The final countdown

I joined Facebook last year when my daughter went overseas and although I am not a regular participant I do enjoy the interaction and the wide variety of applications it has to offer. I love the idea of libraries being on Facebook or other social networking sites and I have now become a fan of The British Library.

A Facebook (or other social networking service) page could complement or maybe even be an alternative to a library website for libraries with little IT or technical backup to keep a website updated. A Facebook or Bebo page could be suitable for teen groups in libraries. It may help to boost their membership numbers and enable them to interact with similar groups in other libraries.

These sites may also provide an alternative method of answering client queries especially those about local history or genealogy. Other members beside library staff just may have valuable information to provide.

If a number of libraries were involved there may be lots of opportunities to share resources or expertise. Perhaps an online book discussion group with members in a number of different libraries….

It has been an informative and exciting 12 weeks. A bit of information overload and I feel that I have only scratched the surface of each module's content. Hopefully it will all still be up there to refer to every now and again when I have a moment of inspiration and think "I know how we can do that!"

It's all online

The library newsletter came straight to mind when I started this module. At the moment staff members take a month each to compose the newsletter with contributions from other colleagues. This requires a lot of emailing back and forth. Google docs would make this much easier. Maybe we could all work on the newsletter together with one person responsible for the final editing and tidying up….

After creating and (hopefully) sharing a document with Google docs I set up an account and played around with Zoho. It seemed to offer a few more options as far as editing text and formatting goes. It looked a bit more complicated though so Google docs would probably be an easier option for a first time user.

I loved Zamzar too. We have been looking for a way to convert files to pdf format for ages but I thought we needed expensive software or equipment. How wrong I was! We could convert our newsletter to pdf now to put it onto the library website.

I was impressed by the Tada list from the Slideshare slideshow. That could make me just that little bit more organised perhaps!!

Will I mess up the mashup?

Some great possibilities with mashups.... the Star Viewer was really amazing. I have a few friends and family members who would be really interested to explore it so I will be sending a link to them although they probably know all about it already!

There are so many different types of mashups that there would be plenty of ways to use them in the library. The Big huge labs image generator would provide some great images for the library newsletter or website while Google maps could be used to set up an information page for tourists or backpackers about our region. Could Voicethread be used for an online book review or book discussion perhaps? The possibilities are endless I'm sure.

Now to see if my mashup has worked. Big huge labs was easy to use and I had lots of fun playing with it. I will try to upload a photo mosaic I made of random ballooning pictures from Flickr which were taken over Easter in our town.

Plenty of podcasts

A much better week... I was already familiar with podcasting as I have been catching up on favourite ABC radio and TV shows that I miss at home for a while now. I enjoyed checking out a few different ones though for this module.

The British Library site was very easy to follow - more so than the ABC I think - but both have a lot to offer. I got hooked on the kids stuff that I found through the Library Success wiki. What a great idea Denver Library has to podcast readings of popular kids books. The children's librarian inside me wants to run out now and record the shortlisted Children's Book Week selection ASAP! The Online Education Database would have been wonderful when I was studying. I didn't actually listen to any of those podcasts as I was a bit too tired at the time to take in such heavy topics!

Libraries could do so much with podcasting. My heart lies with children's services so I would love to follow Denver's lead and podcast kids stories - maybe as a follow up to our regular storytime session. Podcasts of the rhymes and songs we use for our lapsit sessions would also be useful for the mums as an accompaniement to the sheets we hand out - just in case they have forgotten the tune.

Podcasts and vodcasts, online video - all are ideal tools for staff education. Inservice sessions would be much more accessible when there was no travelling involved.

Q but not sure about the A's

Have tried a couple more questions on Yahoo!7 Answers with varying results. Have had one or two reasonable answers but a number of frivolous if not downright rude responses. I can see the value in this type of service but I wouldn't take it too seriously. After all the answers are obviously provided by the general public who do not necessarily have any expertise in the particular subject area. I think I will stick to the Ask a Librarian sites.

Q and A

I didn't find a question I felt I could answer on Yahoo!7 Answers but I did post a question - in the pets category about rabbits of course! It was a little bit tricky because I tried to add an email address but we got there in the end.
I was amazed to find answers to my query popping up within half an hour. Some good suggestions too some of which confirmed what I suspected. The answers did vary though as my question was fairly open but I might even try this again.

Slamming the Boards

Being a small library I’m not sure how well used such an online service would be at this stage. With lots of promotion it may take off, particularly with the younger members but we would need to have the time to be able to keep it maintained. Most of our patrons enjoy the face to face service we already offer and would not bother to rate or review items in our collection or services we offer.

We do have an Ask A Local Librarian - link on our website with a link to the State Library of NSW Ask a librarian service. We do get occasional requests from people from other areas who usually need information about some aspect of our community or its history – genealogy requests more often than not.

The possibilities for the future are endless, however and I would love to think that within a couple of years our library will also be way up there with the best of the big libraries. This course is showing me so many ways that we could improve or complement our existing service which is so exciting and I look forward to being able to implement some of them eventually. I just have to remember – baby steps!

I'm so over 'Week 7'....

For various reasons I have been labouring over the Week 7 module for almost a month and now I'm over it! I have looked at Technorati and Library Thing and was pretty impressed but I really need to move on right now so I will come back to the Adventure section at a later stage.

I was going well for the first 6 weeks but I think that the second half of the course is going to be a bit of a chore. But I am not giving up! I will not quit half way through...

Its delicious

It has been a couple of weeks since I have been into my blog - or any other learning 2.0 stuff either. I have a bit of catching up to do!
Setting up a delicious account was quite simple - but adding lots of bookmarks is going to take time. One of these days I will add lots more I am sure. I don't do a lot of bookmarking at work anyway as I don't really have the time to use them! Now I just have to add a link to my blog - hope it works!
I can see lots of possibilities for using this tool in libraries. A link on the library website or online catalogue would open up so many more options to our borrowers. But once again it is time - or lack of it - needed to set it up then maintain the lists. In a perfect world......

Spamalot

I'm a self-confessed Monty Python tragic and have just been to Melbourne to see Spamalot and loved it so I will see if I can embed a related video into my blog.
Here goes....

Videos, videos and more videos

When I started this module I thought 'Oh good, a nice short one...' Wrong!! There is so much to see on YouTube that I spent hours browsing one topic after another. (Just as well I was doing it at home.)
I found Google video to be a great way to search on a particular topic because the YouTube videos were always included in the list of hits. There were some great Lego videos and some great ones about our town as well. I briefly looked at Kogarah but then went local to see if there was anything there.
One thing I did discover was that there are some wonderful videos out there but there is an awful lot of rubbish as well. Sometimes it takes a while to sift the decent ones out -even with library related videos. There are so many possibilities for libraries to get their message out there but once again time is always a big factor in a smaller library. But who knows - one day we may even produce a 'speaking newsletter'!

RSS again - would you believe?

I know I wasn't all that wrapped in RSS. To me it was much the same as using bookmarks or favourites which I have to have time to remember to check regularly but by adding them to my blog which I am checking reasonably regularly - while I am participating in this course at least - I actually can see the point!
Our teen group is going to participate in the travelling pants project this year and an email arrived yesterday to say that info will be available on the Jean Genies Wiki. So I have added a feed to my blog which I will be wanting to check regularly.
I might even get around to practising a few Wiki skills as well......

Wikis - Wow!!

I thought I knew about wikis but this week I am certainly discovering how little I did know. Lots of possibilities there for a library I think. After week 2 and the discovery of blogs I thought my fledgling Teen group might be able to set up one but now I wonder whether a wiki would be the way to go. Perhaps both? There are so many new possibilities for us now.
I had a look at some of the recommended examples and was most impressed with the variety of uses for a wiki especially for a library.

The Book Lovers Wiki at the Princeton Public Library was a great example although I couldn't easily find my back to it from the library homepage. Perhaps we could have a reading group for any patrons who cannot come to the regular 'in-house' discussions but would still love to be a part of a group.
Maybe book-of-the month book reviews?

Local history and genealogy wikis would be ideal for a library. A great way for us to expand upon and utilise our small but popular local history collection.

I have 'fed' my blog - I think

Looks like it worked! The CousinConnect genealogy feed is there on my page. Still not sure how I did it. I've got the idea but the process is still a bit iffy.
I would like to have more time now to play around with this to explore the millions of possibilities it can open up. Time is always the big problem though so maybe on the weekend...

RSS again

I have had another go at the RSS thing and am now vaguely more conversant with what it is all about. I understand what it is and what it does but I am not too sure whether what I have done is correct. I now have my 5 feeds appearing near my favourites tab and listed as well as when I go into Bloglines. There seems to have been a bit of double handling somewhere!
The suggested feeds were the ones I chose - mainly because the whole process was a bit stressful and that was easier but today I managed to find a genealogy feed to add.
I do like the technology and can see how useful it would be to some people who need to spend a lot of time keeping up with the latest news in their field of work.
I don't think it will be a terribly useful tool for me at work, however, as I simply don't have the time to spend at my computer doing anything other than my work - which I am so far behind in that I will never catch up.

I found my photos..

My photos finally appeared on Flickr. So I must have done it correctly. It obviously takes a while for them to be loaded or something - it probably even says that somewhere. All part of the learning process I guess. It just takes patience!
Maybe I might even figure out Bloglines...

A bad case of Mondayitis???

Thought I would start first thing with my daily dose of Learning 2.0. Up to week 4 : RSS.
This one has got me stumped. I understood the video and the introductory stuff but the Discover section pulled me right up! I think I created a Bloglines account but then I hit a brick wall. It may have been in Chinese for all the sense I could make of the Bloglines page. I played around with the recommended feeds?? but have no idea what I did. I think I had better leave it and come back later - but I think this week's assignments will earn me a big fat 'F'.

Are they on Flickr?

I thought I had added some photos to Flickr - just a few from our very successful "Silly Moos" storytime. The cows jumping over the moon worked well.
I did get permission to use the photos of the couple of adults who may be recognised.
They weren't great shots. I am definitely a 'happy snapper' so there is never any great artistic merit in my photos but I did want to see if I could get them onto Flickr. It looked like it had worked but when I went back to check by searching for nswpln2008 they don't appear.
Oh well I tried.....

Adolorata Cemetery, Malta

Adolorata Cemetery, Malta
Originally uploaded by talors

Hopefully this will work. I have resorted to the Flickr blogging tool and will give this a try....
Another amazing photo from the cemetery in Malta. I really can't wait to get there. It will be wonderful to see all this beautiful architecture but there will be a sense of sadness there too for the great uncle we never knew who has lain here for over ninety years without any visits from his family.
As far as we know we will be the first of his relatives to have visited his grave but I have recently heard from a second cousin who is planning a trip to Malta the month after us. He also felt that it was time for some family to make the pigrimage to Uncle Jack's grave. So after ninety three years this beautiful place will be visited twice by members of our family.

So many pictures...

I could spend hours looking at the photos on Flickr. Trying to decide which one to post was difficult - there were just so many pictures I could relate to or just fabulous images I loved.

They got me dreaming about my big holiday later in the year so I settled on photos of Malta and found some great photos of the Adolorata Cemetery there. Two of my sisters and I are heading to Britain to visit my daughter ( the grandbunny's mother) and are stopping in Malta en route to find our great uncle's grave at that cemetery. He was wounded at Gallipoli and died and was buried in Malta in August 1915.

I did try to upload the actual photo but kept getting that horrible little red cross thing and no image. Don't know what I am doing wrong. So here is a link that should (hopefully) take you there.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/10863952@N05/990163409/

I will have another go later to see if I can get an actual photo there.

reduce, reuse and recycle

A minor crisis today! It's Storytime tomorrow - the theme Silly moos (or just plain old cows if you like) and the craft activity wasn't ready. First problem was getting paper plates. There are lots of lovely plastic ones in the stores but not many plain old paper ones any more - especially in the small size.
Time ran out and we still needed something to help the cow jump over the moon. Then it struck me - apologies to the @ your library team but just what do you do with all those leftover bookmarks? That's right reduce their number by reusing and recycling them as turning mechanisms for our simple cow craft tomorrow. Worked well don't you think?

The next step

Next step - search for other library related blogs using Technorati. It took me a minute or two to find my way around Technorati but I did eventually find a number of library related blogs. I must admit I was fitting this in to my daily 15 minutes so couldn't spend a long time on it.

I wanted to find blogs that have been set up by other public libraries to see how we might use a blog in our library. There were some great ones there so I will come back later for a better look.

Stepping into the unknown...

My first blog post. What a concept! I didn't think I would ever be doing this. I do know about blogs and have looked at a few but thought that was for the young and techno minded... not me!

But here I am and it is actually quite exciting. A little bit scary - but I am looking forward to the whole Learning 2.0 program. I hope I will gain a lot from it and I know it will be valuable for my work in the library. I can already see great possibilities for my new teen group.

Looking at some of the other blogs created for this program has been both very intimidating and reassuring. Some participants are obviously already very comfortable with all things technical but I was pleased to see that there are others out there who will be starting from scratch as I will be.

It's a big step for me - but I am really looking forward to the next 12 weeks and am already seeing the possibilities for our library.