[Baynet] Infopeople's "Web 2.0: Searching Innovations" workshop

[Linda Rodenspiel]

There is a lot of buzz in the library press about Web 2.0 and its 
impact on libraries. The California State Library believes that Web 
2.0 has tremendous transformational potential, perhaps second only to 
the introduction of the Internet itself. In recognition of the 
importance of Web 2.0, the State Library has made a special grant 
award to Infopeople for a series of free training events titled 
"Moving Libraries Forward to Web 2.0". The following workshop is part 
of the Web 2.0 series.


Title:  Web 2.0: Searching Innovations

Dates and locations:

Thursday, April 5, San Francisco Public Library**
Friday, April 27, Los Angeles Public Library
Monday, May 14, California State Library**
Thursday, May 31, Contra Costa County Library in Pleasant Hill
Friday, June 15, Fresno County Public Library
Monday, July 9, Buena Park Library District
Tuesday, July 24, San Jose, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library

**The sessions at the San Francisco Public Library and the California 
State Library are already full. Please go online and register for the 
wait list.  If the wait lists show sufficient interest, additional 
sessions will be scheduled.

There will be additional sessions scheduled in San Bernardino and San 
Diego.  As soon as the dates and locations have been confirmed, an 
email announcement will be made.

To register for this workshop:  Use the online registration form at
http://www.infopeople.org/workshop/312

Fee: Thanks to a special LSTA grant award from the California State 
Library, Infopeople is able to offer this workshop to the California 
library community free of charge.


With the 2.0 revolution, almost everything on the web seems to have 
become social, shared, collaborative, and focused on fun. For many of 
us in libraries, this shift to user-built content and trusting the 
wisdom of crowds seems chaotic, out-of-control, and threatening to 
our values for quality information and manageable services.

--Do you wonder where the 2.0 phenomenon is taking the web and the 
world of information?
--Do you know how to sift the worthwhile 2.0 content from the trivial?
--Do the wikisphere and the blogosphere seem promising, but you 
aren't sure how to find what's reliable and useful?
--Are you curious how Google is changing and where Google is going?
--Do you know the unique search strengths of Ask.com, MSN's Live 
Search, and other alternatives to Google?
--Do you know the practical value of special and clustering search 
engines like IceRocket, Technorati, Topica, and Mooter?
--Have you discovered the most timesaving uses for tags, RSS feeds, 
page monitors, and other new web tools?
--Are you concerned how to keep up with it all?

In this course, you will explore the questions above and others in 
practical everyday applications. You will become acquainted with the 
major 2.0 media spaces and how to search their content effectively. 
You will learn to use, find, and build customized meta-search engines 
to drill vertically into almost any area of interest with a web 
presence. You will harness the convenience of RSS feeds, page 
monitors, and alerts to help you keep current.


Workshop Description: This is an all-day hands-on workshop. Through 
individual and group exercises and cheat sheets you will gain both an 
orientation to and experience in using and searching the principal 
2.0 services and media spaces. You will explore the best tools for 
finding information in many formats in the expanded 2.0 web. You will 
learn practical applications that will increase your efficiency using 
social bookmarking, RSS feeds, and other tools. The instructor will 
provide a webliography to help you keep up after the course.

Pre-workshop assignment: Once registered for the course, participants 
will be given instructions for creating their own account in 
Bloglines and del.icio.us before coming to the session.

Preliminary Course Outline

The Energy and Power of 2.0 for Finding Information on the Web
--Trends, values, tools, practical applications of Web 2.0
--How tags work and the do's and don'ts of tagging
--Using tags in del.icio.us to organize information

New Directions for Searching the Web
--Innovations in Google and other search engines
--Customizable, vertical specialized meta-search engines
--Specialized search engines for 2.0 web spaces

Practical Uses for the New Types of Web Pages
--The blogosphere and the wikisphere as rich information troves
--Finding good blogs, useful wikis, and other good user voices
--Managing information and change with RSS feeds and page monitors

Finding Information through 2.0 User-Driven or Social Sites
--Exploring useful dimensions of 2.0 media and sharing spaces like 
MySpace, Flickr, YouTube, Last.fm, Movie Lens, and LibraryThing
--Tips for keeping up with 2.0

Instructor:  Joe Barker.  Joe works full time as a reference and 
instruction librarian at the University of California, Berkeley, in 
the Doe library and the Moffitt undergraduate library. Developing 
instructional aids and promoting the confidence and research skills 
of library users through reference is the major thrust of his work at 
UCB. He also maintains an online web searching tutorial which remains 
worldwide one of the most heavily used resources for finding and 
evaluating information on the web.

Who Should Attend: Anyone from the California library community with 
an interest in keeping up with or finding quality information in the 
new 2.0 web.

Prerequisites: This course requires that students be comfortable with 
basic computer skills and basic web searching.

Other Logistics:

*On-site check-in is from 8:30-9:00 AM;  instruction is from 9:00 AM-4:30 PM.

*Maps, directions, and parking information are available on the 
Infopeople Web site at 
http://infopeople.org/WS/workshop/Directions.  Infopeople does not 
validate or pay for parking.

*Infopeople does not provide refreshments or lunch.  Since some 
training locations do not have in-house or convenient food service, 
Infopeople recommends that participants bring a sack lunch.

To view a complete list of Infopeople workshops and for general 
information about Infopeople training opportunities, go to the main 
Infopeople Workshops page at http://infopeople.org/WS/workshop

If you have questions about registration or scheduling of workshops, 
please contact Linda Rodenspiel, the Infopeople Project Assistant, at 
assist at infopeople.org or by phone at 650-578-9685.