I found the conference very inspiring but am concerned about the use of social software in schools. If we develop school library groups on sites such as Facebook how do we draw the line between pupils using it for the library group or being in their area arranging a trip to Macdonalds or the pub? School networks are limited by band width and the number of machines being used; during school hours the use has to be for school work or the whole system grinds to a halt. The more online teaching , use of VLEs, online assessment that takes place the greater the strains on school networks.
The ideas for using Blogs and Wkis can be translated into use with VLEs thereby keeping them more within the school framework. I have certainly been inspired to use my Blogs in a different way and to try Wikis both within the VLE and without.

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Hi,

i enjoyed the conference and found it gave me lots to consider - i can't help wondering if it's 'too late for public libraries' though.

Librarything.com may well become the next 'youtube' or 'myspace' and is building up a considerable database of readers' likes, dislikes, user profiles etc. It's approaching 300,00 members now (http://www.librarything.com/zeitgeist) - up by over 100,00 in little over a month. Surely organisations such as Amazon are waiting for the site to reach a 'critical mass' and when it does so will buy the the thing lock ,stock and barrel.

One interesting aspect of Ian Corns excellent presentation was the idea of 'prosumers'. His use of the Arctic Monkeys added emphasis to the notion. Surely most budding authors will increasingly communicate directly with there audiences and self promote/publish directly to them via web2. Here too public libraries may well find themselves out of the equation.

Just my 'two penneth', anyone agree/disagree?

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