Ning Thing (Thing 19)

I joined Ning group Library 2.0 almost as soon as I started 23 Things. I wanted to be as in-the-loop and connected as possible, staying ahead of the Thing curve as I learned more and more about web extensibility and its application to libraries.

Today, to flex my Web 2.0 skills, I logged into Ning to do a couple of things. First, I clicked onto a post link titled “CMS is required for better library services.” Although I felt the argument for CMS over LMS wasn’t presented in the post, it did give me a moment to think about CMS. I had planned to use some library free-time to play around with Drupal this summer and determine if it would be useful to Flagler College’s small special collections holdings. I’ve always said I wanted to get my information into MARC and drop it in our OPAC, but I wonder what Drupal will do?

Thinking of Drupal somehow made me think of another interest, FRBR. When I read about FRBR in print resources, it seems quite promising. I thought I’d do a Ning search and see what the real world was saying on the virtual world. My search results weren’t huge, but I did find lots of interesting links posted by commenters that looked like they’ll be fun to follow when I have the chance.

Interestingly, one Ning commenter called for pronouncing the Library 2.0 group dead. He posited that everyone had migrated to Facebook. Hmm. While the Ning board seemed relatively inactive when I logged on (did I see tumbleweeds just then?), I wonder if he’s right about Facebook? Library 2.0 in Ning felt so physically dispersed as to demand different perspectives. Facebook seems like cliques of people who already know each other, which I believe produces redundancy. Where will L2 take the L2-ers next? Reminds me of Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast.