iGoogle

Hi just a quick post. I've found out how to attach the blogger gadget to my iGoogle page, which makes it much easier to add posts. How cool is that!

Byeee

Folksonomies and Tagging

Social bookmarking with del.icio.us. I'm not sure if I get delicious, I think I'll need to play around with it some more. At first glance it seems to be a good idea and I really like tag clouds. I don't know why, perhaps because it seems like a really intuitive system where you don't really have to know anything about them to use them effectively. More important information or information that is most utilised, is larger and therefore more noticeable than more obscure subjects, leading to more efficient identification and usage of said data. but the idea of sitting down and tagging all the websites you are interested in seems like a task for someone with a lot more time on their hands. After setting up my own delicious account (as in the link) I was hard pressed to think of one website to add let alone all of them, and it seemed kind of pointless as I keep all the websites I regularly visit in my Favourites box. But I can see how such sites would be useful for larger organisations to share information and research material within their community. The technology seems to come into its own more as a research tool than as a social endeavour.

However, I really loved Technorati. Being a blog fan I really loved how Technorati made finding new and interesting blogs really easy. A matter of just typing your interest in the search bar and clicking on the blog with the most interesting byline. Searching for "bookmobile", as suggested in the lesson, I found a number of interesting articles a snippet of one I will include because it made me laugh:
thedailywhat:

Buy This: “Smell of Books” — enhance your e-book...
http://carocat.tumblr.com/ post/ 120751138
the daily what : Buy This: “ Smell of Books ” — enhance your e-book experience by giving your e-reader that “fresh from the bookmobile” smell. If you’ve been hesitant to jump on the e-book bandwagon, you’re not alone. Book lovers everywhere have resisted digital books because they still don’t compare to the experience of reading a good old fashioned paper book. But all of that is changing thanks to Smell of Books™, a revolutionary new aerosol e-book enhancer. Now you can finally enjoy reading e-books without giving up the smell you love so much.

How off the wall is that? As if the smell is the only thing keeping people from the new e-book technology.

Lastly we looked at Librarything, another great idea in my humble opinion. Not only does it quickly and easily catalogue your own collection of books but it also allows you to sticky beak at other peoples collections and fine out what they think about their own books.

RSS Feeds

I always wondered what RSS stood for and now I know, Real Simple Syndication and that is what it is; real simple. I've had a Bloglines account for sometime and have collected a number of interesting sites. I subscribe to a really great site called librarian etiquette which is a humorous look at the subculture of library staff rooms. Your Shelves explores the world of private libraries asking people to send in photos of their home bookcases with a short explanation of their collections. 50 books is an exploration of one woman's challenge to read 50 worthwhile books a year and comment on them (though life seems to interrupt an awful lot). I subscribe to the ALIA employment page, looking to see what is available out there for trained librarians (one of which I hope to be in the next few years).

For a while I subscribed to a collection of online comics, some original and some from newspapers. As a result of this i have become addicted to online comics of all sorts which I follow religiously in my own time. I have found that RSS feeds and the recommended sites list on Bloglines allows you to try sites you would not normally have seen (as with comic page) and in doing so opens you to a great range of information and recreational opportunities.

In terms of usage for work purposes, RSS feeds are great in that they provide opportunities to easily research what other library professionals are doing all over the world, how their projects are developed and the returns they have experienced, so that such projects can be adapted and used in your own libraries. Such ideas as gaming the in the library sound great but it is also really useful to have real life feedback on how such projects are received by the average library user.

Social Networking Sites

Personally I haven't had much to do with social networking sites, as i have enough trouble updating my blog let alone tweeting every move that I make and seeing as I see most of my friends at least once a week, I don't see the point in phoning them let alone chatting online. But I can appreciate how these sites can be important tools for people separated by distance or for companies and organisations to interact with their customers on another level.

Libraries in the 21st century have become social and community spaces and the use of social networking to reach out to the community fosters this feeling of inclusion and fun within our patrons. Sunshine Coast Libraries does this very well by using Twitter and Facebook to promote our library events and our services to the wider community.

I've also heard of organisations using these technologies in conjunction with established services, such as Museums posting exhibitions, School based work experience students posting what they are doing on twitter for use by their schools to monitor their progress and so forth. It seems to be only limited by the imagination of its users.

Wiki's

I love Wikipedia! There i said it. No matter what anyone else thinks, I think it's great. You can find practically anything on it and unlike traditional encyclopedias, wiki covers topics both mundane and academic. I am addicted to Japanese anime and Wikipedia has lots of information about manga and film easily accessible. It also covers weird things like my home towns bus timetable, as well as obscure things like the service history of the HMAS Yarra II. How cool is that.

Now the question of how to use Wiki's as resources for the library is interesting. The BookLovers Wiki had a great idea of putting up book reviews to be updated and commented on. We produce a newsletter of great reads through the library and a wiki seems like a logical extent ion of this. Subject guides wiki would be great for helping our teenagers to research using the library, we could set up subject topics suggested by the teachers to follow the years curriculum. SLQ Library 2.0 wiki really demonstrates how Wiki's enable information to be updated more efficiently and effectively than is possible with basic websites.

Lots to think about and ponder for future library projects.

Flickr

Lesson one was creating a blog, I cheated a bit and used this one cause I didn't want it to go to waste, but lesson two was different. lesson two was about photo sharing technology notably Flickr. Now I have never looked at Flickr before as I have never had the time but it seems to be very interesting. One of the tasks in this lesson was to look at Flickr and choose some photos that we find interesting to comment on and share. I typed in "Library shelf design" in the search window and found this great picture by Vicki Bracken. Not only is the picture in black and white (my favourite style of photography) but the way the shelves are set out in the Seattle Library makes it look like a giant pinball machine. Check it out! The activity also asks us to photograph our libraries and share the results on Flickr. This will have to wait a few days till I bring my camera to work but I will let you know when I have uploaded them.

Licence 2 Test Drive

Hey, I finally found a reason to regularly update this blog. Yay! You might have noticed that I have found it difficult to update this blog regularly, as I am really boring, but now due to work and this really great learning opportunity from the state Library I finally have something to talk about. So i am redirecting my blog and am going to try and create a journal of all the things i am learning about.
So watch this space.

Long time no see

Wow I havn't blogged in over a year which is pretty funny if you look at my last post. I've been really busy, my niece is now five and my brother just gave me a new neice Lahni only a couple of months ago as well as two new neices and a nephew courtesy of his partner.

Our councils recently amalgamated which added more craziness to our days and at the same time my branch started renovations. So its been fun.

Anyhoo, this is just a short post just to get my feet weet again, I'll see if i keep it up, if not look to hear from me in another year.
S.