Week 12 Social Networking

So the end is here, after 12 weeks (has it really been that long?) we have finally reached the end of the road....and what a road it has been!

Social networking? We do it all the time and probably don't even realise that we are doing it. I will admit that I hadn't gone as far as thinking about something like that specifically for our library, but it has so much potential! However you come up against the "you can't do that" or "you can't have access to that" problems.

But social networking goes even further than Blogs (I've found Live Journal is a really great way to netword, adding friends is so easy) and messaging. A lot of online games also have a social networking aspect to them as well. Free games like Runescape (you create a character and fight monsters, other players and complete quests, lots of fun!) to sites like Pogo (has things from card games to casino, but it is a pay site) and even WoW (World of Warcraft) all have and rely on a social aspect where people meet, greet and interact.

As for social networking in the Library, it has so much potential. You could get groups of people together who are interested in similar things, eg family history, kids clubs, mystery readers.

Broken Hill City Library has it's own website, which I try to keep up to date, but as with every website it has it's limits. You can't talk to like minded people, it's kind of isolating but it does have most of the information that you need, including what's happening.

So where does this leave libraries? I have always thought that the internet is a great resource for those who know how to use it, and for those who are willing to learn. I do believe it is under used in some situations and abused in others. But it is the way that the world is going. People like the speed with witch it works (most of the time) and with the way things are developing the internet has a great future and is going to be a great way to bring people together. I know using the internet and social networking has broadened my own horizons and circle of friends and allowed me to do things that just wouldn't have been possible in the past. We just have to be able to keep up, or at least not to far behind, and see where the ride will take us!

So here's to all who have completed the Learning 2.0 program, and I hope that everyone got as much out of it as I did. I know I've already employed some of the things that I've learned about in my daily work at our library and I intend to continue to share this knowledge.

Have fun and keep surfing people!

Week 11 Online Docs

So we are just one week away from the end of the course and what fun it has been!

This week we looked at online docs. I've been using Zoho for a while now and have shown it to a lot of people who have been coming through our library (our Word Processor has up and died and our Net Pc's don't have word on them....lots of problems) and I've always been impressed with what it can do. So I was interested to see what Google Doc's was like. I must say I was a little disappointed. Google Doc's looks good on the outside, but when you look closer you're probably better off using notepad. But having said that it is still a good alternative to Office and other programs that you have to have installed on your comp. Google Doc's has the basics for what most people need/want to do, and I will admit that it is very easy to find and start new documents with Google Doc. Zoho can be a little more difficult if your not sure where to look.

I have read a couple of blogs where people are saying that yes online docs are ok but they much prefer to use the programs that are on their computers. While I love having the programs loaded onto my computer, (and I will admit that my home computers have all the programs that I want on them) I tend to use a lot of different computers while I am at work. Sometimes I find it easier and faster to use Zoho for ease of use and time.

As with everything there are fors and againsts for them. Personally I've been using Zoho for a while now, and will continue to do so because of the ease of use and availability (ok so I have a laptop at home, and hey they tend to be small on space!). I'll also probably tell more people about Google Docs (well the ones who want a super basic WP tool).

As for other uses in the library...well I've already set up a Zoho account for our library staff to use, now it's just a matter of getting people to use it instead of fighting over the comps with Office on them!

D'oh! I did it again.....forgot those pesky little tags at them

Jigsaw Mashup Week 10

I've just got my new toy (a lovely new Canon 450D camera) and was playing with it in the back yard (ok so it wasn't my own back yard) and thought I'd play around with some of the image mashups available on bighugelabs. I can see myself playing with this site a bit over the coming months.

Week 10 Mashups

Not sure if this is going to work.....it should be either a link or a pic of a wallpaper of a Duststorm that we had recently. I took the photo out the front of our library (the storm was winding down as this photo was taken).

Week 9 Podcasts and Audio

I was really looking forward to this week, but found myself given a quick lesson in frustration. I love my Podcasts and Vodcasts (video podcasts), but I have come to the conclussion that accessing them is WAY easier and less stressful with iTunes and my iPod. Having said that I will also state that I did get something useful out of this weeks lesson. I now know how to easily add feds that aren't easily tracked down using iTunes (some Australian websites have great casts that aren't accessed through the iTunes search and RSS) and that I can actually access podcasts without my iPod or iTunes (though not as easily).

So I ended up splitting this week into two days, I just got to frustrated using Juice (the program I ended up using to download and manage my feeds on my work computer) and needed to let my mind simmer on how it really worked. After letter it simmer for a night I came back the next day and got it to work soo easily (compared to yesterday). While it works and does the job I still prefer my iTunes. It is just so user friendly. You tell it what you want and walk away from it and the next time you log onto iTunes it downloads what you want really quickly (I used to be impressed with iTunes speed, but after waiting for the downloads on Juice I'm even more impressed) and then you can either watch it on your computer or plug your iPod (or mp3 player) in and it dumps it all on there for you to take away! How easy is that? (In case you hadn't guessed I'm a Mac/Apple fan from way back)

I breifly trawled through some of the Library sites that had casts, only to find that some of them were near impossible to find the cast, while others were simple to find and interesting to see what they were using podcasts for. I loved the idea of using the casts to get readers into a book, or to keep them up to date with what was happening in their library. But I found it really frustrating when the link said that they had podcasts and no matter where I looked I couldn't find it....might have just been me.

Also loved the education casts, I've found a couple that I'll probably look into more when I have a spare couple of hours....ok so maybe I'll get them for my iPod and try learning them while I sleep :oP

As for using Yahoo Podcast Search? Well I guess I must have been doing something wrong because while I could search for audio and video the results that I got were not what I'd call podcasts. Yes I could download the stuff I found (and some if it was from pay sites which I didn't do for this) most of what I found were from file share sites or peer to peer sites. The only way that I could better search for podcasts of any discription was to type in the key words and put podcast or video podcast at the end of the search.

So my conclusion after this week?

I'm sticking with iTunes and my iPod.

Week 8 Explore, Discover and Adventure

Answer Boards and Social Searching, what can you say about that. In short, I think it can be a great resource. But like with all resources available it can be prone to abuse and misuse. I have acutally used Yahoo Answers to answer a reference enquiry in the past because we had exhausted all of our resourses, and though I only got a couple of answers to my question (it really was a strange one) the answers I got were exactly what we were after, so it was all good! But having looked around a little on Yahoo Answers this time I was surprised at some of the answers that were being posted, one or two word answers (ok yes sometimes that is all you need) and sometimes the answers didn't even stand up to the most basic of research. However there are some out there who really do give great answers and they make all the difference!

I love the idea of "slamming the boards", it's a great way of reminding people about libraries and that we don't just have books anymore we have soooo much more! But we need to find a way to get that back out to the people who don't use libraries because they either don't have the time or they think of them as dark dusty places where you have to be quiet (I love that one, definately not quiet here or many other libraries that I've been to recently) that only has shelves and shelves of books that are hard to find.

We have talked about (and been asked about) having an answer board type thing on our web site, and while we have talked about it the one thing that keeps coming back is time. I know that finding time to just keep our website up to date and working is very hard what with all the other jobs that we have to do around here, and the thought of having a "ask a librarian" component is both exciting and terrifying. Simply put we just don't have the time to do it :o(

However having said that we don't have the time, I can see myself spending a little time every month doing my little part "slamming the boards".

For the adventure this week? Well lets just say I used it as a two fold exercise. First up I was putting in my time doing this fun course :oD and then also taking some time to exercise my net searching skills looking for some answers. I had a ball! And ok so I researched a couple of questions that I didn't actually post answers to but still it was great fun doing the research.

Now it's time to start fighting my new addiction........answerboards!


Oh and if anyone is interested the picture was found on Flickr and is by *regina*

Week 7 Discover 2

Ok I played with Techonrati earlier (back around week two or somthing) and I wasn't really impressed with the site, yes it allows you to search for blogs, but is it really user friendly? Not really. And after playing with it again this week I'm still not a huge fan of it. But having said that it does get around to making links to a lot of blogs. I was really surprised, ok so I was really tired at the time and wanted something mindless to search for, I did a search for my user name to see if it had picked up this blog yet but found that it had found my other blog over on Live Journal. Very cool I must admit :0D Ok and I will admit that it was easier to use now that I am more familiar with it....but for those who are new to Technorati...maybe not.

Library Thing is WONDERFUL. I love it :o) It's a one stop pit stop for all those who love to read! And the fact that you can sort your own library and books you've read is just so much FUN! Also good if you know what your looking for so that you can see what other people have thought about it (no more getting stuck buying really crappy books) and you can leave your own reviews....what better way of sharing books are there (ok for you purists out there the face to face way is probably preferable, but for those of you like me who tend to read at 2am and do computer stuff at odd hours it just rocks!) But more on my adventures with Library Thing in my next post...when I have more than 30 seconds to spare :o)

Week 7 Discover

Tags, those annoying little things that your supposed to put in after you finish writing up your latest post. Well I'm sure I'm not the only one who regularly forgets to add them when I'm doing my posts! So I'm forever going back over my posts, both here and on livejournal (on my blog and on the community blogs that I'm a member of) and adding those pesky little words at the end....Having said that and looking at this weeks subject I know know just how useful those pesky little words are! I had never really put much thought into them before, sure I knew that they were there and that they made searching for that one post (ok so most blogs I look at are fanfic based so I'm really looking for something to read).

I'd heard of del.icio.us before, but had never even been tempted to look at it or even use it, before today that is. I'd stopped using favourites (mainly because my computer really really didn't like favourites and tended to freakout and freeze on me) ages ago and now use bookmarks, simply because they worked and could be transported from computer to computer (yahoo is really great that way), but I tend to revert back to typing the url in because I now have so many that it takes ages to sort through them to find the ones I want (unless I've just done a clean up of my bookmarks and put them in their own little folders), but now I think I'll be using del.icio.us more often....it looks like it could be a lot of fun. I've also thought about starting an account for our library website (much more stream lined and easier to search for the right link that the list of links that I currently use on the site)

And look at that...I remembered to put the tags in before I post this time. But that may be because I put them in in the middle of typing this post :o)

Week 6 Discover

While I was starting this weeks exercise one of my co-workers asked "What does that have to do with work?" I simply turned and smiled and said "What doesn't it?"

Ok so granted I had just started to check out the "lego" search and gratned we don't get a whole lot of people walking into the library asking for information or anything about lego, but it was such a fun way of getting into youtube! I spent a good 10 minutes or so just laughing at what some people had done with a camera and some lego....and some people say I have to much time on my hands!

While I'm no stranger to playing with youtube, I had never actually gone past that before. Now I have a new playground on the net and it's Google Videos! There is just so much more that you can do with them! I used to have fun with YouTube, but with Google Videos there are so many more, and more options for them...I loved the fact that with GoogleVideo's you can actually download them (if you have an iPod or PSP to play with) and share them with friends that way......I've had fun showing friends one I stumbled across called Jurasic Fart, I now know what happened to the dinosaurs!

But if your looking for a laugh and you don't get offended easily do a search for an American comdedian called Sara Silverman, very funny :o)

Or you can just check out this clip!

Week 5 Discover

When you hear people talking about Wikipedia you get one of two responses...they either LOVE it or HATE it, there doesn't seem to be an inbetween. I have to say that before I did this weeks exercise I was firmly in the hate category. It just seems to open and unreliable to be used as an information source. Even after doing this weeks work, I have to say I'm still not going to be rushing to use Wikipedia as an information source, however I will not rule it out completely. As with everything you need to gather your info from a varitey of sources (yes it's been firmy drummed into me over the years!).

There are some great wiki's out there that are great fun to look at and play with and such a wide variety of information available...and the different uses for wiki's? Well I must admit that I hadn't really taken the time to play around with them to see what they could do before. Most of the stuff I've looked at before have been basic almost encyclopedia entries. But looking at the different uses for both information and gaming (yes I've even looked up some of the wiki's for my favourite games!) I've been really impressed.

I've come to the conclusion that for some things wiki's are fantastic! ie. games like WoW and RPG's where multiple people need to have input and have the ability to add to what's already there...for some things this is just invaluable because the workload of keeping a website up to date and current is heavy and in some cases fatal! Many a good website has fallen by the wayside because of the time and skills needed to keep the site current, if these sites had had access to wiki's then they could probably have still been around now.

As for using Wiki's in our library? Well I don't see it happening any time soon. But possibly one day in the far distant future we could use it for organising meetings for our writer's groups or different activities that are happening around the library. Or maybe even for our policies and procedures that are passed on either verbally or via little notes that are passed around (how many times have you typed up a procedure, especially for something new, and printed it out and stuck it in strategic places around the library?)

But for me the big thing is security and being able to trust what you find. Remember not everyone is internet savy enough to be continually double checking whatever they find or to look for the little tells on a website that show that they might not be so trust worthy. How often when you are looking for information do you read all the "small" print on a site? Yes Wiki's have a disclaimer (sometimes at the top of the page) saying to verify all information, but realistically how many people actually take the time to look for more information when they think they have found what they are looking for on their first stop at a wiki?