Vacation and schoolwork

I'm taking a short vacation this weekend. After a busier than usual Spring semester, I felt I could do with a little break so I headed for the beaches of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. This weekend is also Harley Davidson weekend here. An event I found out about when the roar of engines and the smell of exhaust greeted me as I drove down Ocean Boulevard Thursday night looking for my hotel. Every night has seen an endless parade of a variety of different bikes up and down the main street. Last night I met a recently retired librarian with a custom pink Harley. We spent a little while talking about libraries in general and my classes. She was really interested in what I was learning in this class and told me that she recently started a blog with some other riders chronicling their trips around the country on their motorcycles. The whole conversation made me think of web 2.0. Partly because I was feeling a little guilty about taking a break from my schoolwork but mostly because whether you want to believe it is a fad that will fade in time or not, the web 2.0 applications have become widespread. You can get book reviews, cooking tips, or news analysis from blogs. Some professors accept wikipedia as a reliable source to reference or at least as a decent starting ground for research. Every library conference I've been to recently and even a few webinars have utilized twitter in some way whether as a vehicle to ask questions or a way to give feedback. It's all very interesting. I'm interested in seeing what ways we're going to be able to use web 3.0 applications.