SOCIAL NETWORKING

This social networking is all new to me. I don't think I will fully "get it" until I sign up myself. I still have a lot of questions about it. Seeing as I have to finish my 2.0 blog tonight I won't get a chance to do this. But I can make a few observations from what I have seen.

I can see how social networking would be useful. It's basically just groups of people. Better than that it links up people with similar interests. Getting together a group of like minded people and telling them about a library's services or events could be very useful. Some of the websites mentioned in our 2.0 course were interesting. There seemed to be a few museums who kept a profile as if they were a person. I don't quite understand how they connect with other individuals. Also I wonder what would stop the Coca Cola company from setting itself up as an individual? Or any company with a product? What stops facebook or myspace being saturated with advertisements. How do you protect yourself against people that you don't want to meet or be friends with? I obviously need to log on and see how it works.

I find the idea of a virtual library in a 'second life' virtual reality is interesting. I could see a lot of the functions of the library existing in a virtual world. You could have an online virtual library with virtual books in it. We could all live in giant test tubes with wires connected to our brains like in the Matrix movies (just kidding). All we need is a small laptop like device (only a lot cheaper so we wouldn't have to worry about it being stolen) with wifi internet access resembling a book . Then we could log on to a virtual library and read it's virtual books. A library could be a warm room with coffee and bean bag chairs where people could bring their virtual book devices and browse books that only exist in a cyberworld. A bit far fetched possibly.

I have now come to the end of the library 2.0 course run by the state library of NSW. I have enjoyed it immensely. It might sound a bit exaggerated but I think it is a 'life changing' course. I am now a serious addict of blog writing. It has given me an understanding of many new internet developments some of which I intend to find out more about. I've gone from knowing very little to nothing, to knowing the basics of a lot of these things. I hope that the State library of NSW keeps this 2.0 website going for a while so I can refer back to it.

Thank You for the opportunity to let me participate in this.

ONLINE PRODUCTIVITY TOOLS

I'm amazed that you can do word processing through the internet rather than through a pc program. I tried both Google docs and Zoho. Zoho had more features, although I couldn't figure out what some of them did, but they were both very similar. I imagine that these were started as competition for microsoft and their word processing programs, although I can see that their "wiki-like" functions are unique in there own right. We charge $3 per hour to do word processing in our library, I wonder if people can use these online tools on the free terminals that we have.

I'm amazed at all the free productivity tools there are available. From Tada to Slideshare; you could start a company just thinking up names for these software companies. If the internet becomes more easily accessible I wonder if google docs will supercede microsoft word programs? This could be the end of the memory stick.

These could be very useful in a library situation. For doing power point presentations or writing a document with coworkers, altering images or audio, doing spreadsheets. The cost factor could make it very attractive also. I don't know how much we pay for our word processing software but having a free word processer could mean we could offer it for free to our library users.

Until next time,

MASHUPS

MELVIL DEWEY SAYS !

The big huge labs are a lot of fun. This picture is an example of a possible library poster I created with it. I also had a lot of fun Warholizing a photo of a friend but I don't know if it has that much relevance to a library.

It seems like the most prevalent mashups have a map and then photos which appear when you click on different points of that map. I could see this being very useful to show the various libraries that comprise my network, to illustrate a local history walk or even a map of the library with pictures as to what you would see there. I suppose that could also be maps with audio links instead of pictures (for example oral history tapes). Some of the "big huge lab" functions could be good for library promotions such as for making posters or calenders.

Most of it though I found a bit gimmicky. I was a bit confused as to whether you would call all of the things "big huge labs" did Mashups. The program I use to alter and enhance my photos (gimp) does similar things, would you call those mashups as well? Would you call the aqua browser on the queens library website a mashup?

I found it very hard to find other mashups that didn't include a map of some kind.

cheers

PODCASTS

I think podcasts are a lot of fun. I didn't realize they were used so much by libraries.

I could see my library using them for the obvious things like storytime for kids.Which seemed to be the most prevalent use of them in the other libraries I checked. Also our oral history tapes could be put on podcasts and as I suggested before with the YouTube videos: author talks. Also just a wrap up of library news would be useful and a promotion of the library in general. Our local history section often gives walking tours of our area that could easily be made into Podcasts as would lessons on how to use the internet.

On the computer I was looking at when I listened to different libraries podcasts there was a picture of a dancing sheep that would change when clicked on to various funky costumes, It was so simple it was like a DOS illustration that would have been state of the art in the eighties. At first I thought it was linked to a library but It came up for everything and was a bit visually tiresome. Where did it come from? I am mystified.

I've never done the podcast thing but I am seriously thinking about getting hooked up to it. I am particularly interested in the author talks about Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh I saw on the British library site. On the Yahoo site it seemed to be mainly pop songs.

I've got to get an ipod.

cheers

ANSWER BOARDS

My first encounter with answer boards on Yahoo!7 answers seemed to be full of silly questions that bored teenagers must have posted. Although having looked a bit further I could see that there were serious questions in amongst them. I posted one question to see the response but received no response at all. It was a question about deleting multiple emails on Outlook express that I could have asked a colleague or looked in a computer book about. I assume that it was such a basic and uninteresting question that no one bothered to respond to it.

Working on the information desk of my library, recommending that a borrower use an answer board did cross my mind a few times. Sometimes I get asked a question that is a bit unusual and not really a thing that you are going to find in a reference book or database. Usually they are the questions that you ask your colleagues about on the off chance they will know something. Unfortunately I can't think of an example of this. I think answer boards would be perfect for some questions. The problem is again for this and a lot of this library 2.0 stuff that it is inexcessable for people who cannot use the internet (eg some(most) older people).

The idea of troops of librarians decending like ninjas on to these answer boards and answering questions seemed like a great idea. It kind of globalizes the local library. Some of the example answers on the slamming the boards wiki were excellent. I wonder though in a way who should fund such a thing. I assume that the librarians who are slamming the boards are doing it either outside of work time or when there is a quiet time in the library. If they were paid to do it how could you justify someone spending time answering queries from another city, state or country. If you had some kind of international agreement that each library donated so many hours to answering international queries that would seem a bit fairer. I would hate to see a system develop where borrowers have to pay for an answer for a query.

I can see how, as well as getting great answers, it also promotes libraries and the role of information librarians. I would like to see some kind of local answerboard for my library or the state library. It will only encourage people to use there local library.

LIBRARY THING

Library Thing is just up my alley, as a book reader and library worker. I love the way you can rate and review the books you have read and the way you can see what other people, who have read the book you have read, are reading.

I find it hard to find books that I like. This is going to be a great tool not only for my own reading but also for finding books that other people would like. I could see if you were in acquisitions or the home library service this would be a great resource for finding stuff.

I am occasionally asked to recommend books for borrowers particularly young borrowers (often boys) and either think of things I liked as a boy or I see other people reading. I also get the book lists out that we keep behind the desk or the books we have in the reference section such as "Who else writes like..."(I hope I got this title right). For the avid reader that is trying to find more things to read, and is comfortable with the internet, this could be very useful. I can see it adding one more thing I can recommend to people to find more reading material.

Adieu for now

EMBEDDING A VIDEO

This is my attempt to embed a Youtube video into my blog. I have struggled with this for over an hour and am not optimistic about it succeeding. I tried to copy the html script in the little window to the right of the Youtube video I wanted and pasting it into the window. But it didn't work. I am now trying to upload a video from my hard drive that I downloaded earlier. I don't think that is going to work either.

If you find no video here you will know that I have thrown my PC out of my bedroom window in disgust.

This is so frustrating!!!