Curation! was the title of Joyce Valenza's keynote address and workshop at the 2012 NYLA/SSL Conference, and she introduced the word to hundreds of librarians in one swoop! I have to admit, I was feeling pretty self-satisfied at the time; after all, I had a fat and happy Delicious file, full of handy sites for all occasions. Why, I even searched for useful links through Delicious, adding and sharing with colleagues.
Now I see that I am like the old librarian who collects hundreds of back issues of magazines, certain that they will "come in handy some day!". Curation is so much more of a Web3.0 tool: creating web content more than gathering it.
So I gave Scoop.It another try. Diigo had scared me away with its daily updates in my email, and Pinterest is my guilty pleasure/personal-rather-than-educational site. I began following other Scoop-ers, three topics, and added a button to my toolbar. I even connected it to my Twitter feed, so that I can post Scoops there! Yes, I got the annoying emails, but I imagine those can be turned off. Already the content is looking better, I have a community to follow, and I am wondering if I can use Scoop.It to build a Professional Development tool for the technology workshops that I will be holding soon. It IS more work than just clicking the Delicious button and saving a link, but Scoop.It promises to be a much more flexible tool.
I definitely would like to set up a board of some kind for the school library. We could add sites for research, fun tools to explore, games and educational activities, and other schools' sites. I am wondering whether to go with Pinterest or Learnist. Pros and cons: Pinterest is very popular, and seems like it is here to stay. Learnist is educational, so there would be less temptation to stray from recommended sites. Both are attractive, and easy to use. Must research and experiment further before unveiling The Site.....
Comments
You're the very person that introduced me to Delicious in the first place, and I'm following right in your footsteps! In spite of the fact that my Delicious account is such a mess, I'm so grateful that I'm able to access my websites everywhere I go.
Just like you mentioned, I'm annoyed by the emails I'm receiving from Scoop.it and Learnist. I'm going to try to turn them off, only checking them when I have the time and interest. Glad to hear you're feeling the same way.
I'm much more careful when posting to Scoopit, since the content is more public and meant to be more selective.