#21 Podcasts

I had a look at the three directories listed - the one I liked the best was podcastalley because it had more book review podcasts. It was a good idea to have us add a podcast as an RSS feed to our bloglines account because I found I'd forgotten how to do it. I had to go back and check and hopefully now I'll remember. I think having podcasted book reviews or book discussions on the library website is a great idea. There are probably many news sources that avid readers listen to for reviews so if they are available from our website it gives people one place to access all those things. There are also a number of online book groups now so we could perhaps look at linking to their discussions from our website.

# 20 YouTube

I have chosen to add the video of Kevin Rudd eating ear wax during question time because I seem to be the only person in the country who hasn't seen it yet. I have added it to my blog just in case there are one or two other people out there who haven't seen it either. YouTube could be used to add topical videos to the library website - just feature one each week or something. There is plenty to choose from following on from the election. It was really slow to load up on the council network and I couldn't really watch the video properly because of this but that's not anything to do with YouTube. I think it would be better if there was a little description of the video so you could choose whether or not you want to view it but I think this is the way it works - it plays on the shock or surprise factor and you get drawn in because you're curious.

#23 Is this really the end?

I really appreciate that we have been given the opportunity to learn about all these great tools as part of our professional development. The struggle (and I know I sound like a broken record) has been to find the time at work to do it. I know many of my colleagues have worked on it at home in order to be able to keep up. I will probably do the same now that the council network won't give me access to YouTube and podcasting. Perhaps if we could have had a little more time to complete the program...?

I have a much better understanding of blogs, podcasting, RSS feeds, Flickr, tagging and all those other things that you hear about today but, up until now, I haven't known much about. I love del.icio.us and I could have spent ages looking around Flickr. I also, now that I've got one, really like having my own blog. Still don't feel really great about other people looking at it but I think I will overcome that angst over time. Oh, and LibraryThing - I really loved that and will use it and attempt to put it on my blog like I noticed someone else did (smartypants!). Once I have done all the prerequisites to get through this course I will spend some time personalising my blog page and making it exactly what I want, building up my del.icio.us account and my LibraryThing collection. I will be adding a lot of the sites that I discovered in this program to my del.icio.us account because I want to come back to them and explore them more fully.

Thanks to everyone involved with setting up and running this program - I have gotten a lot out of it and discovered some great tools along the way.

#22 Audiobooks

I've had to do this a bit out of sequence as the council network is blocking my access to YouTube and podcasts. Hopefully I can jump on someone else's PC that allows access before the deadline for this program. The World ebook Fair site has some good titles on there. I have heard about Netlibrary before at one of the Gulliver forums and I know there are already a few library services out there that have ebooks as part of their collection. I can definitely see the benefit of this and I think it would be readily taken up by our members if we had ebooks as part of our collection. In time they might take over from talking books. Last I heard we couldn't do it because of some system incompatibility...

# 19 Discovering Web 2.0 tools

I had a look at a couple of the winner sites but they didn't really impress me - I had a look at one in the travel category, one in the book category and one in the business category. Then I had a look at the winner of the City Guides and Reviews category, "Yelp" - this was really good and I think I will come back to it to research my big trip next year. It is my first time overseas so it is great to find a site that real people have rated and written reviews about. It's a shame it is just America, but it does have a lot in it - restaurants, hotels, shops, night life, etc. In terms of use in a library setting - we are doing a travel demonstration early next year so this may be a good site to let people know about at that. I suppose also when people ask for a US travel guide we could also recommend this site to them.

# 18 Web-based Apps

I can see how Zoho Writer could take over from Microsoft Office because it's free but it is also really slow!! I managed to create a document in Zoho Writer and publish it to my post (it's the previous post titled web 2.0) and I can see the benefits of publishing and sharing. I then proceeded to play around in Zoho Notebook because I didn't read the instructions properly (obviously didn't get the chocolate I needed) - that was a little more confusing. Went back to the Writer and worked out how to share the document. Good idea, easy to use, but needs to speed up before I really consider using it.

web 2.0

Cramming this web 2.0 learning was not a good idea. I worked on it most of yesterday and today. I really need some chocolate.

 

# 17 PBWiki

I added my blog to the PBWiki. How do I feel about this? Uneasy (see previous post #14 Technorati).

# 16 Wikis

When I did the introduction tutorial one of the early slides said that if you are a control freak wikis won't appeal to you. I am a control freak and exploring the various library wikis out there confirmed for me that I'm not really a big fan of them. The only context in which I can see a good use for them at the library is a controlled wiki where only library staff can edit the entries - one of the libraries had one for staff reviews that I think is a good idea. At present our catalogue allows members of the public to add reviews but this is moderated by a library staff member - I don't think it would be appropriate to allow the public to add to a wiki without this moderation. A staff wiki that can be accessed through the library website might be good but even then I think the current system of having someone check everything before it goes live to make sure it is editorially correct is a good one. I don't really like the idea of ad hoc entries - if we are talking about staff reviews I would like things that go "out there" to be editorially consistent, similar length and written to a set structure. The benefit of doing it as a wiki is that it would save one staff member a lot of time checking everyone's contributions and I guess that is a substantive benefit.

# 15 Library 2.0

I read a couple of the suggested articles. The first one, about moving away from icebergs, is a good argument. We absolutely do need to embrace technology and utilise some of the great tools out there to improve our service. There are so many ways that we can do this - it's enough to keep librarians busy for some time. I also read the last article "To a temporary place in time" that describes a utopian environment as the library of the future - both a resource and a space that offers something to everyone. I think that learning about new technologies and ways to improve our service is crucial but I think that the role of the public library is to be responsive to our members. Today I gave an email demonstration to a lady who was really trying, but kind of struggling, with computers and found all the jargon bewildering and overwhelming. Over the years there are people who will want training in new technologies and we should be responsive to that. But in ten years time I think there will still be people who aren't proficient in new technological developments and may not have any desire to learn about them. Libraries should always be responsive to the broad spectrum of member needs and capabilities. I agree with Rick Anderson that at the moment we need to develop our knowledge of new technology but I think this needs to be balanced with a continuing awareness of where our members are at and what the library means to them.

# 14 Technorati

Technorati kind of scares me. Call me fuddy-duddy but this is where blogging doesn't appeal to me - the whole putting it "out there". I know that people can find my blog anyway but Technorati makes it easier. I certainly won't be in a rush to add tags to my blog. Not that there is anything private or juicy anywhere in my blog but to me it does feel a bit like writing in a diary, it's like stream of consciousness, and I feel awkward putting it out there for complete strangers to read. Searching in various ways on Technorati and looking at the popular posts and blogs was weird - a lot of not so relevant results, I suppose because there is just so much on there and many blogs are not specifically about a particular topic, they might just mention that topic in one of their posts.

# 12 Rollyo

When I first looked at this I was a bit stumped as to what it would be useful for. However I perservered with the activity and created a searchroll for a few different online dictionaries. This was useful because you can get different results from different dictionaries and they are also geared towards different audiences. Rollyo didn't get me as excited as I've been with some of the other tools but it is useful to know it exists.

# 11 LibraryThing

What a fantastic tool! I love it. As an avid reader there is no way I can remember all the good books I've read over the years so this is a great tool for keeping a track of everything. As a librarian I think I will be able to use it as a reader advisory tool. LibraryThing does a great job of suggesting similar authors and providing reviews. Will spend some more time on this one as soon as I'm done cramming this web 2.0 program.

# 9 Finding feeds

The Feedster search tool is currently being reviewed so I couldn't look at that. I did look at Topix.net and found that one really useful. It's great to be able to search by topic rather than source and I have added a Barbra Streisand newsfeed to my bloglines account as a result (big fan). Will definitely go back to Topix.net for new feeds. Also looked at the bloglines search tool - this was a good one as well. Found the google one less useful because as far as I could see you couldn't get the actual search as an rss feed, you had to choose specific sources.

# 7 Blog about technology

The challenge with technology is that it moves very quickly - more and more tools are constantly being created. This web 2.0 stuff has been a real eye-opener for me - there is so much fantastic stuff that we can do. In the past I kind of dismissed it because I assumed it would require wasting hours playing around on the net. Being forced to explore it with this program has made me realise that it may take awhile to familiarise yourself with all these extra tools but in the long run these tools should save you time and allow you to provide a better service. I know that sounds like a really obvious thing to say. I'm a Gen Y librarian but all this web 2.0 stuff was still new to me. It's great to be in a profession where keeping up with new technological developments is encouraged in this way.

#6 More Flickr fun

I quite liked the mashups. Colr Pickr was good - just from a graphic design point of view to be able to get different photo images in the exact same colour might be useful for various display/promotional material we do in the library. The Montagr tool was interesting but a little limiting - you are reliant on the way people have tagged their photos and once the mosaic has been created you can't edit it and remove unwanted pictures. Still, useful to know it's there, could come in handy for a display. Speaking of mashups, what's with mashing up the English language? Flickr, Colr Pickr... very unlibrarianish.

#4 Registering blog

Ok, sorry my posts are not in number order - I didn't realise there were all these little activities that we had to do and write posts about. Well I did register my blog and it appears on the participants page so... yep, nothing more to say about this one except that cramming has officially begun.

#13 Tagging

I love it!!

I started off reading the suggested guides on how to use del.icio.us and, while I got a general idea of the concept of tagging, my mind was swimming and comprehension wasn't really sinking. I felt I needed to do the optional thing suggested for this activity - to actually set up my own del.icio.us account and I'm really glad I did. I can really see the potential for this just for my own work and home computers - favourites do pile up and this is such a great way to organise resources you want to go back to. There is also the great benefit of being able to access my favourites from any pc with an internet connection. I suppose the other thing to keep in mind is that other people can access your favourites as all the del.icio.us accounts are linked. The first site I added was my personal hotmail account with the username typed in already to make it quicker for me, but I realised that other people will be able to get into my del.icio.us page and I don't want my login username "out there" so I have since deleted that entry.

Overall I'm hooked. I've just finished demonstrating it to a couple of colleagues. In terms of library work I will be looking at how our Weblinks resource could perhaps be improved by this tool...

#10 Image Generators

I wasn't too interested in image generators. I can see how they might be funny but for some reason they didn't really appeal to me. I suppose because they are existing templates I think you can spend a lot of time trying to produce something unique that in the end is still kind of generic.

I guess there is the option of using the generators where it's a movie publicity poster template or magazine cover where you can use a photo from your own personal collection - this would be good. I also saw that you could put together a greeting card or calendar using your own photos - that is a good idea as well because you could create something quite unique. I might play around with those options more...

The link for the above picture is http://imagegenerator.net

#8 RSS

I think the reason why I've steered clear of blogs and reading news articles online in the past is because the amount of time this takes up - as the exercise points out, you have to scroll through a lot of stuff you're not interested in and pages can take ages to load up, etc. The RSS feeds are a really good solution to this - they are a quick one-stop shop and I can see myself taking more interest in blogs and other online resources in future knowing that I can utilise a tool like Bloglines. Now that I know about this I think that blogs and sites that don't offer a RSS feed will perhaps become less popular because most people don't have the time to check several individual sites.

#5 flickr

New York, New York! I'm going overseas for the first time next year and I can't wait. I'm a massive fan of "Sex and the City" so New York will be our first stop.

Flickr's kind of interesting - you could spend ages poring over the images. In fact it did take me awhile to find a nice photo of New York to post. Results are clearly not listed in order or relevance because of the nature of the resource - they are photos taken by individuals who have tagged them as they want to. It wasn't until probably the fifth page of results from my search "New York" that I found this photo - before that there were plenty of shots of people running marathons and other obscure things happening in New York. Interesting to do the tutorial, have a browse and learn what it's all about though.

Perhaps I was too dismissive ... I did a second search "New York buildings" and that did return more of the type of photo I was after. I suppose the first issue I encountered was because they are all tagged by location. Well, live and learn.

Lifelong learning

Now that I've explored the Learning Web 2.0 site more thoroughly and have looked at Week 1's tutorial I've learnt that we are meant to be writing our thoughts on our learning, not making pointless remarks about the colour of our shoes. I'm starting to feel better about spending time doing these activities because already I feel I've learnt a lot setting up my blog. It's nice to "play" as they suggest because that's how you really learn and build confidence in what you're doing. I still feel that having a blog and putting up posts is a bit scary - it's kind of like keeping a diary, you tend to post streams of consciousness, but at the same time people can view it and respond and judge. Thank god for anonymity!

#3 The Beginning

I suppose getting started is always the hardest part. After um-ing and ah-ing for what feels like too long in work time over what to call my blog and what my first post should be my guilt over ignoring my other work to write this blog has won over my desire to post something interesting and intelligent. Not that I don't think this is a great opportunity to learn - the world of blogging, Facebook etc is still a relatively scary unknown to me. I'm just hopeful that the posts will flow more easily now that I've made a start.

Wondering why I've chosen to write in this hard-to-read colour? I was inspired by my new shoes which are this colour in shiny patent leather - they, like this blog, are making their debut today. These are the things that occur to me when I'm racking my brain for something to write about. Fingers crossed something interesting happens between now and my next post.