Social Software

By Jim Hobbs

Here are some resources for the "social software" phenomenon, especially as it related to libraries. As I understand it, the term "social" recognizes that people do things together and that computers and networks can make communication and collaboration easier, not that these products are necessarily for recreational use. Good starting place: Chang, May. "I've Gathered a Basket of COMMUNICATION and COLLABORATION TOOLS." Computers in Libraries, Sept. 2004 24(8):6-8, 61-64, covers forums, weblogs, wikis, & IM.

Web logs (blogs)

• Anonymous Got Blog? (Aug. 4, 2004) Brief introduction to blogs from a marketing perspective.
• Balas, Janet L. "Here a Blog, There a Blog, Even the Library Has a Web Log" Computers in Libraries 23:10 (November/December 2003) : 41-43.
• Clyde, Dr L. Anne (University of Iceland) THE INTERNET COURSES : Weblogs.
• Conhaim, Wallys W. "Blogging--what is it?" Link-Up 19:3 (May/June 2002) : 3, 8-9.
• Downes, Stephen. "Educational Blogging." EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 39, no. 5 (September/October 2004): 14–26.
• Garrod, Penny. Weblogs: Do they belong in libraries? "a look at weblogs and weblogging activities in libraries and considers some of the ways they can be used to support public library users."
• Into the Blogsphere scholarly writing about blogs from the University of Minnesota , Department of Rhetoric.
• Library Stuff a weblog by by Steven M. Cohen, law librarian, heavily intererested in blogging and social software
• Library Weblogs listing library-related blogs around the world, also blog-related links and articles.
• Long , Phillip D. "Blogs: A Disruptive Technology Coming of Age?" Syllabus, (10/1/2002)
• Notess, Greg R. "The Blog Realm: News Sources, Searching with Daypop, and Content Management." Online (Weston, Conn.), v. 26 no5 (Sept./Oct. 2002) p. 70-2.
• Pew Internet & American Life Project. "The State of Blogging." Jan 2, 2005. Accessed Jan. 10, 2005. Full text in PDF format.
• Vogel, Terri. Blog Style Manual. Based on the presentation below.
• Vogel, Terri. Untangling Blogs & RSS. PDF version of a PowerPoint presentation--a little difficult to read and summarizes points. May 11, 2004.

Blog products and sites

• Blogger Free blog-hosting site .
• Bloglines Free RSS reader and blogging service.
• Feedster "...news search engine that provides easy access to relevant and up-to-date information."
• Librarian.net from Jessamyn West, "putting the rarin' back in librarian since 1993."
• OrangeBox, RSS generator & management server software.
• RSS Calendar Create a calendar and syndicate entries to subscribers .
• Squarespace Create a blog with photos, discussion forums, with Creative Commons licensing
• Syndic8 "...find RSS and Atom news feeds on a wide variety of topics."
• Yahoo! Weblog category lists blogs and has subcategories by subject and for hosting, software, etc.

Library-related blogs

• Days & Nights of the Lipstick Librarian! "The diary of a library fashionista...."
• Librarian.net from Jessamyn West, "putting the rarin' back in librarian since 1993."
• Librarians' Index to the Internet. "New and newly-discovered Web sites for librarians and everyone else, updated every Thursday morning."
• Library Stuff. "The library weblog dedicated to resources for keeping current and professional development."
• LISNews.com. "Librarian and Information Science News From LISNews.com."
• ResourceShelf's DocuTicker. "Docuticker is a daily update of new reports from government agencies, ngo's, think tanks, and other groups."
• The Shifted Librarian. "Shifting libraries at the speed of byte!"

RSS (syndication, news feeds)

• Abayomi-Paul, Tinu. 5 Reasons Why Your Site Needs To Publish A News Feed "Reason #2: It's a hands-off way to update your audience." (July 22, 2004)
• All about RSS. Three parts: What is RSS?, What Can I Do with RSS? and Finding RSS Feeds.
• Celikbas, Zeki . "What is RSS and how can it serve libraries?"
• Cohen, Steven M. Library Stuff, "The library weblog dedicated to resources for keeping current and professional development" covers social software & computing well.
• GSU Library Blog Expansion. Georgia State University. GSU's Library News and Subject Blogs page.
• McKiernan, Gerry. RSS(sm): Rich Site Services. General Bibliography.
• Ontario Library and Information Technology Association (OLITA). RSS toolkit. Last updated November 2004. Accessed Jan. 10, 2004. Sections: Definitions, Reading RSS feeds, and Writing an RSS feed for your web site.
• Social Software in the Library
• Sullivan, Danny. "Making An RSS Feed." SearchEngineWatch.com. April 2, 2003.
• What is a newsfeed? from Nature Publishing Group, also lists newsfeeds from Nature.
• Yahoo! RSS category.

RSS products and sites

• Bloglines RSS reader and blogging service. Registration required.
• Feedster. Search for blog postings. Can also create a feed based on a search to get the latest bloggings for your subject.
• Furl "...save, share and recall anything you find online." Export bookmarks in MLA, APA, Chicago and CBE styles. Registration required.
• Goldsborough, Reid . Instant Messaging : Managing the risks and rewards.
• Jardin, Xeni. Online social networks go to work.
• Jim Hobbs blog: YALB (Yet Another Librarian Blog)
• ListGarden: RSS Feed Generator Program.
• Movable Type Blogging software, not free.
• RSSscraper "generates RSS feeds from websites who do not provide it themselves."
• SourceForge.net OpenSource software site

Wikis

• WikiPedia, a group encyclopedia.

Other

• del.icio.us "...a social bookmarks manager. It allows you to easily add sites you like to your personal collection of links, to categorize those sites with keywords, and to share your collection not only between your own browsers and machines, but also with others." Others' bookmarks also available as RSS feeds. Jim's del.icio.us.
• Dodgeball announce to friends and friends of friends where you are via cell phone (not available in New Orleans)
• Eurekster "Eurekster (www.eurekster.com) is the only Internet search engine providing personalized search powered by social networking technologies. Eurekster continuously "learns" from the behavior of users and their social networks to deliver personalized search results and instant sharing of their popular Web destinations and searches. The service allows users to confidentially and privately share their knowledge and experiences with each other, simply by using Eurekster, or one of the sites powered by Eurekster, to search the Web and navigate to sites of their choosing." How it works.
• Flickr an online photo management and sharing web service--bloggable photos, upload from your cellphone camera or computer, and chat online with one person or many.
• Hammond, Tony, Timo Hannay, Ben Lund, and Joanna Scott. "Social Bookmarking Tools (I): A General Review." D-Lib Magazine 11(4) April 2005 .
• SourceForge.net OpenSource software site

Last edited February 2, 2005.