My creation

My creation
Originally uploaded by hevs59

For Claire

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

#23 The last Post

Yep, it's the end of the trail for Web 2.0. I started off with a hiss and a roar, although I was uncertain about the reasoning behind the exercises and the application of many of them. By the end in 85% of the exercises, I had sorted out the rationale of me doing it and could see where it fitted in with regards to my job. The other 15% must be good for me - like eating vegetables perhaps! I hated the Technorati exercise (continuing the vegetable analogy, they are the peas of the programme!)
The programme got easier as I went through it which was good and was probably an indication of increased confidence, rather than increased ability.
Over and Out,
Hevs

#9 Locate a few useful Library related blogs and /or news feeds

http://www.bloglines.com/myblogs

I actually did this weeks ago but hadn't blogged it so I had to revisit it. In truth, I prefer adding rss feeds directly from specific publications etc for specific things like books reviews rather than use the search tools as I found them on the whole clumsy. I could not access Feedster today so looked at Syndic8 which I thought was easy to use, though not very pretty! It had a comment bit so discussions were going on - a chance to put your tuppence worth in - which is a plus really as it gets the brain working. It also had a new feed section and I found Marin County Free Library there and had a look at that. I looked at Topix which is for news I thought was the easiest to access. I put in Emma Agnew and got 2,217 hits which was brilliant really (heavens knows what I'd get if I put in Madelaine McCann). I remain unimpressed with Technorati which I think is cumbersome to use.

E- books

Confession: I have never looked at e-books on the basis that I like reading hard copies. After I signed in and got myself an account, I went exploring and found a wide range of subjects. I added some to my favourites . The book I would like to read is 'Britain, Soviet Russia and the Collapse of the Versailles Order, 1919-1939' . My impressions of NetLibrary were postive: its easy to use, and easy to subscribe to. I now will use it to find suitable material for the public.

Podcast

An interesting exercise - the explanation was good regarding what it was. I looked at the three links and typed in the search term 'library' in each. The Podcastalley,com had "The library survival guide' and I managed to get it going and listen to it. I then subscribed to it and added it to my Bloglines Account as an rss feed http://www.bloglines.com/myblogs - and it works!!

U-tube

Played with this - did a Andy Griffith search and played a couple of the scenes - in fact played a lot of the scenes, because I got into it. I liked all of them but the opening theme with the signature tune was pure nostalgia. Also put in a keyword search for museum and got a brilliant takeoff of the Creationist museum and dinosaurs with some American rednecks starring in it. U-tube is a good resource for searching for specific footage. There didn't seem to be any problem with copyright re uploading the videos and putting them somewhere else.

Discovering Web 2.0 tools

Another easy peasy site to use - enlisted and logged onto seomoz.org and then choose kayak.com for my site to explore (why: well we used to have a business designing and making sea kayaks). Anyway it is a travel search engine site and a very good one at that - it is not affiliated to anyone and is not a retail site. It has links to over a 1000 travel sites and is used for comparing air fares, hotels, cars and cruises. Once you've selected what you want, it links you through to the online retailer. I'll use it again and have added it to my favourites. I would mention it to borrowers if applicable, but can't see any more formal use for the library world.

Zoho Writer/Google Docs

Tried Zoho and it failed to send me an authentication email though it told me it had - maybe hotmail problem, so here I am on Option B Google Docs! Great to use. Easy to play with. And has the distinct advantage of being available free via the internet so anyone can access it. Inserted an image just for the fun of it. Now I'll try exporting the whole lot to my blog...here goes...t

Sandbox

User friendly and very easy to do which means it is easy for everyone, me not being Ms Techno-bunny. Interestingly, for some reason my movie recommendation turned out to be in green text - ...not sure at all about that although it could have been the influence of Martians, but I like it as it is different.

Wiki Week

Wikis - ah Wikipedia didn't cut it as an authoritative source in a Stage 3 History essay - but three years ago I didn't know what they were, but i do now! Anyway looked at a number of the Wiki sites on the list and some were outstanding (Princeton's) and some were amateurish in appearance - and looking attractive is an important requirement for pulling the punters and appearing credible. I found it interesting in the University of Calgary's one that they had instituted the need for email verification to get round the vandalism issue. The better sites stated their purpose, were well designed, and had good categorisation of subject areas.

The Princeton Wiki has a lovely presentation - clear, fun and professional. It ran great book reviews.

What do I think libraries could use it for - well, book discussions and reviews, the sharing of information with the information highway becoming a two way highway so we can tap into our users brains too to provide a better service.

Library 2.0 and Web 2.0

The articles were interesting - was particularly taken with the 'To more powerful ways to co-operate article, especially in light of the new vision for ACL's web pages. There is tremendous overlap in the ideas that the article expounds and what we are going to do. The concepts on co-operative approach, collective intelligence and users add value is common stuff to both. The ideas that users can be let loose with tagging etc is a new phenomena and quite scary to a librarian and difficult to get the brain around - so its good to read about the ideology behind it and think about it more rationally.

Technoratti

Some of this was so easy to do - like joining up. A matter of filling in the form and tagging it and then linking it through to my blog. Simple, so simple - why aren't the other exercises so user friendly? I guess for me I don't in fact want to increase my blog's visibility but for those who do, it is a good easy solution. Some of it though was difficult and was a result of slightly haywire instructions - why didn't the creators of Web 2.0 put that you needed to go via Advanced search button to do the exercise. Anyway moans aside the most accurate searches I thought was blog directory search with 877 hits and tags which brought up stuff that may not be brought up by doing a normal search via directory.

technoratti link

Technorati Profile

De-li-cious

De-li-cious meant nothing to me at the beginning. I had several attempts to look at the dummy account - should that be account for dummies and still it eluded me. In the end, I went to the boss and asked her to explain it to me....and then it clicked! I went through the paces to set up an account to get an idea - the process was easy (although still waiting for email verification as I write this). The concept would have been perfect for me when i worked in the museum as I had a lot of favourite sites for my job which other staff members and my volunteers had use for at times, - I could give them the site address and they could access it. I could also access them from anywhere too, whether i was at my computer or not. I also could have accessed them easily when I left the museum as I did still need them on occasion. The tagging would have replaced the folders in the favourites too.

Rollyo

Rollyo - well talk about confusing! Totally easy to create a search engine and I chose travel and put a few things in it (while I was doing it, I found a brilliant fare to London next year...but no money ..sad!) Anyway the problems started when I tried to attach it to my blog. I went round and round and round in circles - couldn't find template firstly, then found Rollyo instructions totally beyond me. I wasn't quite screaming, but nearly. Anyway I think I got there! Will I use it, or has it much use for me - aaah, no - will stick to favourites on the computer - but maybe I missed the point. (and we lost the netball - so I'm walking around pretending I don't care - and I don't!)

The Library Thing

The second session on the Library thing and I added two more books. One of the titles I tried to add was a New Zealand published book and didn't appear on Amazon that the site defaults to. I therefore looked up the 82? other sites which are grouped together in countries - New Zealand doesn't appear - we don't exist. Our neighbours across the ditch do though... wait til we win the netball!! I added tags to three of the books.

http://www.librarything.com/profile/hmdowning59

7. Technology

I am a convert (convert, not convict) to the digital camera. I discovered how wonderful they were on a trip to Uk this year when I borrowed my daughter's. Unlike a lot of people I do get prints taken off as I still like the ease of physical photo albums. The Flickr concept is great for sharing them with friends as is Facebook.

the generator

Well today and on Tuesday I played and created a CD cover which I emailed to a friend and a poster. This was a lot of fun and I'll probably do it again.

I also had a look at the other applications, but i think I prefer the ease of the FD toys - the others seemed a bit confusing really.

RSS Feeds

Well today was RSS feeds and boy was it confusing - if I got it right, it is purely good luck, rather than good management.


http://www.bloglines.com/myblogs

Flickr

Well today was Flickr day - and this is not named after either a fire engine or a horse..., it is another social networking tool on the internet. I joined and added a photo and then did a mash up with another photo. Very exciting when it works.

Hevs

Facebook

I have joined Facebook to keep in touch with my daughter who is OEing in UK. Love to see her photos and nice to see her friends, including many kids she went to kindy and all through school with enlisting as her friend. Such a cool way to keep in contact - wonder if they'll be doing it when they are all in rest homes?

Hevs

Hev's info

Week 1: Goodness, I am now the proud owner of a blog. My children will be impressed - Mum's learnt to txt and now this! Wait til I get my MP3 player, they will no longer view their mother as someone dating from the ark. And wait, there's more, ( thanks to Suzanne Paul?) maybe I'll be lucky enough to win the digital camera - they've seen the results of me using one of those (borrowed), and there weren't many blurry pictures, and not one of my thumb.
Hevs