Topic: Blogs and Wikis as Social Networking Tools

• Baseema KrKoska - AEM blog
• Pat Viele--Physics Information Fluency blog
• Virginia Cole - CUL Reference blog
• Lynn Thitchener--Olin Wiki
• Camille Andrews--Mann Wiki
• Jill Powell--ASTECH Wiki

Baseema KrKoska - AEM blog

• Baseema discussed the new blog she is working on for  students in Applied Economics & Management, one of the departments she works with.
• Mann has a plan to move more to blogs for outreach, and Baseema is the test case or "guinea pig" for these efforts
• Her plan is to create a blog for all 700 AEM students, and also one for all 200 PAM students
• It's a work in progress, which can be viewed in Confluence.
• Her inspiration is a business blog created by a librarian at Ohio University (http://www.library.ohiou.edu/subjects/businessblog/)
• She like that the blog will allow her to be everywhere, reaching 100s of students at once.
• One idea she'd like to see if Cornell can pull off is a chat link on a subject librarian's blog (the Ohio U. librarian has this, very cool).
• Virginia pointed out that Question Point, the current chat software, could be used for this.

Pat Viele-- Physics Information Fluency blog

• Pat demo'd her Physics Information Fluency Blog (http://physicsinformationfluency.blogspot.com/)
• Her goal is to try to reach out in every way possible
• This blog highlights Physics info fluency efforts all over the world.
• She actually prefers Connotea (www.connotea.org), a science-oriented collection of bookmarks, but she will continue to keep doing the blog.
• She then demo'd Connotea.
• Camille pointed out that Mann has a Del-ici-ous account (http://del.icio.us/), which is like Connotea but more general in subject scope.
• Jim pointed out that Firefox has an extension that will import your Del-icio-us bookmarks into Firefox.

Virginia Cole - CUL Reference blog

• Virginia led a discussion of a possible CUL collective reference blog
• The model is Dear Uncle Ezra (http://ezra.cornell.edu/)
• Blogs are not designed as knowledge databases, but can promote ourselves if they are lively and entertaining.
• One possibility--every unit library posted a reference question a week, with answer given.
• She then demo'd a sample ref blog using Wordpress software.

• Local model--old comment notebook in Uris.
• Key to blogs--using with RSS reader
• Other ideas included a "blog us" link on Ask A Librarian, using questions posted to Lib-Gateway L (with patron info stripped), and adding to Ask Us bookmark.
• A group of interested staff will meet soon to discuss next steps.

  Lynn Thitchener--Olin Wiki

• Lynn explored the CRIO reference blog, which can be found via wiki.library.cornell.edu/wiki
• There is an info index, with information on everything from where the bibles are in Olin to where you can find electrical outlets.
• CRIO reference uses the Wiki for class assignment alerts, policies and procedures, etc.
• Student ref staff and access services staff use the info index a lot.
• Lynn explained that different groups have different access rights--students have read only access to info access, full time ref staff have more access.

Camille Andrews--Mann Wiki

• Camille demo'd the Mann Wiki, which can also be found via wiki.library.cornell.edu/wiki.
• Original ideas was to update old ref info sources in print, such as the Blue Book of Information (was a blue binder at the desk). 

Jill Powell--ASTEC Wiki

• Jill demo'd the ASTECH wiki.
• Original idea came from reluctance to throw out old ref email.
• They entered in categories based on the email mailboxes
• They added the mail one item at a time in searchable categories, and removed patron names

·        A final proposal at the forum was an advanced WIKI workshop for CUL staff.

--Jim

For the Reference and Outreach Committee
Virginia Cole
Angela Horne
Thomas Mills
Jim Morris-Knower (co-chair)
Susette Newberry
Jill Powell (co-chair)
Kornelia Tancheva (PSEC liaison)