Thursday, May 22, 2008

wrap up and thank you

A big sigh of relief that I have been able to get through the 12 weeks - and a big thank you to State Library staff for putting this altogether. I have enjoyed the journey - it's had a few scary moments where nothing has made sense - then WOW suddenly I get it and carry on. I hope to use some of the skills in my personal life but for work purposes I guess our library staff will have to take the advice from David Lee King's blog - 'Remember Helene Blowers’ Learning 2.0 / 23 Things? Maybe your 24th thing should be this: figure out what your real target is, and how these emerging tools and trends work into that equation.'

By this I mean what do we really want to achieve in our library for our community and how can we use these tools to get to that goal. I guess we will be finding out soon.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Week 12 - The end is in sight

Finally made it to the last week, and what a steep learning curve it has been.

Social networking - hmmm...

Our IT department have blocked Facebook so was unable to check that out but took a look at Myspace. On a personal level it was easy to join - but not that easy to find people - I looked for people I had been to school with but found the limited search options hard to define and so returned no hits. At friendsreunited uk it was much easier to track down people - I found my old school very easily and was able to limit the search to just the year I left. Found 15 people plus one of them was organising a reunion so may even try to get back for that.

I am not sure if it would be a good marketing/research tool for libraries - a lot of people in our area do not have broadband access and we get quite a few 'brownouts' in the area. Would make it very frustrating for users of our services.

Second Life - I guess I'm too busy enjoying my real (first) life to want to join this online community. I have looked at the site but it really holds no attractions for me. Younger people who have grown up with this online world probably love it...

Week 11

There is a huge range of free software out there - but we are limited in what we can use by our IT department. We also have a very efficient Intranet which allows similar options to the applications mentioned in the slideshow. eg. We already use an inbuilt software option to convert documents to pdf - so cannot see us using Zamar for this.

Using the Google Docs was very easy but at present cannot see any uses for our library patrons - I can see it would be beneficial for staff use in our regional library set up - it would make updating procedures and policy documents very easy and would enable our remote branches to participate effectively.

Friday, May 16, 2008

week 10 mashups


This was great fun - I can see lots of possiblities for this on a personal level - not too sure about the public library computers though as people may need too much time to create the mashup (we have a 1/2 hour limit).

The voicethread option could be useful for our local history collection.

National Library of Australia has a mashup project on the go with Re- Picture Australia using selected images from different collections - they are inviting people to take an image and add 'artwork' and re-load as a new image. Instructions are at http://www.pictureaustralia.org/index.html.

Week 9

Many of our internet users already listen to various podcasts - we supply headphones or encourage regulars to bring their own. At the present time I can't think of a use for staff.
I think that at the end of the course we will need to discuss just what web 2.0 techology we will be able to use in our library and how to get the best from it.

week 8

There sure are some funny questions out there in the virtual world - but it's good to see that Library staff know where to find most of the answers. I am on the ASK NOW roster through the NLA and really enjoy getting questions from all over the world. It keeps you on your toes and builds familiarity with websites you may not normally access during your work in your own library.

Week 7

This week's tasks were fun and quite easy to do - I can see myself adding more books to my library - even if it is just to see who elses reads similar books. Creating the del.icio.us account and adding the bookmarks took me a bit of time - but I finally got some sites bookmarked and tagged.
I can see uses for the social bookmarking as library staff from each of the different branches could add sites to one account which we all could access - that would be really useful.
The search of the Technorati website for nswpln2008 only pulls up the flickr images and not blogs etc.


Here are a few of my favourite books catalogued in Library Thing

back on track

Well here I am back in the virtual world (with only a few days to go to finish the course) after spending the last few weeks acting as Community Services Manager.

Youtube and Google Video - you could spend all day watching the mostly weird and occasionally good videos that are out there. I guess if you've put time and effort into filming something this is probably the only way getting it shared amongst people at no cost.

I can see that it could have uses in the library - Mosman Library records their author talks - and I think that's a good use. I also like the idea of staff oreintation videos (you could make it fun) and using Youtube for library guides. I think the video clips would have to be well filmed and planned which could be a bit time consuming and need professional expertise- but you would be able to have exposure to a larger audience and at their leisure.



I Love watching the Carnivals when I am home in Somerset so could not resist this video.

Friday, March 28, 2008

wiki wiki ...

I found the wiki world to be very interesting - so many uses for them! I think a wiki would be a good way for a rural book club to communicate with one another, a bit like an email book chain.

Our branch libraries are quite distant and an 'invite only' wiki would be a good way to communicate especially with the calendar added to it - would save some of the double bookings we get.

I liked the Princetown PL wiki - when we held a summer reading club we were swamped with paper reviews - the wiki would be a good way to organise/publish them.

Hove to say I looked at the Wookieepedia - but you would have to be a committed Star Wars fan to understand it!!!

Anyway that's my bit for this week in the virtual world -- back to work.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Week 4 RSS

Deciding what news feeds to add to my list was a bit hard - but the adding the sites was fairly easy. For personal interest I have added 2 feeds - BBC News Week at a Glance & Guardian online and Helen Blowers, Libraries Interact: Blogs for Australian Libraries & couple of book related feeds for work purposes and the PHM picture of the day for the course. I think that will be enough to keep up with.

I think the RSS feeds are useful for keeping up-to-date with what's happening in libraries around the world without having to do too much searching for new information. I will probably check the home news more frequently now that it's all together in one place. We shall see...

I have not had a good look at Libraries Interact but am hoping I will get a look at the blogs fairly soon.

Saturday, March 8, 2008

end of third week

Well here we are at the end of the 3rd week and I am only just keeping up - it has been fun learning about all these new things, trying them out and getting the required coursework completed - but it all takes so much time. I keep getting sidetracked as I look at other interesting photos etc.

What have I learnt this week - well I have learned how to customise my BLOG, how to upload a photo and have even loaded 1 photo so far on FLicker (but know from other peoples comments on the BLOG that I need 5 photos for them to show - I'll get back to it some time!).

Not sure how I feel about putting personal photos on to Flicker- maybe in a private group, but I can see the potential for libraries to share images.

Looking forward now to RSS feeds....
I have chosen this image of Glastonbury Festival (England) as it reminded me of the time I attended many many years ago (in the 1970's).
It's great to see that the festival is still running and people enjoying themselves no matter the weather!!!

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

first try

Learning 2.0 - well this was easier than I thought it would be - but I still think I have a lot to learn. I am looking forward to the challenges of learning all about this new technology and how it can benefit our library and community. Our library already has a local history blog and and a 'news' blog but we could expand on these.

Well that all for now -