Week9-#23 The end- My feedback

I want to say that I really enjoyed this course, and have learnt a lot from it. I'm using some of the things I learnt here on a regular basis, and have found some excellent books to read through LibraryThing, which will help me both at work and when I'm not at the library.

Thanks to acl eLGAR team who commented and read my thoughts and whose hard work made this possible.

My team and I have already started thinking about ways we can use what we've learnt to improve our service and processes, and I'm grateful for this taster of what's out there.

Thanks again, and enjoy your holidays if you get some!

Week9 #22- eBooks

Well I had no idea we had so many eBooks through our digital library! I'm really impressed and think that this is wonderful. We really should push this more to customers!


I found lots of items I would like to read, but because I prefer to read my books in bed, on the bus or in the bath, I'm going to see if we have hardcopies of these items.

1.
Title: From Kung Fu to Hip Hop : Globalization, Revolution, and Popular Culture (eBook) SUNY Series, Explorations in Postcolonial Studies
by Kato, M. T.
Publication: Albany State University of New York Press, 2007.

2.
Title: Dishwasher : One Man's Quest to Wash Dishes in All Fifty States (eBook)
by Jordan, Pete.
Publication: Pymble, NSW, New York HarperCollins, 2007.

3.
Title: Animated Man : A Life of Walt Disney (eBook)
by Barrier, J. Michael.
Publication: Berkeley University of California Press, 2007.

I'd be interested to see how many people actually use eBooks regularly, and if they prefer them to the good old fashioned paperback...

Week9-#21- Podcasts

I found when I was looking at the podcast directories Podcast.net and Podcast Alley, that it was difficult to find Indie music podcasts that were recent. All the hits I got for podcast series showing 'the best of new indie music' were from 2006 or something, which was a bit of a pain.

But I found a couple of library related podcasts like Library Geeks, which was kinda boring, but I'll keep looking to see if I can find something interesting to me.

I doubt very much I'll become a heavy user, but I would like to try and make me own at some point, but I'd have to find something worth talking about!

Week9 # 20-YouTube and others.

I really like YouTube. One of my fondest moments ever is watching the Saturday Night Live skit for 'Dick in a box' (see below) with some of my team and laughing our butts off.

I also really like YouTube because you can find almost anything. I was surprised to find so many hits when I searched for the Vinyl toys I like. I've added one below if anyone is interested.



I really think YouTube has some potential for use in Libraries, allowing public libraries to merge with AV libraries and the like. It makes it so easy to search, and I'm really beginning to appreciate tags.


And you can always find hilarious things to laugh at with your team:



or things that are amazing:

Week8 #19-Discovering Web 2.0 tools

I'm one of those people who always get some booze at Duty free on the way back from anywhere, so I have quite a supply of liqour at my place.

Cocktail builder is totally wonderful for teling you what you need and what you can do with what you have.

This one sounded pretty nasty though:

Pumpkin Martini
Skyy pumpkin infused vodka
cointreau (or other orange liqueur)
ice
swirl cointreau in a martini glass, then dump out. shake pumpkin vodka and ice strain into martini glass rimmed with pumpkin pie spice. garnish with whipped cream and cinnamon stick.

I also went to Facebook, which I'm addicted to and I still love it. Facebook has more of a potential to work for libraries than Cocktail Builder, but I do know a lot of librarians like a tipple now and again!

We are working on a wiki for our team, and had been using PBwiki, but because of this list we think we may actually go with Wetpaint

Week8- #18- Zoho

Man this really took a long time to load up, and once it did it took me ages to work out where to click, even though Postlapsaria was helping me.Once I finally made something, the internet on my work computer kept having to shut unexpectedly. These things combined make me hate Zoho deeply already.But I'm going to soldier on.

And I made it!!! I posted the below using it. I'm so proud, but i dont ever think i'll use it again.

Merry Christmas

I dont think I like Zoho.

Week7 # 17- Playing around with PBWiki

How fun is this?! So easy and interesting, and something I intend to look at lots more when I get the chance to.

And what wide taste in favourites we all have!
http://acllearn.pbwiki.com/Favourite+Music

This could be a great team building tool.

Week7 # 16-Wikis

Well I love Wikipedia for sure. I am amazed at how much information you can find,and how up to date it is!

For example, did you know that:
Today in 1958 - Nikki Sixx, American musician (Mötley Crüe) was born
Today is the 345th day of the year (346th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 20 days remaining until the end of the year.
and
Today in Argentina is Tango Day!

I mean, who knew!

I think that some of the library Wikis are fantastic. Library Success was really interesting to look at, and I can see myself using it in the future for some tried and tested ways of doing things. It seems like a great place for people to share experiences and best practice, and my team and I have talked about looking at one of ACL around policies, procedures and best practice.

I loved looking at the Library blog wiki, and was surprised at all the public libraries that have them for staff use or customer use. We've talked about doing this, and I think with this Web 2.0 course we are all the more better equipped to actually make it happen, and happen well!

Week6 #15-On Library 2.0 & Web 2.0 ...

I find this whole argument pretty interesting, but maybe I don't see it from the same angle that people who speak passionately about it.

I'm trying to be 'progressive' in my thinking about how we deliver services. Even the term 'deliver service' has a certain connotation that Library 2.0 doesn't anymore. I've spent years delivering a service, and it can be difficult to switch mindsets around your core work for the last million years ( it feels like it, anyway).

Wikipedia talks about one of the issues with Library 2.0 being that librarians are being resistant to allowing input from nonlibrarians, without any moderation or interference, and allowing people to create their own resources and to publish their own stories. I have a little bit of this feeling in me too, to be honest, but the deep seated reason for this is because we don't want to feel redundant in this new and exciting approach to information.

Our new website begins to offer our customers exactly what a library 2.0 is about. We are offering a social digital space for our customers, and allowing them to create content, participate in 'reference queries' and tag materials for easier/different searching.

I'm excited about it, to be honest, and proud that we are moving forward. I think that having a website like this will give us opportunities to feel more comfortable with the idea of user created/owned content, and we'll benefit from this.

Library 2.0 is a 'watch this space' kind of thing for me, i think. I'm not 100% convinced that our customer base or staff are completely ready for what it could mean, but I'm open to see what happens.

Week6 #14-Getting not-so-technical with Technorati

758 blogs about Learning 2.0
1167 posts tagged Learning 2.0

Amazing.

Technorati is actually pretty cool, giving me ways to find new and interesting blogs to look at. It was cool to see that postecret ( http://postsecret.blogspot.com/) was there. i got a book out from work a while ago with some of these in it, and it seems pretty interesting if not a little emo. :)

I love the way when you search for something, you get a little graph showing how many blogposts there have been mentioning your search term in the last 30 days. It's kind of mind blowing really. Led Zeppelin were at the top of the most popular page when I took a look there, and since Dec 9th, the number of posts has gone up by about 250 which is fascinating.

I actually found a great blog in a google search for a photo of a worm on the concrete after the rain ( don't ask). I talked about how great that blog was on my journal and tagged it in there and the woman who publishes the blog found it, and left me a nice comment, which was cool. I wonder how she found me, maybe it was through technorati! Maybe not. Who knows.

My only tiny problem with this site is that in the popular tags of the moment was something i had never heard of (well I had, but only in context) which was 'bbw'. One simple click lead me to a wealth of big beautiful women porn, and the associated tags ad photos were defintely NSFW ( not safe for work). I'm not a prude by any means (this could be considered a plus by some!) but I also know some people could have a problem with it.

Here's hoping ITC don't check my history and fire me.

:)

Week6 # 13-Del.icio.us

First thing I noticed when I went to the del.icio.us homepage, was that I was just totally overwhelmed by the layout! i swear my heart rate increased just looking at the bright blue and varied fonts and everythingjustjumpsatyouandyoucan'treallyseeanythingandarghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

I think I totally hate it, but I can see that tagging is a valuable way of finding other resources that may assist in reference. Again, my only concern is the element of peer review, and people not knowing what they are talking about tagging things potentially incorrectly... but i guess the numbers of people tagging something as "x" could be a good indicator of it's value.

I tend to email myself lists of favourite sites to my gmail if i will be away from my computer for a while, so i suppose this could fill the role of a 'portable favourites' as well, but it seems like too much hard work for me. Perhaps Xmas coming up is sapping my interest in doing things the jazzy way...

It could be just me, but i also have no idea whay this site is called what it is. Am I missing something really obvious?

Week5 # 12- Rollyo

I wish I had known about this when I was doing my MLIS projects! It could have made things a lot easier!
I've made a searchroll for Vinyl art toys NZ, which has a combination of New Zealand and International sites and shops. I intend to use it fairly often!

I'm trying to find where I delete the crappy ones I made when I was learning...hmm...I have no idea how to do it.
Ah well, hopefully no-one will search my crap ones for things.

EDIT: aha! I have found the place to delete them! hooray!

I think this would be potentially quite valuable to libraries, as a way to quickly search sites without needing to constantly evaluate the sources of the information, like you do with a web search. However, I guess your knowledge could be limited by which sites you chose to include on your searchroll.

I'm finding this all really interesting. I had no idea things like this were out there and so heavily used!

Week 5 has been a real eye opener for me!

Week 5 #11-LibraryThing

I can easily see how I could become addicted to LibraryThing.

Here is my one http://www.librarything.com/catalog/TheChair

I love that it offers suggestions for things you might like to read, but in a less...well...pushy way than Amazon. I also really like that you can view other people's LibraryThing and find people with similar tastes to yourself.
I think i'll find a lot of new material on this site, and I can't believe I hadn't come here earlier, even though I had heard of it.

I added an LT Searchbox, but until I have more things in my library, it may not be too exciting for anyone to search my library of a whole 7 titles!

Week 5 # 10

Man, this week was so incredibly fun, and I'm getting back into the swing of things which is good.
Firstly, I cannot *believe* the number of things the internet provides to keep us entertained! How fantastic!!!I loved the Generator blog, I was blown away by the number of fun activites this blog mentioned, about 408 of which I have tried today.

I loved this ticket generator- I got to create the concert of my dreams, and all for only $25. Unfortunately it clashes with the best Christmas party in the world, so I will have to think long and hard about which I go to!

I also made this one for Postlapsaria

Okay, just one more...

This one is totally cool:

I can see that I'll be back to Generator Blog, and probably fairly frequently at that!

I'm baaaaack- Week 4 Exercise 8 and 9

I want that damn MP3 player, and so I'm going to finish this!!!

Bloglines searching was pretty amazing, and seemed really comprehensive in the things it covers.
I added more feeds to my bloglines using that and Technorati.
Originally I tried to get in to Feedster, but I kept getting a connection error, so I gave up.

Technorati was my favourite though. It felt the easiest to search, and I liked the layout. I searched the blogs for 'Library NZ', and found the blog of a guy I emailed once or twice during library school, which was cool. But I was surprised that was the only one I found that looked like a personal blog. To be honest, the personal blog is really my area of interest here, I prefer reading about some person in the same industry as me hanging out with friends, than long spiels about their opinions on the dewy decimal system.

I'm amazed and overwhelmed by the sheer number of blogs that are out there, about all sorts of, if not every topic under the sun. I was laying about in bed the other day and I was reading BBC news on my mobile phone's RSS feed section, and feeling very technologically savvy.

General opinion, I think that RSS feeds are not for me, because you lose the joy of discovery a little. I enjoy the way I find blogs to read and sites that I enjoy, which is often from a random Google search, or by clicking the links from a site I like and seeing where it takes me.