Collaborative Tools for Libraries

Meredith FarkasNorwich University

San Jose State University

Blogs

• Why blog collaboratively?– Easy to set up and use– Encourages informal communication– Comment mechanism allows for discussion– All communication is in one place in reverse

chronological order– RSS feeds

Group Blogs

http://www.coloradolibraries.org/

Internal library staff blogs

http://blsciblogs.baruch.cuny.edu/newmanreference/

Organizational Blogs

http://yalsa.ala.org/blog/

Drupal (drupal.org)

• Content management system on steroids• Allows for the creation of many different

types of content – pages, blog posts, wiki pages, etc.

• Custom content types can also be created for subject guide pages, landing pages, etc.

• Many, many users can be part of a drupal community, each with different user rights.

Drupal for Community-Building

http://www.skokienet.org/

Drupal for Education

http://sociallibraries.com/libr246-12/

Drupal for Groups

http://groups.drupal.org/drupal-education

Wikis

• Content management system• Allows people to collaboratively develop a

website without any tech-savvy• Wiki=quick (in Hawaiian)• All community members can add to or edit

the work of others

Wikis for Local Knowledge Sharing

http://rocwiki.org/

Wiki Subject Guides

http://library2.norwich.edu/guide/

Wikis for collaborative resource development

http://www.ahistoryteacher.com/~ahistory/apwhreview/index.php?title=APWH_Exam_Topics

Wikis for Staff Knowledge Sharing

http://www.seedwiki.com/wiki/antioch_university_new_england_library_staff_training_and_support_wiki/

Wikis for Professional Knowledge Sharing

http://www.libsuccess.org/

Collaborative Document Creation

• Allows a group to create word processing documents, spreadsheets and presentations online.– Google Docs (http://docs.google.com) – Zoho (http://zoho.com) – Etherpad (http://etherpad.com/ allows users to

truly work synchronously on the same document)

Collaborative Planning Tools

• Allows a group of people to plan anything together online.

• Synchronous and asynchronous tools• Collaborative whiteboarding and

mindmapping applications– Twiddla (http://www.twiddla.com/) – Bubbl.us (http://bubbl.us/) – Dabbleboard (http://www.dabbleboard.com/) – Mindmeister (http://www.mindmeister.com/)

Collaborative Planning Tools (cont’d)

• Screensharing tools– Yuuguu (http://www.yuuguu.com/) – Dimdim (http://www.dimdim.com/)

• Project mangement software– Basecamp (http://basecamphq.com/) – Zoho Projects (http://projects.zoho.com/)

Collaborative Tagging

• Just like regular browser bookmarks, but web-based and using tags instead of folders

• Tag - descriptive metadata• You can assign multiple tags to anything

you bookmark• Your bookmarks can be public or private• Most popular social bookmarking tool:

delicious (http://delicious.com/)

Tagging for an Organization

http://delicious.com/stcclibrary

Tagging for a Class or Group Project

http://delicious.com/tag/libr246-13

Questions?

Meredith Farkasmgfarkas@gmail.com

meredith.wolfwater.com/wordpress/