Really enjoyed this week. It was simply fun! Love the Taste site, and yes I've signed up to yet another membership. I can understand why people who do not have the inclination or the access to an off-line social life would become addicted to on-line communities. It's so easy to do and just about every interest anyone could have is available.
Did not find the Answer Board Librarians wiki user friendly or all that interesting I'm afraid. I could not find interesting or relative information. I'd like to hear if anyone else found this site helpful and if so, enlighten me, please.
What I really loved this week was the Yahoo!7Answers. What fun! As librarians we all love finding and delivering answers to our customers. After logging in and setting up my profile, I went straight in and managed to answer four questions, exactly the same way I would at work, by using our resources. Maybe not as satisfying as supplying the goods to a real life person, but enjoyable all the same. I must admit that it is not only the giving of information I enjoy, I also love adding to my own store of knowledge ... and what better way to receive than to give!
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Technorati, LibraryThing & Widgets ... Fun, Fun, Fun!
This has been quite a week. I've been introduced to Technorati .... Interesting. I registered my OpenBook Blog with them. Do seem to have heavier traffic, but not sure if Technorati has anything to do with it. Then I moved into more familiar ground with delicious and LibraryThing. I have a listing with delicious, but I love what Sutherland Library are doing with it. What a great way to post sites for your users. We have what we call 'Weblinks' on our site, which is a list of websites we have investigated as useful to our users. But to be honest, I think the Sutherland's link to delicious and their tag cloud of subject headings is much more in step with what is happening on the web today. There is no such thing as being a single entity on the web now. Linking and networking is what we need to be doing, and social bookmarking is entrenched deep with web users already. If we are not to be left behind, we need to embrace this technology now.
LibraryThing is great. I joined a few years ago and have been slowly building my book shelf. But I was a little upset when I went to log in to link it with this blog. It seems I have been erased! I was no where to be found. I'll admit it has been awhile since I last added any titles - maybe six months. But to have just been wiped like that? Looks like I've been pushed aside for paying customers. Does anyone know what the time limit is on non-paying subscribers? Anyway, I started a new shelf and am having a go at adding a widget to this blog. We shall soon see if I'm successful.
Catch you all next week! Cheers ... JoDee
LibraryThing is great. I joined a few years ago and have been slowly building my book shelf. But I was a little upset when I went to log in to link it with this blog. It seems I have been erased! I was no where to be found. I'll admit it has been awhile since I last added any titles - maybe six months. But to have just been wiped like that? Looks like I've been pushed aside for paying customers. Does anyone know what the time limit is on non-paying subscribers? Anyway, I started a new shelf and am having a go at adding a widget to this blog. We shall soon see if I'm successful.
Catch you all next week! Cheers ... JoDee
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
The World of YouTube
YouTube has been no real big surprise to me, as I have been accessing videos on this site for quite awhile now. My son has been on with a few music videos for over a year now, and I am always getting in there and showing people. So, that is whose video you will find here on my Blog. Have a look, they are young talented musicians having a great time with their chosen sound.
I did many searches during this week of LibraryLearning 2.0 and found (not surprisingly) many videos that have to do with libraries. There weren't alot that sparked my imagination though. I think libraries should be careful with what they do in the video category, as many prove to be a little on the boring side. Something that many people think libraries are ... and we don't want to prove them right, do we?
But I did find one that I thought was rather clever. It is a day in the life of the St. Joseph County Library set to the music of Madonna's, 'Ray of Light'. Now, I know we all love our job and find it more than interesting most of the time, but it is usually not considered exciting is it? But take a normal day in a library, speed it up and set it to music, and you have an above average video that, if nothing else, shows librarians to have a sense of fun and humour. If you haven't seen it, click the link and have a look. If anything, this is the sort of thing libraries can promote through videos - not the humdrum - the fun.
I did many searches during this week of LibraryLearning 2.0 and found (not surprisingly) many videos that have to do with libraries. There weren't alot that sparked my imagination though. I think libraries should be careful with what they do in the video category, as many prove to be a little on the boring side. Something that many people think libraries are ... and we don't want to prove them right, do we?
But I did find one that I thought was rather clever. It is a day in the life of the St. Joseph County Library set to the music of Madonna's, 'Ray of Light'. Now, I know we all love our job and find it more than interesting most of the time, but it is usually not considered exciting is it? But take a normal day in a library, speed it up and set it to music, and you have an above average video that, if nothing else, shows librarians to have a sense of fun and humour. If you haven't seen it, click the link and have a look. If anything, this is the sort of thing libraries can promote through videos - not the humdrum - the fun.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
My Wiki Adventure
Well my wiki adventures were interesting. I found no page on the PB Wiki for library officers, so thought I would add one. That proved to be easier than I thought it would. No wonder wikis can grow to astronomical size in such a short time. Now that I am registered with PB, I receive alerts everytime someone adds or changes things on the Library Learning wiki. This is certainly handy if you are involved with a wiki that you want to keep updated on. From what I can see PB wiki is a great wiki site, and I would consider using it if I was going to set up a wiki for anything.
I then moved on to wikipedia and looked up my suburb. Sure enough, it was there and I actually knew something that could be added. This proved even easier. But there was a nice surprise in store. For when I clicked on a hyperlink in the references section of the article, where should it take me ... to our library site! We have links to local suburb histories on our website and who ever wrote and referenced the article used our information.
Again, this exercise has been great fun and I'm constantly learning new and surprising things. Hope everyone else is finding the same.
Until next post .... JoDee
I then moved on to wikipedia and looked up my suburb. Sure enough, it was there and I actually knew something that could be added. This proved even easier. But there was a nice surprise in store. For when I clicked on a hyperlink in the references section of the article, where should it take me ... to our library site! We have links to local suburb histories on our website and who ever wrote and referenced the article used our information.
Again, this exercise has been great fun and I'm constantly learning new and surprising things. Hope everyone else is finding the same.
Until next post .... JoDee
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Wikis - the limit is set only by our imagination
Was interesting looking at all the different wikis. I had no idea there were so many on the web. My only experience has been with Wikipedia, and that has not included adding any information or editing, just reading information.
I looked at the Library success wiki and really believe this serves an important purpose. There are some great ideas on there and available to everyone. The library camp was interesting. A great way to get an agenda happening on something like this. People planning to attend just add their topic of interest.
The Montana history wiki was a disappointment though. I can't really see how they can call it a wiki, as they don't allow anyone to add information.
And why am I not surprised there is a wiki for Star Wars! Of course there would be. I'm sure there is one for Star Trekkies too.
I like the idea of a wiki in libraries for staffing purposes. Our staff come and go at varied times through out the week, and it would be a great way of everyone adding their bit to a discussion or idea without trying to get us all together on the one day. As for our customers, a wiki would work well as an oral history for our local area. There are plenty of people out there that know and remember important aspects of our history. It would be great to have it all in one spot on our website. I am sure there are plenty more ways wikis could be used in a library, the list is only limited by our imagination.
I looked at the Library success wiki and really believe this serves an important purpose. There are some great ideas on there and available to everyone. The library camp was interesting. A great way to get an agenda happening on something like this. People planning to attend just add their topic of interest.
The Montana history wiki was a disappointment though. I can't really see how they can call it a wiki, as they don't allow anyone to add information.
And why am I not surprised there is a wiki for Star Wars! Of course there would be. I'm sure there is one for Star Trekkies too.
I like the idea of a wiki in libraries for staffing purposes. Our staff come and go at varied times through out the week, and it would be a great way of everyone adding their bit to a discussion or idea without trying to get us all together on the one day. As for our customers, a wiki would work well as an oral history for our local area. There are plenty of people out there that know and remember important aspects of our history. It would be great to have it all in one spot on our website. I am sure there are plenty more ways wikis could be used in a library, the list is only limited by our imagination.
Monday, March 3, 2008
RSS Feeds
RSS feeds are an interesting concept and I'm sure those who monitor the web for information find them very helpful if not essential.
But I for one prefer alerts, which send to my mail box links to the site for new information or in the case of a blog, a new post. I don't have to go anywhere else other than my inbox, and I have a choice of clicking it or not.
Creating an account with Bloglines was easy enough, but will I visit it each day to read my feeds? Probably not.
My feed for this post with ABC news, again was easy to do. I am very impressed with Bloggers set up. It is so easy to use. I will look for other, more relevant feeds as I continue Learning 2.0, adding them as I go.
For libraries, RSS feeds or alerts could certainly play an important part. As others have mentioned in the Learning blog, customers who do not visit the library on a regular basis but are still interested in what is happening will find them a great service. It is just another way we can keep in touch with our community through Web 2.0.
But I for one prefer alerts, which send to my mail box links to the site for new information or in the case of a blog, a new post. I don't have to go anywhere else other than my inbox, and I have a choice of clicking it or not.
Creating an account with Bloglines was easy enough, but will I visit it each day to read my feeds? Probably not.
My feed for this post with ABC news, again was easy to do. I am very impressed with Bloggers set up. It is so easy to use. I will look for other, more relevant feeds as I continue Learning 2.0, adding them as I go.
For libraries, RSS feeds or alerts could certainly play an important part. As others have mentioned in the Learning blog, customers who do not visit the library on a regular basis but are still interested in what is happening will find them a great service. It is just another way we can keep in touch with our community through Web 2.0.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Still playing around with Flickr. Just had to take the 'Adventure' challenge and posted a few photos of our library. I organized another set with my photos to separate them from family photos I have on there already.
This proved to be quite easy, and a word search and tag search found my photos fine, except for one that seems to be missing when I do a word search. Can't work out why, as I have all the same tags on each photo.
Will try again later and see if it manages to find the truant photo!
How is every one else going with Flickr? Probably way past it, as I did start a week behind. Thought I could easily catch up, but there seems to be so much to look at the time quickly gets away.
Never mind ... forward and onward!
This proved to be quite easy, and a word search and tag search found my photos fine, except for one that seems to be missing when I do a word search. Can't work out why, as I have all the same tags on each photo.
Will try again later and see if it manages to find the truant photo!
How is every one else going with Flickr? Probably way past it, as I did start a week behind. Thought I could easily catch up, but there seems to be so much to look at the time quickly gets away.
Never mind ... forward and onward!
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