Thankyou

Thanks for the course I have gained some valuable skills that I can implement in my workplace.

Week 12.0

As I have mentioned previously we are in the final development stages of our own social networking site, that will incorporate 2.0 technology to allow our users to register as friends, communicate through a facebook style interface, comment about reviews placed by other readers. We are going to keep this site, we hope, to a book review only forum with a library land blog attached that any user can post to. The users will also be able to upload book related photos and video and stylise their own home page.

Our aim is to get reader to reader RA site that is moderated by us but run by the users, in the early stages it will be mostly staff posting which has been a success in the trials. I will post the URL here when we go live in January.

Week 11.0

These aps such as Google docs will cause a small amount of havoc at our library when the patrons finally catch on to them. We currently charge for the use of a word processor, but to use the internet is free. A savvy client could use this to get around paying!!! What is the world coming to.

We have experimented using Google docs for an online roster but we had too many problems with people changing them even though we locked the documents. Several people need access to the documents for rostering purposes and I guess the passwords just got out.

Still haven't found a decent alternative.

Week 10.1

This ID card could be fun for children's and teen events like murder mystery nights.

There are lots of promotional tools there as well.

Week 10.0

This is fun, have not seen this site before!

Week 9.0

We already use podcasts at our library, we put HSC talks and some author evenings on to the web. The HSC talks are very popular to the point that we are having trouble getting an audience for the speakers to talk to. They are all downloading it from home!

Week 8.0

I have never heard of this sort of open answering service. It sounds like a good idea, I like the way with a current question those answering can bounce ideas off each other before someone puts in a final answer. 

It makes it hard to conduct a reference interview though. As I'm sure you are aware a lot of the time people don't know how to ask for the information they really want.

I can see how librarians on the ref. desk could use some of their time to help answer questions, but when would we get the time to do our 2.0 course?

Week 7.2

Library thing is a tool we are going to integrate into our RA site. So I have spent some time playing with it. They have many useful API tools and have released 1 million of their book covers free to libraries. 

I had not actually signed up with my own account as I was more interested in the IT side of them, so it is probably a good thing to finally get an account.

Week 7.1

I couldn't find any difference using the advanced search for one word. Am I missing something?

It seems in the comments on this week that other people had problems finding nswpln2008 at the technorati site as well. Is this a tagging problem?

Week 7.0

Ah, it's been a madhouse here with the festival and other projects I haven't had time to get any where near this course. I have been playing with delicious and I think it's great. I have had numerous times that I have updated my computer and had to go through the pains of saving favourites from the three different browsers I use and then reinstalling them, or being on a foreign computer and forgetting the name of a site.

This could be very useful as a subject search tool for the HSC students, similar to what the Cleveland public library have done. I think if the people using it in a library sense were tagging in a more formal library style, it could be an easy way to create a reference handbook of authoratative sites.

http://delicious.com/twofruits

Week 6.1

Here is my daughter last year.

Week 6.0

After 15 minutes of searching I finally found one of the videos I put up on YouTube last year.

I don't use the account anymore since Blogger incorporated the 'Add Video' button. You don't need to go through a third party site like YouTube to upload your home movies anymore. They can go straight onto your blog.

YouTube and GoogleVideo are still fun to browse when your bored, but I don't use them at all anymore.

We are in the process of creating an RA site and we are trying to incorporate as many 2.0 tools as we can.

Week 5.2

The Mosman Library wikipedia site is quite good, it needs more references to become verified, but our web team has put a fair bit of work into it. There is a lot of room for expansion as the local history team could provide a lot more content.

Week 5.1

I put a little blurb on the wiki about animals I have removed from the library. It's nice to hear that other libraries have pets too.

Week 5.0

Where do people get the time to put all this information out there.

Wookieepedia! what can you say to that.

I like the idea of a library procedure manual online and one that any member of staff can add to, and I guess it would be a good way to sort out who had differing points of view about certain procedures that may not have been written down previously.

I find wiki's hard to look at, as they are often filled with large blocks of text and lists of links, that make surfing a trial. 

I prefer to find information in succinct paragraphs with pertinant links contained in the text. 

The mintwiki page was like this and looked to be created by a web designer, incorporating the snap view in the pages and keeping the text short and sweet.

The Subjectguides page was toooo busy and I couldn't look at it for long at all. It looks like it could be a very useful resource and has a lot of content, but it needs a make over so that your not blind after you have found what you want.

Week 4.0

Well, I have not had the best expeiences with RSS feeds before. But I am willing to give them another go. I think the trick is to not subscribe to too many sites as you get bombarded with so much information that you end up not reading any of it.

I subscribed to:

Powerhouse Museum - Photo of the day

ESPN

Librarian.net

The official Google blog

Guardian unlimited books

Keeping up with Google and other soft technology based companies is very important in my line of work and finding new products and services to integrate into the website is paramount.

Week 3.1

Here is a photo I took of some women washing their clothes in Panama. I love the subtle colours and the lighting in the arches.

Week 3.0

I have been browsing Flickr and as I already have a Flickr account and I work at Mosman library(which is the example) I am very familiar with the tool.

It is useful for finding images to use on web pages and promotional material but you have to be very careful with the copyright.

Week 2.0

This is a blog set up to participate in the NSW State Library 2.0 course. I have been conned into doing this by my supervisor so I hope it has some good stuff in it. I already use a lot of these tools so am hoping to find some learning gaps to fill.