Makeup for Snow Day

It's official: The makeup session for delicious @ the Reference Desk, Part Two, will be held on February 12, 2008 at 2PM.

It's funny: somehow I didn't think about snow days. I usually do my online classes from home, but that doesn't mean that others do. Wouldn't it have been cool if we could have all attended from our homes?

It's important to keep delicious fresh in our minds in the interim between now and our last meeting. Please keep practicing with delicious, and do use the class account as a playground. In the two weeks between now and our makeup class, feel free to continue to email me and use the class blog to communicate about your experiences as you have time.

I'm looking forward to getting together with you again!

akg

Inclement Weather Cancellation

Snow day: Alas, I had to cancel us. I will be on annual leave next week, and either teaching or being taught for the following 2 weeks. I have sent you all links to a poll to try and decide when to hold the makeup class. Please feel free to continue communicating both here and via email with me, as some of you have when you had questions. Also, please feel free to use the delicious account as your playground.

delicious Form

Anytime your browsing history is deleted, you will need to re-login to your delicious account. To the toolbar on the lower right of this page, I have added a copy of the delicious form that you can keep in a prominent place at your reference desk. It's useful to keep this information around, since we have so MANY accounts and passwords to remember these days.

akg

Intersession Assignment

Welcome back! There's lots to do before our next class.

Your intersession assignment is as follows:

1. Navigate to HCPLLINX's account (use what you now know about delicious to find your way there). Explore this member's network of branches.
2. Navigate to http://www.prattlibrary.org/findanswers/index.aspx?id=24644, and explore Enoch Pratt Free Library's delicious network of departments.
3. Save at least 10 favorite links in your delicious account. Be sure to tag and describe them well. There is an optional exercise below that will quickly build your set of links.
4. Navigate to http://delicious.com/deliciousclass. Explore the list of links using the tag sidebar on the right. Try to reorganize the way the links appear (cloud, list, alpha, etc).
5. Network with delicousclass by becoming it's fan. Explore our network thoroughly as it changes and grows. Revisit this activity 3 or 4 times over the next 2 weeks to contribute to the development of this network by:

• becoming mutual fans of at least 5 members of this class
• saving links for your fans
• viewing links that your fans have saved, and saving them for yourself.

6. Add a comment to this blog entry. Let us know how you fared while doing this intersession assignment. Please use the blog entry area to tell about any challenges or pitfalls you encountered, as well as your pleasant surprises, and "ah-ha" experiences.

Optional: Navigate to https://secure.delicious.com/settings/bookmarks/import and follow the prompts to import your browser's favorites into your delicious account. (Be advised that anyone will be able to view your links).

Pre-work for This Class:

There are a few things you will need to do to prepare for delicious @ the Reference Desk:

1. View "Social Bookmarking in Plain English."
2. Create a delicious account. (If you do not already have one, that is).
3. As part of your account setup, install the delicious buttons and toolbar in your browser. You may need to get permission from your supervisor, or system's administrator to do this. If you don't have Internet Explorer, you need to install the correct buttons for the browser that you are using.
4. Read this selection from delicious.com's FAQ page about tags. (You may need to scroll to find the section).
5. Add a comment to this blog when you have completed these tasks. PLEASE provide your "In Real Life" name AND your delicious account name in your comment.

Your pre-work is complete once you have performed these tasks.

On the day of the class, please try to show up 10 - 15 minutes early if possible. We will begin promptly at 10AM, and there is a lot to cram into our one hour together. Connection information is available in your Participant's Guide. If you have any difficulty connecting, please contact the producer to let us know your status, and so we can try to get up up and running in time for the class.

del.icio.us Is delicious

In case you haven't looked at the site since Library 2.0, delicious is now new-and-improved. First of all, site's URL has been changed from "del.icio.us" to just "delicious.com." I kind of liked the old URL, once I got used to typing it.

Still, change is good. The new delicious has changed for the better. Some of the old clunkier features have been re-worked, and newer features have been added to help the user.

There is a short movie by "Commoncraft" about delicious that I would like everyone to view as part of your pre-work assignment. It is based upon the old del.icio.us, but I would like everyone to view this in order to gain some basic knowledge about social networking and tagging.

WELCOME!

Welcome to delicious @ the Reference Desk! During these next 2 weeks, we will explore the delicious web resource together, and learn ways to use it as a reference desk tool that we can share with other librarians.

We will use this blog as a resource to support our journey. To your right, you will find links that you will need to participate in the class.

I will use this blog entry area to tell you which resources you will need to use. You may respond to these blog entries with any comments or issues that you would like to bring up outside the instruction sessions. You may also contact me via my email address, which is located at the bottom of this blog page.