Jen 2.0 - Tech for Today
Why I Love Widgets, and Why You Should Too
Jen Maney -- School Library Journal, 9/3/2008
While I may be a website manager and not afraid to get my hands dirty in a bit of code, a web developer or code expert I am not, by any stretch of the imagination. And for that reason, I love widgets. Widgets are little bits of code (written by someone else, mind you) that you can stick in a web page, turning it from dull boring static content into something, well, not static and boring.Last month I wrote about Flickr, and using it to showcase what you do for teens. Those pictures can sit out there on Flickr, and people can visit Flickr to see them. That's great! But why not have the pics on your website, too? Sure, you could resize, optimize, and hand-code those photos into a web page. But you don't want to do that! And in these happy web 2.0 times, you don't have to! Use a Flickr badge to pull those pages onto your site, and you've got widget happiness. Flickr's badge widget asks you to make some painless choices, click a few times, and code appears like magic, just waiting for you to paste it into your web page. Here's one I made, and believe me, if I can do it, you can, too!
www.flickr.com
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Of course, Flickr isn't the only 2.0 Samaritan offering you widget happiness. YouTube puts code for all to make off with, right there, next to the video you're watching (look for the word "Embed"). And imagine posting your library's schedule in Google Calendar, pasting a bit of code into a web page, and always having an up-to-date online calendar on your website - what could be easier? Find out how to embed a Google calendar here. And you simply must check out the MeeboMe widget. If you've ever wanted to give students another way to contact you, in a medium they might just get excited about, MeeboMe is for you. There are a lot more really cool widgets out there, waiting for you to discover them.
Jen Maney is the Virtual Library Manager for Pima County Public Library in Tucson, Arizona. The motto of the Virtual Library is, "Designing for uncertainty."
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