#11 Library Thing

Library Thing, a wonderful thing.
I have previously tenderly entered my A S Byatt's, M Sendak's, Winton's and others, relishing the screen and printed order, while my shelves at home can reflect more organic organisational use.
Never created a full catalogue nor maintained the account, so created another.
Reticent to publish my lists, despite this 'public' blog, the social aspect of web 2.0 repels me a little.
I was curious to see who else had come to the conclusion Antonia is one the world's greatest modern novelists, but have no wish to make contact and marvel along with Emily in Edinburgh, nor see what else lingers on her shelves.
The author's cloud forms a succinct biography. Haven't fully tested Australian authors - Booker prize winners, historical or obscure.
Again, this tool may suit a public library environment or possibly with Lifelong Learning book review groups.

#10 Image Generators

Simple application to use (Generator blog), saving to pc and USB, mostly limited only by your imagination. (The political slogan templates were too American to be valid, but I relished time spent creating anti Liberal P quips.

The card catalogue image is quite lovely.
Now that the Vic government will be issuing babies with reading kits and presenting every 4 year old child with a book, by decree "Where The Wild Things Are" should be one of the selection.
Could see applications in public library branch type advertising.

#9 Library Blogs

Left disaffected from my Bloglines account and created a Google reader account.
Feeds easy to search for and subscribe to feeds within the reader and manage within folders. Although ventured out and searched Technorati as well.
Nice.
However, cannot seem to share them to my blog.

Plethora of library blogs. The pathways and links as you follow threads can be satisfying but time consuming
Have a look at Librariansinteract.info, affectionately known as Lint. Collaborative blog of Australian librarians including Kathryn Greehhill who spoke on Second Life at the Libraries, Web 2.0 and other Internet stuff seminar. It features occasional interviews with Library people, most recent being Walt Crawford from OCLC. Quirky character who believes “A good public library has something to offend (nearly) everyone in the community” ).

Library Garden another. Followed a link to an Educause article about Wikipedia. It is part of a series of articles by Educause 'in the theme of what we are doing here, 43> 23 things; '7 Things You Should Know About... Wikipedia'. While I found this article somewhat superficial, '7 Things You Should Know About Google Earth' was valuable to me.

As cited by Cries and Whispers, The Annoyed Librarian was curiously satisfying. (She celebrated her 100,000th hit in style with an extra martini). The Scatterbrained Librarian insightful. Read her take on perceptions of our 'unstressful' profession in 'paradise is a kind of library'. I cannot find a Librarian disaffected blog, as yet...

#8 Bloglines & RSS

Created a Bloglines account last year to receive and read my RSS feeds on desk. Yet, I am denied Sage as we cannot access email on desk due to some would say paternalistic network security.
Found it occasionally unreliable; my feeds would disappear at times and I would have to resubscribe. Open source software is lovely and free...
Not as visually organised, nor are feeds as easily subscribed to or updated as with Firefox's Sage
(You also could not have a more visually appealing icon on your desktop!). Want to leave the pc (and work) for home and cooking.

Back to Bloglines.
For the purposes of this exercise I'll sign up for yet another account, to test the program and to see if I can be driven to white frustration &/or hard yet mellowing substances like my fellow blogger dearest Lady Enid. Still aeroplane-spin dizzy from being invited to account bounce between Flickr, Google, Yahoo in previous exercises.

RSS feeds themselves?
Loved the convenience of personalized daily smattering of articles from varied news sources that would have taken greater time and greater effort to source and collate singularly. The feeds from some Library blogs I found at the time threw more professional and Library related material at me and encouraged me to read such than ever before. If this is Web 2.0 then I not only like it but see a usefulness.
Although 80 per day I believe would end my day in tears.

#7 More Technology

Saw the woman of the moment Helene Blowers speak at the Libraries, Web 2.0, and other Internet stuff seminar. Energetic, natural speaker and amazing to think of the momentum the program she devised has gathered, the list of libraries taking it on forever growing.

I had to smile as some have moved beyond the 23 things, creating more...
Learning 2.1

See the mashup of world map showing sites of libraries around the world Learning 2.0ing.

What do we as a group think of the value of this program?
Has both our awareness of and skill with new internet technologies increased?
Are there direct applications to any of these tools which would assist and benefit our working lives or are they diversions for us and bread and circus tricks for users.

Similarly, just as we are coming to terms with Web 2.0 and Library 2.0, others have moved from this twilight zone to another. Read this about Web 3.0 and view a diagram showing the evolution of the web. I read this online newsletter occasionally having heard one of their web developer tribe (an engaging Canadian with the deliciously ironic surname of Yank) give a wonderfully clear explanation of Web 2.0 last year at a VALA meeting.

However if you are truly tired and suspicious that these terms are mere marketing ploys, you could read this quite gratifying article about Web 2.0 fluff.

# 6 Flickr & #7 Technology

It was fun to creating a card and simple with the image.
To then add the card to the blog was not clear. Couldn't see the pathway to my blog from the trading card mashup.
Saved to the desktop and linked from there.
Still problems accessing my blog from IE. Works better in Firefox. Is that the same for others?

No direct use of this application in my library role and I can feel some kinship with a fellow group blogger's questioning. Are we seeking to appropriate some technology to merely prove our validity to the next generation of users? Who are they anyway? Is there danger in not fulfilling our role to the current users? Or, may we see an increase in their numbers and serve all with appropriate use of technological applications?

A sense though that immersion in different applications of the internet as it continues to evolve, can breed a familiarity and a level of comfortability with technological change in general.

#5 More Flickr

I'm still Flickring although have played on further and will post about tech and RSS soon..

The hour per week is an ambitious estimate for this little blue elephant, although I believe it is a mindset that 'I don't have time just know...' ( + perhaps some preciousness about these blank 'New Post' boxes).

Needed help to fix my link to the Blue Mosque - didn't link it properly using the image link, so will try another. Tip for young players.
Waiting to borrow Dig camera to test the uploading exercise.

Frequent request @the SLV from patrons to upload photos from camera with USB to email.
Over the last few weeks, had a couple of unsuccessful attempts to load directly into hotmail and G mail.
We then tried through Flickr, but the image was taking too long. Need to check as to whether the problem was that the file size was too large?
Patron anyway was interested in Flickr - had not heard of it!