Day 1 of Internet Librarian Pre-conferences

This afternoon I ventured into the world of AJAX, a term I had heard of since I order computer books that talk about AJAX, but I had no clue what it is and what it does. When the workshop ended many hours later, I can tell you that AJAX stands for Asynchronous Javascript and XML. Still clear as mud?? Would it help if I told you Google maps use this scripting and Flickr also uses it? Basically, it is a combination of technologies – a methodology for building more applications that are interactive and update parts of pages without reloading the entire page.
It was interesting to see the various uses for this programming framework, but don't count on seeing anything on our website using AJAX any time soon! Karen Coombs and Jason Clark - shown in the photo, actually write this code for their academic libraries. They are braver souls than I am. Sunday's workshop will teach me how to create wikis. (At least I know what that term means...)