# 23 The best of the nest

What a fantastic opportunity to have an exercise as grand as this one that provides us with an interactive overview into technology available. I was rather daunted to start with. I found it frustrating as I did not have any knowledge of even how to go about making these applications work for me. A 30 minute overview each week prior to the exercise coming out would have been helpful.
Time was a BIG factor. I don’t think anyone would have put in just 15 minutes seven days a week (that’s a total of almost 2hours). I think I would have spent at least 4-5 hours of my time scouting around the different sites. That’s a very large commitment in any person’s week. Especially if one is studying too. Just a reminder there is a life outside work and to provide an ‘on the ball’ service, staff need to have balance between work and home life commitments.
At last I have an idea of what Face book is or My thing or how Flickr works (among many others) and how each of these could enhance the library and my profession. So let’s use some of them.

Any way I am a survivor- I have thoroughly enjoyed this. Should time (work time!) permit I will revisit some of these sites for a more thorough look.

I particular I liked the following:-

RSS feed – fantastic idea to keep up with information and ideas in the library environment. A quick way to provide feedback directly to librarians. Needs to be managed to prevent having an information overload situation.

Library thing- sharing booklists and ideas. Obviously customised for the library environment.

Blogposts- for the NSL webpage. Communication and ideas library and book related. But who will manage this. We desperately and urgently need a Web team. As a large library system we should be leading the way in this field. I reckon our website is ‘behind the times’ – come on NSL.

Podcasts and Flickr –to promote the library, through reviews and images of events.

E-books – a great invention. Clean, lightweight and convenient due to download-ability.
Image generators-( Image Chef, library clouds etc) a great fun thing- Boy it’s endless what technology can do!
Well that’s it from Poppy. Thanks for the introduction and opportunity to partake.

Well worth the time. But relived its now over!

# 22 Reflecting on the light

I’d have to say that the social networking sites are not really for me. Yes they have a use but I’d rather be outside gardening and socialising in person.

I have so many different a/c’s now and can’t remember all the passwords I used, so they are already ‘lost’. I was concerned about posting personal details on the net. Maybe they are safe at present but with the development of the technical aspects of computers who knows what the future may be able to extract.

Now to answer the question of 22..

Opportunities that online social networks offer a library……

An important part of life is developing social and professional networks, whether virtual or reality. Online social networking could be just the tool to enhance this. Social Networking provides a technical savvy way to reach out in particular, to the teen and t’ween patrons of our library who are already experimenting and using many of the social network sites.

* By providing a form of communicating and reaching out to people. Particularly our younger people. With the novelty of the technology and its inter-activeness it could prove a good means to reach children who may not be readers. Encouraging reading online, writing online and with competitions involving books, we may yet see these ‘non readers’ join the library and become avid readers…. something to plan for in the future.
It also helps us keep up with the times with technology and relate to people where they are. By providing RSS feed from our library blogsite.

*A service delivery point- Marketing library services, events and activities to the community utilising another format. E.g Flickr – used for promoting library events in a visual format or Vodcasts for virtual library tours.

*Helping librarians ‘tune into’ the different levels and interests of their patrons by participating in the online chat sessions. (or at least reading these).This could influence how we target services to interests and trends.

*As a professional tool - Others in the library profession have discovered that Facebook is well suited as a tool for developing their own social and professional networks online. This may replace or supplement list-serves that are currently used for sharing knowledge( a more controlled environment)

*Podcasts – used for storytimes and rhymetimes- valuable for those unable to visit the library. This could also be in a vodcast format.
-children recording their own book reviews as a way of encouraging and rewarding reading and sharing books.

# 21 Social Networking

I had a look at Bebo, My space and Facebook. Very social. Even branched out to view Hamilton Public library as well as those mentioned. Visited LIANZA Bebo site, following the conference 2008 link in our exercises. They weren't really what I had thought a social networking site would be like. Probably not as exciting.

With the help of 'fish' I made a facebook a/c and set some high privacy levels (I hope) as I do not want my private information flashed around the world. I was rather cautious of even joining but a colleague convinced it would be good as I could see photos my son may post when he moves to Dubai to work.

I don't really think I am a social network site person. This is probably because I dont spend much time sitting at computers unless its to send emails, search the internet or for work purposes. However if someone can convince me how these sites could be used to benefit libraries and the role they have in our society I may be convinced.

When I searched Facebook for friends joined through NSL it took an expert to discover that the site is case sensitive, as we had trouble bring up our NSL friends. Maybe I dont have any....????

To sum up, I am pleased to have had a brief look around these sites as it will help me understand what my children and those that utilise these social sites are on about.

# 20 eBooks

I found reading about ebooks very interesting. How wonderful to be able to download books to read at your leisure, where ever you are.

These will certainly be lighter than some of the very heavy books that are about now. And cleaner as you will have your own germ-filled kindle or the like, to read from. Not one that has been around the community. But will we have access to a wide collection or will these be restricted?

So I could relate to reading an ebook while lying on my bed, in this format.

I found http://librivox.org/ and http://www.downloadfreepdf.com/ were quite good sites to search on for ebooks. Not too hard to use, especially after I had had a play with them. I suppose the more you use something the easier it becomes.

My search was for Shakepeare's Romeo and Juliet. I was satisfied with my search hits, although I am not a fan of reading small 'times roman' font. I would have liked to have been able to change this.

Looking at the kindle article in wikipedia, and its photo, I thought the device appeared a compact invention that would assist those with weak wrists (a plus for me to consider if I chose to purchase one). Seems that these can be purchased through many outlets.

So ...... looks like we are in for some changes in our libraries. Will we become outlets for selling the ebook reading devices.? Who knows..Thank goodness for pay-on-line.

#19 Podcasts

I really enjoyed looking through the kids and teen section of http://www.podcastpickle.com/
It was beautifully set out with information about the book, audio item. However on my laptop I was not able to hear the podcast. Although I thought the concept of podcasts used for this reason was very appealing. They pose a virtual link to the stock of the library when unable to physically visit the library. It was nicely set out and easy to navigate.

When I looked into http://www.podnova.com/channel/197285/ and tried to add both this and the podcastpickle link as an RSS feed, my bloglines came up with the message :-No feeds were found. Please verify that the website publishes an RSS feed. ........ WOW!.......I have just had a thought. Maybe they werent added because RSS feeds only support newsfeeds or blogs....Oh well..At least I am learning!! Just a little slow of the mark eh.

I am a little dumbfounded as to what has gone wrong. I will seek help from the experts during the week and hopefully be able to alter this post so it is more successful. I gather then I must look up a blog to add an RSS feed to my blogger account. Hope this right.Please let me know,experts, if I am barking up the wrong tree .

I looked into Yahoo audio search and found a listing for the artist Norah Jones. I had to make another a/c to access the music. I sort of feel a bit overloaded with usernames and passwords. Got to remember which is for what and the other way round! I like the display of artists who have similar music to that of which I searched.

The sum podcasts up.
I think they are fantastic and could be very useful in the library environment

#18 Youtube official

Fancy Youtube again.

I never thought that youtube could be utilised as a marketing tool for library awareness.It could be worth a go trying this format, as now a days there are a lot of visual learners out there.
Surely the music video from our exercises, with its jazzed up music and visuals could be a way we could reach the younger generation, such as teens and children.

I think it could be a way of teaching databases, opac searching and advertising the various services offered at the library.Possibly even showing rhymetimes and storytime sessions, holiday programmes, author visits and other activities offered. What about a library tour?

Who knows. The possibilities could be endless.

I found a really good example of this in the following link (I tried to upload the video but it didnt work)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJPZSGB8ZZ0

I liked the wide selection of topics available for viewing. No wonder we get a lot of patrons coming into the library to view things on youtube.

#17 web 2.0 Awards selection-You Tube

I decided to have a play around with You tube as I really haven't looked at it in depth before. I searched storytelling, a library based subject to see if the programme could be useful to use in the library environment.
I felt it was a very useful application, showing in a visual way how applications and specific subject could be enhanced.

Maybe I am a visual learner. Yes, I probably am, thats what really attracted me to the site.Tthrough the process of learning about web 2.0 we have had the odd link to you tube. I personally found these a good way to get step by step instructions on things that were new or of interst to me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFC-URW6wkU

I also had a quick look at colour blender a colour and palette design tool,but this seemed a bit complicated.

#17 Web 2.0 applications

Don't you reckon that real productivity comes from easy collaboration more than any other feature.Web office applications seem to be able to replace the old applications by taking a fresh look at what really matters from a productivity standpoint.
Interesting to note in the listed awards the following;-

• Del.icio.us first in Bookmarking and Social News qualities.
• Wetpaint second in Hosted Wikis
• Google Maps first with Maps
• Zoho second in Organization techniques
• Flickr first with Photos and Digital Images
• YouTube first with Video techniques
• Twitter first with Social Networking Mainstays
• Technorati third for News and Blog Guides
• Rollyo for Searching
  
  
  
  
  

Zoho colour

Just testing the background colour option. Which seems very much like highlighting your phrase/s.

I thought it might set the entire article up with a coloured background.

Me Mudder on Zoho

This is a test for Zoho writer.I have tried to copy and paste a document but it did not work.

So here goes with writing one.

Who done it...?

When me prayers were poorly said

Who tucked me in me widdle bed

And spanked me till me arse was wed

Me Mudder

Looks like I have been SUCCESSFUL. I have also just fiddle around and found that colour font options on the blog post site. A little slow but I will get there.

# 16 Move over Zoro! its Zoho writer

I like the bold, italicize, underline, set back ground color & color your words, link to a web page, set margins, use cool smileys options in Zoho. The friendly functional toolbar has similar features to microsoft word which all helps in understanding a new tool. And tags have yet again surfaced.This sees the way to go! The function to add contextual comments sounds appealing.

Rollyo covered in patches

I explored Rollyo and created a search roll for patchwork. I thought this was pretty cool. A one stop shop for website links to my hobbie. But what happens when new websites are created, or older websites have their links modified. This could date my links and may them obsolete. I liked the idea of listing the tags, as a laymans link to related topics.

http://rollyo.com/poppy/

#14 Library thing

My librarything catalogue link is http://www.librarything.com/profile/daisy-lilly

I really like the idea of connecting to others who have the same reading interests as me. This way I can look at their selection of books with the chance of finding books I may be interested in that I didnt know about. I think its a great way to rate books and customising my own reading tastes. A very useful tool indeed and its all free! A bargin in this current economic climate. Great to tag your books and explore others' tags. A super social book cataloging website.

The Zeitgeist overview is a great option that shows the most popular reviewed items,top books and top rated authors.The top 75 tags is great. From the being nosey perspective you can view what others are interested in

Take the time!

Take the time to view the Poppies because they are not moving around the page. I went into imagechef.com and downloaded and saved my image and added the text that I would like to hop above the poppies. When I added these to the 'new post' feature all animation was lost. I found this disappointing as when I checked the saved image the animation worked.

However the glowtext feature was fun to play with. Thank goodness I successfully transported that to the correct place and it has retained its chosen image effect. Thats got to be one for me and a good bit of fun had in the process.

"Nature Combined with Nurture Makes People Mature!" :)

"Nature Combined with Nurture Makes People Mature!" :)
Originally uploaded by Photonut (Mr. Dave)

I totally agree with the caption of this image.

#12 Digging in the Sandbox

A suggestion for those who have not reached exercise #12 yet. I added my blog to the sandbox wiki twice before I realised that the cursor was not at the bottom of the list of blogs already added to the wiki favourite blog page. How crazy is that!!
A warning to others to make sure the cursor sits under the last one on the list. My link ended up at the beginning of the explanation about the favourite blogs. Boy thats in ya face eh!

#11 What wiki would we welcome-well we wonder?

What a marvelous tool a Wiki is to exchange ideas with others, to pool knowledge and to have easy access to editing information. These are a great way to encourage input from everyone.Although you would have to be very careful about the subjective input and authority of the content.



I reckon the use of a Wiki would be good for :-

• Reader Advisory-Creating booklists and reviews that our patrons could have input into.


• A Reference resource for sharing knowledge accessible form the reference/information desk. This could be where current topic resources are listed.


• Recording staff meeting minutes and staff announcements, accessible outside work hours.


• A communication and file resource to use for library projects, eg Library week developments


• Staff information where things like the library procedures manual could be listed.


• Each library have a wiki for their community to into information pertaining to that community. acting as a information sharing resource. Accessible with library membership.

I particularly like the format of both the Library Success site and the Book lovers pages. They were clearly laid out. The list of the contents and navigation bar help make it user friendly.

#10 Hale Web 2.0 !!

What a fabulous social networking tool that links people with all different types of formats,for an array of different purposes,
As Web 2.0 reality continues to emerge and develop, our patrons will expect access to everything – digital collections of journals, books, blogs, podcasts, etc. The technological advances provide interactive easy-to-use programmes that help simplify the process of using web 2.0 applications. This allows us to find new ways to bring our services to patrons rather than insisting that they come to us—whether physically or virtually.

As the use of the web increases it makes sense to use this as a delivery method for reaching out to people-our patrons. Allowing us to meet them in their perferred playing field.

I believe that libraries, to be successful businesses, will be required to keep up with the changes, to keep up with the times.To become user-centered libraries,where barriers are broken down and users access remotely. We as librarians will be faced with a future of rapid changes in service delivery methods.

We are in for a whirlwind of learning ahead of us.
So.....keep studying your Web 2.0 stuff and move ahead.

Trigger Happy

I just had to have another effort at posting a flickr on my blog. When I thinking about how I posted my first flickr, the process seemed a little frazzled. It's actually quite easy, especially if you take your image from the web.Doesnt it remind you that there is beauty at the end of a storm!!

Dramatic sky and poppies

Dramatic sky and poppies
Originally uploaded by Steel Steve

#9 Technical Technorati- share your thoughts

Unfortunatley I was unable to access the Technorati videocast tour. If anyone can offer suggestions on where I may have gone wrong, I'd appreciate that.
The website looks good. I thought it was great that it orders the blogposts by the number of 'fans' , with the most popular being at the top of the listings, showing the most popular 100 blogposts by fans or authority. Clearly layed out with the new additions of postings in a separate section. The top searches was useful. Thought that the number would have been rounded to say 20 listings.
I liked that the site shows the related tags, but this was inconsistent with the entries in the 'Top seaches' section.
It was good to be able to click directly on the related tags and access this information from the blogs with the same tags.

I hope others have enjoyed finding out about this format of social networking and information sourcing.

#8 Food for thought- del.icio.us

Delicious seems to be a good social bookmarking website. I found the "help' options very handy for finding information out about the website so i do recomend this to others to look at. It really does help with understanding what the website is about. I couldnt grasp the tag options on the right hand side of the screen, twhat they really did, so I would love to have some feedback on this. I found some very interesting article in the list of library blogs provided that i would mind having RSS connections to. This part I thought could be very useful for sharing ideas with others in the profession. It was useful to find the number of times an entry had been saved by another person. Woulc this be an indication that the blog was a good site?! I wonder. It would certainly make me go into the 'most saved' links first.

#7 RSS feeds to blogs

What a quick and easy way to access blogs to feed into my bloglines. This saves searching all over the internet. I have also discovered that through google and more the option to select blogs and this too links to other blog subjected related to what I am searching. It could be useful!! I tried a couple of search tools above and found these to be quiet a good way to locate blogs on interesting topics. the technorati site seemed pretty good to me.

#6 Sorting the plants from the weeds

Just as the title states, bloglines is a fantastic way of creating a reading page customised to my reading preferences. With one click of the button on a website I can now have a link providing me with uptodate reads that I'm interested in. It will be interesting to see how this progresses. Hopefully i wont get bogged down with too much reading.

#5 The wonders of technology

Its incredible to comprehend the advancements technology has made within the past ten years, let alone the past 2 years. And how this has influenced how we as librarians deliver and connect (rather help meet) with the information needs of our patrons.
Its ablsoutely daunting!! to say the least. I suppose it makes me realise how little Ii understand about it all. To give you an example. It has taken me 3 efforts at posting on this blog before i even 'spotted' the 'compose new' icon at the top of the page to post new blogs on my account. Well as they say-you are never too old to learn.
Actually I am thoroughly enjoying playing around with this. Learning new things and experimenting with the technology available. There are incredibly creative and technologically savvy people out there to develop such software.

#4 Flashing fotos from flickr

My creation
Originally uploaded by maripax62

Wouldn't this be a wonderful picture to use with a caption underneath advertising libraries. Something like "I've left mum at home watching television and I am on my way to the library'
The little girl looks so innocent yet determined to travel to her destination

#3 Daisies from flickr

Daisies
Originally uploaded by _tris_

Thanks to the photographer, Tris for the use of this wonderful picture. i hopefully have included this link to a blog comment i have found. Could do with some colourful happy daisies on a stormy day like today.

#2 Setting up a blog when blind

The title really reflects how I am feeling about setting up a blog. Plus the fact that I am using a laptop that doesnt have a separate mouse attached so the commands are different to those I am use to using at work It would be great to hear or rather read how others are finding this task. I am especially interested in reading the thoughts of those people, like myself who have never done anything like this before.