Week 13

O.k so there isn't really a Week 13 but a colleague sent me some web-sites that she found while working on her Librarianship studies relevant to the course and this seemed the most logical place to put them and my thoughts on them so that I could share the sites at my workplace. Thankyou KF.
The first article I read was in regard to Sirsidynix which to me was like trying to read a foreign language and when they started quoting API this and API that I got a bit lost until I consulted the friendly librarian available at the end of the phone, thankyou GM, I was told that it is of course Application Programming Interface, which I should have known but you know what it is like when you feel completely over your head anyway, things you should know fail you as well. This article talks about Web 3.0 as well quoting the Croquet project that involves multi-user virtual world applications with avatars and furniture. This just about pops my head because I was struggling with 2.0! A little warning when I went into the links for Enterprise portal Solution and Horizon Information Portal I sort of got stuck in so much as I was not able to Back out and had to change screens etc to get out of it.
Another article I read was written by Jack M. Maness also about Library 2.0 theory this was an interesting article speaking about all the things we looked at in the Library 2.0 course over the past 12 week. It was encouraging that I could understand this article and I thought it had some relevant thoughts on the subject. One paragraph that particularly caught my eye was the following :
"Libraries may do well to continue adopting this technology as it evolves, as it allows reference services in an online media to closely approximate the more traditional services of the physical library. The time will almost certainly soon come when Web reference is nearly indistinguishable from face-to-face reference; librarians and patrons will see and hear each other, and will share screens and files. In addition, the transcripts these sessions already provide will serve library science in ways that face-to-face reference never did. For the first time in the history of libraries, there will be a continuously collected transcription of the reference transaction, always awaiting evaluation, analysis, cataloging, and retrieval for future reference."
This made me think of the "My Tutor" program that we have recently made available to our Student Public at our Library. The My Tutor peole are taking advantage of this technology and in the future why not us in the Library itself.
The scariest thing about these two articles to me was that they were both written in 2006 which puts me at least 2 years behind in what is happening out there and that is an huge head start for this type of rapidly advancing technology.
The third article I read was a blog about Learning 2.0 and talks of the 23 Things, which frightened me at first because I thought it meant there were 11 more weeks of learning out there to be done to really complete the Library 2.0 course. However, the 23 things basically include all the applications we have done using some different web-sites in some cases but still included flickr, del.icio.us, and Library Thing to name a few. The 23 Things were to be learnt in 9 Weeks for this course. The most interesting thing I found in this article was that Melbourne's Yarra Plenty Library had been one of the first libraries to take this course on board. And again it was 2006 that they began. The course was offered as Daily Lessons so they obviously had time on their hands. I wish I had known about this blog when I was working through the course.

Week 12

The Last week, yay! 34 hours later I am at the end of the Course. Wrap up, social networks and catch up. Myspace is often spoken of in my house. My teenage daughter communicates constantly with her myspace friends. Bebo and Facebook are also commonly used terms. Proboards is a different format and was not mentioned throughout this course but seems to be constantly used by teenagers as a commonly used communication tool. Livejournal is another website commonly used by young people, it was a shame we did not get a chance to look at these websites as they seem to be the new way. Which just goes to show us that no matter how much we try to keep up there is always something new to learn!
The types of sites mentioned in Week 12 don't really afford themselves to a simple format to communicating unless there is a pre-specified group, myspace sites are quite labour intensive to set up and there are better ways for library staff to communicate to their colleagues or to the Public. Livejournal could be used as a Blog style site and Proboards could be a useful message board.
Well that's it for me. Week 12 complete!

Week 11

Google docs seemed to be the most useful of all the online applications and tools that I looked at for this week. Slideshare looked useful as well to store Powerpoint presentations but I wouldn't have use of this at this time, having seen it though I know it is there if the situation ever arises.
I sent a book review I had written by Google docs to the email address provided. For awhile I seemed to be going in circles with the process but then it all suddenly became clear and I will be able to do this in future. In my work situation Google docs will be very useful just for this purpose, sending book reviews I have written to the Library IT people so that they can be published with all the others in our Staff Review publications. It is envisaged that very soon in the future Google docs will be used to forward Staff Rosters and Leave Calendars so that all the Staff have access to them. I liked that Google docs allows the sender to either allow or not allow editing to the document by the recipient.
I also noted several useful websites from the slideshow offered on the Slideshare presentation that will be useful in the future such as the tadalist that looked like it could be used similar to wiki as explained in Week 5 in that lists can be created and shared.

Week 10

I used big huge labs to create a mosaic of these cute dogs, I tried to use photos my daughter had stored on photobucket but the system would not let me. So in that way I found this process somewhat rigid and confusing. Once I got going though it was o.k, I created the mosaic and put it into My Pictures and then just Uploaded the Image and Here It Is!!

I have often used Mashups not knowing that this is what they are called. Google Maps is a common one that I use, looking at holiday accomodation, finding addresses of business' and locations for trips away. I think Google Maps would be a useful Mashup for the Library to show the location of special holiday activities that are being provided outside of the Library venue. It would also be useful on the Library website to show the location of Branches.

Another Mashup application that is useful is linking Amazon to the Catalogue to show book reviews and using http://www.imdb.com/ linked to the catalogue for dvd reviews to give the Public extra information at this particular access point.

Week 9

Podcasts on your computer are like listening to radio on your Television Set, I wasn't quite getting its advantage. Unless I was missing something on my computer. Podcasts onto MP3 players, transferred to mobilephones etc of course make more sense to me and perhaps that is their point. Podcasts could be useful in the library arena for sight impaired people to have access to catalogue entries. The British Libary podcasts of Author reviews were interesting and could be linked to catalogue entries to give more information about certain items, however some to the podcasts on that site were around 83 minutes which would be time consuming. I was impressed with the library news on LibVibe which could be linked to a Library Blog to keep the public informed of current events. Podcasts could be effective in many ways on a Blog to break up the format of how the Library communicates to the Public. The Denver Public Library Picturebook reading podcasts were very cute and beautifully presented with the cover of the book shown to promote the item. There is also a gorgeous little song podcast on that site. I can see that this would be an excellent service to be able to provide to house-bound mums with small children and parents in outlying areas of a Library region who would not have regular access to the Library and its Children's Services. Worthington Library also has good podcast site called Programs to go: kids. Poetry or Magazine Articles or short text of this nature could also be provided in this manner.

Week 8

So this week we looked at Answer Boards which was interesting, however I have never had a problem finding any answers I need before just by googling my question and had not used Yahoo!7 Answers or anything like that previously. I do not work in Reference so am not really in a position to know what benefit it would have for the library for our Reference Librarians to respond to questions on Slamming the Boards or sites of that nature. The only response I can give to that question would be that having given a qualified answer to a question on a site like this perhaps it would save staff-time across the board because people would find the answer online and would not be walking into their local library asking the same question world-wide, then again that could be more of a disadvantage because those people are now not coming to their local library and are therefore not taking advantage of all the other wonderful services available to them at their Library. The other positive idea for Reference Librarians to respond to Slamming the Boards questions would be for practice, honing skills and getting a feel for what kind of questions the Public are asking out there in cyber world.
For the question - in what ways might your customers like to rate or review items in the collection or services you offer? I think customers might like to review books read and a Library Blog would be a great place to do that. I was really impressed with the David Lee King site that we looked at in Week 6 where there was an Anonymous Book Review link. I thought at the time that it would be a really fun and impacting way for the Public to be able to interact by reviewing what they had read.