Week 7

Working with del.icio.us was interesting. Again I appreciate that I am undertaking this course at home in my own time as I find it takes me a long time to complete the projects. I got into a bit of a tangle signing into del.icio.us at one point but found that I could delete the first registration without any problem and was able to re-register properly the second time. Because I do Beading as a hobby I put in my Favourites List of Bead Supply Companies which will be useful to me to be able to pull up this list quickly to show friends at work or at their homes. Perhaps my list will be useful to other Beading people who use del.icio.us and perhaps I will have access to other sites that I have not previously found.
In the Library arena I can see that del.icio.us would be really useful to Staff who travel to different Library branches to work as they would be able to pull up their Favourites wherever they may be working. If I have understood this function correctly, the Library could have links to del.icio.us tags for subject headings on the catalogue supplying the public with access to websites applicable to the subject required.
Library Thing looks really useful for a small catalogue collection and it gives so many opportunities for more information about book titles, I can see that alot of home book collectors would be able to avail themselves to this website.

Week 6

So this wasn't work, this was fun. I was having such a good time looking through rock videos trying to choose something to add to this weeks Blog that quite some time passed and eventually my teenager looked across from where she was doing her homework and quite sternly said to me "Mum are you doing your homework or Just Listening to Rock Music?!" Chastened I quickly selected a favourite band to add.
The video I have chosen to embed in my Blog this week is of the New Zealand band False Start. It is their first official music video, Mall Goth. Check out this band, they are brilliant and they come out to Australia a couple of times a year.

There were so many applications for YouTube style video in library blogs that came to mind as I looked through this week's lesson. A colleague sent me a wonderful YouTube video by email and it can be viewed here. Also look at the other videos on offer on this page. There are some good Library themed ones.
In the Explore section of this weeks lesson I was really impressed with the David Lee King site under the search term Book Reviews in YouTube. The Anonymous Book Reviews looked like alot of fun and an excellent activity for the teenage section of the library. I can imagine it really taking on as a hands on, be involved activity on a Youth Blog for the library. The Guides to using Library Reference and Research Assistance was another application that I thought could be really beneficial to promoting the library to young people using technology that is relevant to their generation.
So far I have only spoken about the YouTube videos I accessed and this is because I found it so much more useful, quicker and easier to find relevant videos. The Google video site seemed less responsive and was limited in what it found especially when I asked the search to limit to Google hosted videos.
So that is it for Week 6 and so we move on to Tagging so lets learn something new.

Week 5

Moving into my 6th hour for today, trying to catch up a couple of weeks of the course. So far all very interesting and quite challenging to someone not very computer literate.
Wiki and Wikipedia, I thought I had a handle on this one, having used wikipedia a few times to quickly look up into about authors, movie stars and other general information at times. I was surprised at the difference in format that it can appear in and the useful purposes it has been put to.
I was impressed with the Antioch University of New England site that used wiki to list staff training and support for their library. It immediately struck me that it would be very useful for the library I am currently working at for staff training where new staff members are shown procedures in a team situation and it becomes confused who has shown the new staff member what. It would be so useful to have a site like this one dropdown on the computer screen so that training completed could be quickly noted so all know what has been shown and what needs yet to be done.
I was impressed with the SJCPL Subjects Guide wiki that provided a staff only time cost to provide a library site. I was always under the impression that a Library site would be a costly undertaking and yet this library has been able to produce something quite functional through the wiki page.
The Mint Museum, North Carolina site looked great, I thought all wiki style pages looked the same so I was impressed with its presentation.
The Booklovers wiki looked terrific it would be great to have a link to it on a Library web-page or Library Blog so that the library public could find it. Again the format was different to how I thought wikipedia type pages were set out. Colour and page layout looked impressive and far more professional than I had imagined.
Wookieepedia was more in line with what I considered a traditional wikipedia site to have as content and to look like. I perseived that wikipedia pages were for a groups of people with a shared interest such as Star Wars to share information and in a way debate what would be considered facts for their interest.
It was great to be able to show my teenager a web site that they did not know about with pbwiki.com that appears to provide many useful functions that I am sure will be accessed by said teenager in the future.
So it has been terrific to learn something new about a web feature I have used a few times and now I have even more to explore in Wiki and Wikipedia.

Week 4

It is just as well that I am doing this course at home in my own time as hours slipped past today as I added feeds to my Blogline account. I didn't know anything about RSS - Real Simple Syndication until today and am looking forward to my selected updates. Of course my first added feed was the Powerhouse Museum - photo of the day site. I also added the ABS Blog for Librarians, the Sydney Morning Herald Undercover Blog and 2 fellow colleagues learning with the NSW Libraries 2.o. One colleague seems to be working at the same pace as me and I thought it would be good to check in on their progress the other seems to have a real handle on the technology and I am interested in their comments. I also added several suggested sites on the Blogline sign up page, Book reviews, movie info and Librarian links.
RSS feeds would be useful in the Library arena set up for the public to keep them informed on current affairs, for students with relevant subjects and for the staff on many trade issues. The ABS site, book review sites and link to other libraries to be kept informed of what's new in the library world would all be useful ways for RSS to be used within the Library and information industry field.

Week 3

Well Hello fellow Blog colleagues! Having had a couple of weeks away it is good to get back to 2.o. So Week 3 is Flickr, this has been great. I also looked at photobucket which looked really useful too. There are so many facinating images to view on Flickr and what a great facility, with 3 photographers in the house I can see that it is something that will be useful on a personal basis to begin with. No more multiple discs around the house with backups of photos. For the library I can see it will be very useful to find images for promotional purposes, library enquiries and storing library photographs.

I really liked having a look at other library buildings, signage etc.

The photograph that I chose to put on my Blog was taken by a friend of my daughters, by a woman who lives in Manila. It is amazing to be able to share these photographic gems with people we have never met but know through the world wide web. The particular photo I have placed on my Blog is one that I found inspiring with its use of colour. It is actually stage lights that were being tested that the young woman photographed in this creative way.

Well I look forward to my next lesson and will post my next blog then.