogging.

* Part V shows readers how to get the word out about their blog and maybe make some money at the same time.

* Part VI discusses how to keep a blog's comments useful and on topic, ten cool tricks tools to make a blog shine, and examples of successful blogs.

How To Do Everything with your Web2.0 Blog by Todd Stauffer (New York : McGraw-Hill, c2008. )

Incorporate the hottest new Web technologies into your blog! How to Do Everything with Your Web 2.0 Blog makes it easy to choose the blogging tools that are best for you and master the basics of blog design and template manipulation. You'll learn how to add different Web 2.0 services to your blog, including images, video, audio, forums, tags, wikis, and even money-making features. It's time to take your blog to the next level and get more hits, more fans, more friends, and more customers.
*Learn about different blogging tools, including Blogger, TypePad, WordPress, and ExpressionEngine
*Customize your blog's design by editing templates and style sheets
*Share your blog headlines and story feeds via RSS and Atom
*Add photos, video, and audio--including podcasts--to your blog
*Drive traffic to your site with tagging, social bookmarking, and ranking services
*Collaborate with users through wikis
*Promote visitor participation using forums, community blogs, and newsletters
*Make money through your blog with Google AdSense, Amazon, and other affiliate programs
*Track, optimize, maintain, and back up your blog.

Intro to Blogging

Today we are starting workbook section #3 - Blogs & Blogging in the hcplc=Lib 2.0 training.

During this two week period, you will be:

• exploring library & non-library blogs,
• learning how blogs are being used in libraries (and maybe adding to the list of possibilities yourself),
• posting on a few comments on a few blogs,
• creating a blog of your own that will be your 2.0 workbooks through the rest of the training.

Don't worry if you haven't created your blog yet, you have another two weeks. Take a look at the "hcplc=Lib 2.0 Participants" area on the training blog - 48 of your eager colleagues have already created a blog and are posting.

Here's some links to get you started exploring blogs:

• Top 10 Library Blogs to watch in 2008, from LIS News
• Top 10 non-Library Blogs to watch (see comments to post), also from LIS News

Here are the Top Blogging sites in December, 2007 (from Nielsen Media Research):

International Conference on Weblogs and Social Media

Conference Dates-March 26-28, 2007
Yes, they have whole conferences on this sort of stuff...

There are plenty of interesting papaers to read - see a wrap up from The Resource Shelf.

PLA on Blogs & Wikis

The Public Library Association has just published Introduction to Blogs and Wikis as part of “Tech Notes” Series.

Read this concise introduction.

Written by Richard W. Boss. MS Word document.