Week 9: The Last One

Well, I didn't think I'd get this far to be honest! So I'm glad and relieved to be here. It hasn't always been easy, mostly to do with time constraints and my developing level of technical ability. Now that it's finished I can see that I've learnt quite a lot and I feel more confident finding my way round a lot of these sites, some of which I'd either not heard of before or was only vaguely familiar with.
I have developed some skills along the way and have increased my knowledge in areas that I probably wouldn't have bothered with if I hadn't had to. I may not need or want to revisit some of the sites, but it's good to be familiar with them. And there are some sites that I definitely enjoyed and would make use of again.
As for the usefulness of the training for my role in the library - I see it as being helpful in a more general rather than specific way. I am now armed with more knowledge than I had when I started Web 2.0 and greater confidence in sharing that knowledge with others.

Week 9: Ebooks and Downloadable Media

It was good to check out something on our very own library website - a reassuring feeling of familiarity! I've been through most of this before, but it's always good to have a refresher. We have some great resources on our website and it's good to be reminded of them and to pass on that info to our customers. The Tumblebooks and Tumblereadables are fun for kids and something I will remeber to recommend to mums.
Another area that is well worth a look is the ebooks and perhaps something that the average library user is not aware of. I think this is particularly useful for students as there are a lot of classic books and study notes. This was the sort of thing I concentrated on in the NetLibrary when choosing my favourites because I wanted to see what I could recommend to a desperate student, for example, who couldn't find a thing on the shelves about To Kill a Mockingbird or Hamlet or whatever book is on the syllabus at the time.
Downloadable Media is a great service with a big selection of books for entertainment or education. I don't think the older generation is making much use of it because of the technology, so audiobooks will be found on our shelves for a while yet - but it has definite appeal to younger, more mobile and computer savvy people.

Week 9: Podcasts

I was new to Podcasts - have heard a lot about them, but never checked them out before. This was interesting, and once again amazing, to see the sheer volume of information available. I had a look through the various podcast directories, but having limited time to work my way through them had to decide on one and go for it, more or less. I can see that an awful lot of time can be spent, and quite possibly wasted, on this - similar to youtube in that respect. Once again, selectivity is important. Perhaps it has some use in a library environment, in terms of instruction and information sharing.

I found some interesting podcasts on books, reviews etc. This one is called Books on the Nightstand.

Week 9: Youtube

Youtube is something I'm familiar with. Yes there's a lot of rubbish on it, but there's a lot of good stuff, too. Always good for a quick bit of entertainment. It's informative, too - have found some useful hints on home maintenance and cooking recently. I've added a clip of Sheldon's response to gift giving.

Week 8 Online Productivity and Web 2 Awards List

I found Google Docs a useful tool. I can see that it would be great to save docs and upload files to one place so you can access, share, edit etc from any computer. I was able to sign in quite easily as I already had an existing account, but then I had trouble uploading files. I read all the instuctions, did the trouble shoot and so on, but no matter how many files I tried, I always got the same message - server error. So I don't know if this is something I'm doing wrong, or if there's a problem with the computer. I then tried making a simple document and saving it. this seemed to go OK. Here's the link.

Then I checked out the Web 2 winners. I settled on books and had a look at Lulu and Biblio. They are quite different in what they do. Lulu is a website which enables authors to publish their own work for free and sell it to their particular audience, with publishing tools provided so they can format and upload. It has millions of registered users and visitors each month, so the published work potentially reaches a huge audience. You can take advantage of their specialised tools and packages, become members of groups, follow blogs, buy, sell, and connect to others. It seems to be a very clear and well thought out website, easy to get around and full of links and information. I don't see it as being of particular use to the library, however. I liked Biblio a lot because I'm a huge fan of second-hand book shops and this one kind of brings the whole thing online with an independent book seller philosophy behind it. The user has the ability to buy new and used books from over 5,500 independent booksellers globally. Some of the profits are channelled back into helping literacy and providing books in poorer communities. This again is probably not of particular use for a library other than providing some information on sourcing rare or hard to get books.

Week 7 Wikis

This week I explored wikis and checked out some of the recommended ones to get a feel of how they work.While they are all places where knowledge can be pooled in a collaborative way by anyone, they also have differences in they way they present their information and in the amount of content, links, editing options etc. It seems to me that in some cases the wikis give information, but after that there probably isn't much more need for it to be added to changed or whatever, because the information is pretty good as it stands. So from that point of view, I'm not so sure how they differ from a regular website, apart from the fact that the option is there for anyone to take part if they want. I enjoyed looking around the various wikis and seeing just how much information we have at our disposal. Sometimes this make me feel a little dizzy though
- the old information overload problem again!
I like the idea of people being able to contribute their knowledge for sharing with others with similar interests and this concept seems ideal to a library environment where rapid turn over of information about books, reviews, events, technology, learning programmes etc would be very uselful and enriching.
I logged in to the ACL PB Wiki and went to favourite blogs where I added my blog to the list. This was a pleasant exercise because it went without a hitch and showed me how easy it is to add info to a wiki.

Week 6: Library 2.0, Web 2.0: The Future of Libraries

I found the articles interesting and quite thought-provoking. It's hard to fully imagine where libraries are heading as things are moving so quickly. The way one can access information has altered radically in recent times. Now it's possible to get information about anything at any time from sources that can be accessed directly, and not have to rely on an organisation to provide it for you. You actually don't have to leave your home to get a book or specialised information any more. This has changed the kind of relationship patrons have with their library which is evolving more and more into a kind of collaborative and sharing environment. People still want to come to the library, join in activities, share a sense of community and know that there is a safe and welcoming place where they can spend some quality time, get the information they require, or enjoy a specific experience. I like the quote: "Libraries are not merely in communities, they are communities."I see this as being the way a library might feel in the future - a place where there is a lot of interactivity and user participation, information sharing and education.

Week 6: Delicious and Technorati

Delicious gave me some trouble joining and logging on, but eventually I got there. I added 10 websites of interest, mostly to do with books and this part of the process went surprisingly smoothly. Relief! (As an aside, I believe that the time frame set for the exercises and the amount of work required to complete them seriously needs to be reassessed. Realistically it is taking a lot longer than the suggested one hour per week, especially for part-timers - and that is time that cannot be spared at the workplace, consequently it is being done at home.)
Anyway, back to Delicious: I find it quite a good site for people who want to manage lots of sites of interest which they want to access from different locations. You can tag, save and share all from one central point and get more info on other helpful sites if you want. Information sharing is an integral part of library services and I can see this having benefit for libraries.
My link to my Delicious account is:http://delicious.com/Katharine_2020
I then signed up to Technorati. I can't see a great deal of use for this one in the library because it appears to be all about blogs, which although interesting for some, would probably not be essential in terms of information gathering. I had no luck with claiming my blog as there didn't appear to be any way to make a connection to this, either through the link you provided or through the site itself.
I'm finding the things we are required to join with their log-ons, sign-ins, passwords, email addresses etc becoming somewhat unwieldy - ever more stuff to keep in mind so that I can access even more stuff to keep me up to speed. This (along with having so much of my personal information out there) is a part of sharing in the internet community that I'm not overly comfortable with, because although it makes things simpler on one level, it also adds more and more things to keep abreast of and to monitor. I guess the trick is to find the level you're comfortable with and only take as much out of it as you need.

Week 5 Rollyo

Rollyo is not working, so I will leave this for now and continue on to the next exercise

LibraryThing Week 5

I really liked Librarything. It's a great place to catalogue your books so that you can remember what you've read, check out what other people are reading, get recommendations, reviews, find similar reads and discover completely different reads. As usual, there's a huge amount of information out there, I have to train myself to be a bit selective or I could be on there for hours! So far this is the one I've enjoyed the most because it has a lot of relevance for me personally and professionally Anything that expands my knowledge of books has got to be an asset to my job, especially in the readers advisory area and in sourcing interesting reads for my housebounds and bookclubs.

Week 4 Twitter

I've never really seen the point of twitter to be honest - all those people updating their every move and thought, so a whole bunch of other people can share in it. So for me this was purely an informative exercise to see how it's done. I checked out the twitter site, made an account and signed up for a few areas that took my interest, but I most likely will not be using it. However, I can see that it is hugely popular and culturally relevant, so cannot dismiss it, simply because it's not my cup of tea. I think it does have use for businesses and organisations where effective, up to date output of information is vital, and the library would obviously fit into this category.
This is my twitter link:
http://twitter.com/bluemoonmuser
Here are two tweeters I'm following:http://twitter.com/johnkeypm

http://twitter.com/GreenPeace

Week 4 RSS feeds

I set up a news reader on google which was pretty straighforward. Initially I opted to get the offered package of a dozen or so sites so I could get to see how it worked quickly. That was interesting, although an information overload of stuff I probably didn't need to know that much about! I can see how it would be a good way to streamline all that info and cut it down to manageable amounts, but one would still have to be selective. It seems to me that this has its advantages and disadvantages. In terms of the library it obviously would be helpful to filter relevant information in areas like readers advisory, reviews, author info etc. and allow patrons to keep up with new additions to the catalogue and events at various locations. I did have some difficulty subscribing to some sites. Apparently some go automatically via Internet Explorer to be stored in the computer rather than directly onto my Google Reader, so you have to work your way round that. It seems that there is never only one way to do something, and sometimes, there seems to be no way at all!!
Here's the link to my google reader:http://www.google.com/reader/view/#overview-page

Image Generator

This was a bit of fun, but also quite a time waster. Hopefully my image comes through. they are not always easy to transfer and I'm not sure if the reason is to do with me or the computer or both! http://www.imagegenerator.net/create/magic8ball/

OK - looks like I've been successful which is good. I saved this one to "my pictures" again and then transferred it to my blog which seems to be the most effective option. Yay!

Editing Images

I found an image in Picnik and fiddled around with it using the various options. I adjusted the fuzzies, cropped it, rotated it and adjusted the colour. I can see that this would be a valuable tool for anyone wanting to edit their photos.

Mashups

I've had a look round the various apis, mashups etc and while it's always worthwhile finding out about new things, I have to say that none of them exactly intrigued me. Somehow they just don't seem to have a lot of relevance for the way I lead my life at the moment. It's good to see how creative people can be and to know that numerous options are available for me should I ever have a desire to do something like that. It amazes me that people can spend so much time doing all this and that others seem to be constantly monitoring what other people are doing and finding the time to comment on it. How do they fit in all the mundane everyday stuff of life as well as all this creative/communication activity?? Maybe I'm missing the point and once I had a real reason to use them I'd have an "aha" moment. Also, I imagine that the more one gets used to using these apps the easier it gets.

I rather liked the following apps on the Trading Card site http://http//bighugelabs.com/popart.php

http://http//bighugelabs.com/mosaic.php

I made a simple movie poster using a cute dog image from the library flickr account and must admit this was fun to do! It doesn't look great, but I imagine if I spent more time on it I could try out different things and get a better result. At this stage I'm running behind... who said this would be an hour a week? Nowhere near it. Especially for those of us who are finding parts of it a challenge. I hope I can speed up over the next few exercises...

Week Three: Flickr

Flickr is an interesting site for those who are keen on sharing their photos and keeping in touch with like minded people. I've enjoyed looking around and seeing some of the amazingly diverse images created by some talented and creative people. That being said though, I probably wouldn't be a user of it myself. still it's good to be familiar with it and learn a few skills finding my round.

I've picked an image that appealed to me for no other reason than it looks stunning
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sheldonnalos/4371517647/#blogthis.

I managed to add the picture by sending it to my pics and copying it from there, but was unable to do this directly from flickr. It seemed to disappear every time I tried.

Week 2 - checking out bebo, myspace, facebook...

This was a bit of a learning curve. I'm already familiar with Facebook because I have a profile there which I originally started to keep in touch with my son who was travelling in South America. I don't use it much at all, but it's good to touch base with it now and then. I've tried attaching a link which a friend put on Facebook about finding your double. That was a fairly frustrating business because it was all new to me and I had to look around all over the place and read up on "how to", and am still not sure if I've been successful. I'll see what happens once I've posted this blog. I've checked out bebo and myspace, but other than for the sake of this exercise, don't think they will be something I would use much at all. I find the sheer amount of information and the busyness of the screens distracting. I checked out one of my son's bands on myspace and found that entertaining because there's info on there that I didn't know about! On the whole I'm glad I've become more familiar with the workings of these sites and hope I've managed to learn a new skill with putting links onto my blog. Here's the linkwww.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/FIND-YOUR-LOOK-ALIKE-IN-THE-WORLD/172975500669?ref=nf

Getting Started on Web 2

Today is the day I start on Web 2. I've signed on, created myself a gmail address and a blog. It all went surprisingly smoothly, apart from a few of my suggested login names and blog names already being taken which I guess is to be expected given the number of bloggers out there. I'm still playing around with the look of my blog which is fun. I like the idea of tweaking it according to my fancy and hope that this process will also help me learn more about editing and how blogs work. Looking forward to the next step!