Week 12: Wrap up; social networks and catch up

Finally week 12 I did not think I would make it.

Social networking could be a great tool to interact with our clients. We could use it to receive feedback from our borrowers, suggestions in regard to our collection etc. It could be a lot of work to set up initially but the benefits to our clients would be great. You could also use it to further promote events that you are running and future events, post author talks and library discussion groups.

Cheers Di.

Week 11: Online applications and tools

I did not realise how much free software was out there. It makes you wonder why software companies still produce and sell such expensive products.

I can see the library use for Google docs and other online tools as I am currently doing some work on readers advisory for my library and having all the info in one area that other staff can edit and add to the document makes the process much easier and faster.

Cheers for now

Week 10: Mashups

This week was really fun. I could play with this for hours and not all for work. You can create some get things both personal and professional.

As this blog is for work I had better talk about what it can be use for in my place of work. I have used a puzzle for my training but I like the idea of a calendar as it could be a great promotional tool for the library. You could also use the motivational poster to show the public that the library is not just books as people still have the idea that it is.

Children's services could use quite a few Mashups for everyday activities and school holiday activities. Really the possibilities are endless.

Bye for now.

Week 9: Podcasts and Audio

Well we are near the end I can see a faint light up ahead.

I enjoyed listening to some of the podcasts that the ABC produced. Also I can see how you can use it in a library situation as we are now branching out into the digital age.
Podcasting can be a great tool for people who missed out on events and activities that we have run. Such events as author talks are worthwhile producing a podcast for as not everyone can make it and would still like to hear what the author has to say.

Cheers for now,

Week 8: Answer boards and social searching

This week was easier on my old brain as I did not have to sign up and work out any new user names and passwords.

I thought "Slamming the boards" was a good site to use for people who do not wish or do not have the time to get to their local library. I liked the idea that if you wanted to you could remain anonymous.

I feel all libraries could benefit from Answer Boards as not all our members feel comfortable asking some questions face to face. Where as they could post their question and know that they will still get a librarian to answer. I also think they would like the idea that they could rate or review our collection. We often get customers who like to suggest ideas/items for our collection.

Signatures and Tag Lines are a great idea. It would be nice to see some for Australia instead of America though.

Cheers for now.

Week 7 Del.icio.us and Library Thing

I found that week 7 had a lot of reading to do it is hard to find enough time to get through it all. Setting up a del.icio.us account was not to bad, again the hardest thing was to find a user name that no had used before.
I can see the benefit of this website for both personal and work related areas as you can put all your favourites in one spot and pick it up from any computer. This will save me a lot of time as I have recently got a new computer and I have been writing down all my favourites that had been saved at work and then typing it all again at home.
In a library situation I think this will be very useful tool especially the tagging. Our patrons will be able to find everything that they need all on the one site.

Library thing I feel is going to be a very useful tool for both the professional librarian and the person at home. I like the idea that I can put all my personal book on one site it saves me trying to remember all that I have read. It is also good in that I can easily go to Library thing and find my entry and use this when recommending good reads to my patrons.

Cheers for now.

YouTube and Google video

This week was really fun. It is amazing what you can find on YouTube and Google video. The hardest part was finding a video that I liked to embed in this post.

When I did the search for Liverpool Plains I found a clip on Liverpool Plains Harvest 2006. I gave it a watch and it is amazing that if you add the right music to a video clip you can make even harvesting look like great fun.

I found that Mosman Library are using Google Video well with their author talks there.

The video clip I chose to embed is Tubular Bells. By Mike Oldfield. I find it very haunting and the graphics that come with it are great.

Once a found out that to embed a video you need to embed it in "Edit html" and not in the compose part of you blog it eased my frustration levels considerably.

Cheers for now and happy viewing.

Wicki

I must admit I have enjoyed this week more than last week. The wickis we had to look at were very interesting. The following 2 were my favourites: the SJCPL Subject Guides wiki and Book Lovers Wiki at the Princeton Public Library. On looking at the book lovers wicki and reading some reviews I decided to try our catalogue and found we had the following book and I am thoroughly enjoying reading it. If any are interested the title is Diary : a novel by Palahniuk, Chuck. The SJCPL subject guide wicki was very comprehensive and I could have spent a lot more time going through it. I especially liked the cooking link as there are some good hints and tips, and they had a Recipe of the Month at the bottom that sounded Divine.

Cheers for now and Happy Easter everyone.

RSS

Wow, we are up to week 4 already and the time seems to just fly.
RSS - Well as some people have already said I now also have a notebook beside my computer with all my account and password details as well. I found RSS feeds not as easy as I had hoped as some my favourite topic/sites not always had a RSS feed. I can see how it could be used in a library situation though as it would be a good tool to keep the borrowers informed on new things and author talks that the library holds.

Cheers for now.

Week 3

Found this image on Flickr

Finally I have found a picture that was able to be copies and shared. I have chosen this one as I love anything to do with gardens.

Week 3 had a lot of reading and when I finally finished all that the next hardest part was finding a picture that was able to be shared with others. I prefer to have a picture instead of a link as I feel that this makes the blog more interesting for both me and the readers. I also now know how to save a picture to my hard drive and then post it to my blog.
Well as time is running out that is me for the week.

Cheers and have a good weekend.

Well I have made it back again to my Blog and now I better talk about why this all started for me. I am taking part in the Learning 2.0 run by the NSW State Library. I have never done anything like this before so it will be a very steep learning curve for me. I must admit setting up a G mail account took longer that I anticipated as finding a name was the hardest part.
The video clip was informative even though I had to watch it a few times and hopefully at the end of the 12 Weeks I will be a lot more confident using new technologies.

Cheers

My first blog

Wow this a completely new experience for me and now where to begin. Some of you are probably wondering where I got my blogger title from. As you can see (hopefully it worked) from the above picture I am a very big animal lover. This is a picture of the newest addition to our family his name in Caesar and he is a Collie Rough. He has a short coat at the moment and when he has his full winter coat I will post another picture (fingers crossed). We also feed most of the native wildflife in our area. On a typical day we can feed up to 9 kookaburra's, 2 magpies these I have called Heckle and Jeckel, native butcher birds, hordes of rainbow lorrikeets, beautiful pink galah's and the occassional rosellas and that is in the daytime only. We also feed possums and flying foxes at night. If we are real lucky we have a owl that comes in and we feed it as well. Unfortunately I am not sure what type of owl it is. Some of you possum haters out there are probably cursing me right about now but the reason we started feeding the possums was that if we left out fruit for them to eat then we have found that they leave our garden alone. As I am running out of time this will have to do for now.

Cheers.