Musings

Well I managed to finish despite not having enough time in work. Again, all very enjoyable as I love learning about new technology and new ways to share ideas. The least impressive for me was FeedMyInbox as I don't personally feel the need for RSS feeds, although I recognise their use for other people. My favourite was definitely SlideShare as it was so easy to use and there were so many great presentations on there. Tastespotting was fun and enCompass Culture is also something I'll use again. File sharing is very useful and Box was worthwhile. PicApp must be a godsend for more dedicated bloggers. Looking forward to the next one!!

EnCompassCulture - the global bookclub

An interesting site and easy to use. I had a look at the humorous travel books, a genre I love, and found much to tempt me. I then looked at the books for 12-18 year olds and found the Contemporary classics, which would be very useful in readers' advisory as lots of parents want their children to read 'good books'. However, I was disappointed to see that they only listed seven titles. I then tried Reality for Struggles and Self-Discovery and got a more satisfactory 290 titles. Definitely a site for both staff and customers.

Web 2.0 Tools to Inspire

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Web 2.0 Tools to Inspire

View more presentations from Chrystal Porter.

SlideShare - online presentations

SlideShare is very easy to use. I watched one presentation Web 2.0 Tools to Inspire and was so impressed that I decided to post it to my blog so that I could easily revisit it. I didn't have to register and within two minutes it was on my blog. Wow! I then watched Visual Definitions of Web 2.0 which was also very interesting and finally An introduction to Web 2.0: The User Role which was a short and simplified explanation of Web 2.0. I think this a great site which could be very useful to library staff and is also something we could suggest to customers. It does say that you should get a free account in order to share, but I posted to my blog without doing that.

Tastespotting - a community driven visual potluck

Yum - looking forward to browsing this site. I had a quick look at it last time I was on struggling with Picapp and saw a lovely savoury scone picture which inspired me to make batches of savoury scones and muffins at the weekend. This time a mashed potato pizza caught my eye, but I decided that was a bit much for the waistline. Settled on cauliflower with mustard seeds as I'm not a cauli fan and this looked a good way to serve it. Mmmh, I could browse this site all day and I'm trying hard not to salivate over the desk! What was the question again? Oh yes, an easy site to use, registering was quick and easy and I will definitely use it again, love recipe sites and this is a great one. Nice to have a fun site and as cookery books are so popular, lots of customers would like this site too.

FeedMyInbox - RSS made simple

After struggling with PicApp, FeedMyInbox was easy to use and I set up an account and subscribed first to Auckland City Libraries Books in the city Posts. I then tried the NZ Book Council, but it couldn't find any feeds. I then successfully subscribed to Lianza. I look forward to seeing the feed into my inbox from these sites.
PS I now have regular feeds from Lianza, but not from Auckland City Libraries - better check that out.

Picapp

I struggled with this exercise, but eventually got it right! Yay! I kept trying to upload the image under Compose instead of Edit HTML. The site is great and there are lots of fantastic photographs. I chose a golf image because I watched quite a lot of the Tour championship over the weekend. Having eventually mastered it, I could help customers with it. I think the level of expertise of a lot of the customers is above mine, so they would probably find it easier!!

Box

I found Box easy to use and had no problems joining or uploading a file to it. File sharing is now common in the corporate world and can save lots of time for staff. In the library, we could suggest it to groups of students who could possibly use it to share notes and ideas. Off-site storage is also useful to protect against loss through fire or other disasters. It's also a great way for people to be able to access files from any computer - an anywhere, anytime resource. Tosca's download of e-books is cool - great idea!

Facebook

I've been on Facebook for over two years now and probably need to join Facebook Anonymous as I'm on every day - chatting, playing games and just keeping in touch. So finding a colleague and sending a friend request was easy as I do it frequently. Visiting the Manukau Libraries website was also straightforward but I couldn't find where to become a fan - so just clicked Like - I wonder if that's what is meant. Obviously it was, as since then I have had lots of posts on my wall from Manukau Libraries. I also posted to the discussions on what I'm reading right now and my favourite book. I've just checked my friends list and Manukau Libraries is listed there - as a local business. I much prefer this way of receiving updates than on Twitter and as Facebook is so popular with all age groups, this seems like a great way to keep in touch with our customers - and staff! My attempts to sign up to another library were difficult - the Auckland City page I found had only five fans and no posts. North Shore city obviously have a busy site, but with limited content available to the public. You have to request to join and be approved before you can see their wall posts. Seems a little odd for a public library. I then succeeded with the British Library - lots of posts and comments. They have posts with links to events, poetry podcasts and interviews on British theatre history. I think Facebook is great and will certainly suggest it to customers as a way to keep up-to-date with our happenings. However, Facebook is primarily about social networking and for people who just want updates Twitter is probably better. I love having the library updates on a site I visit every day. And I've already suggested GoodReads and Shelfari to customers who I thought might be interested.

Music files and mp3s

Now this is totally new to me as I'm not an avid music fan. I did recently decide to download the music from the African musical Ipi Tombi as I had failed to find a CD for sale to replace my old cassette tape. But my husband took over and did it for me so I still haven't downloaded any music! And even though it is far from new we had to pay a few dollars for the download. I decided to have a look at Amie Street. I struggled to find how to listen to or download music, but I think the most important thing to take from this exercise is to be aware of the various sites in order to provide information to customers. I've just had another try with Stereogum and found that much easier and downloaded some music too! Its a long list of sites to remember and I wonder if we should have hyperlinks to these sites on our website? Anything that gets youngsters to use our catalogue must be good.

Good Reads

I already have a Good Reads account, but joined up again using my library e-mail. Starting off is straightforward and their list of books gives you a start in setting up your bookshelves. Like Shelfari it's a handy way of keeping track of what you've read and getting suggestions for other books you may enjoy. I haven't explored the reading and discussion groups yet but will do so. This would be a good site for anyone wanting to read widely and find new authors to read so is suitable for staff and customers. I would recommend it to customers who are looking for new authors. I wonder if many children use it as they are great followers of trends and series and would gain a lot from the exchange of information.

Twitter

Twitter is easy to sign up to, but I found it less easy to find people unless you have their username. I signed up with Manukau Libraries and commented on Tosca's Johnny Cash tweet. I failed to find Auckland Libraries but signed up to follow Rodney as well as a few UK libraries and some other book sites. I know my husband is on Twitter - but couldn't find him as his name is quite common. I'm not sure if I'll use Twitter in my personal life, but like blogs, I can see its usefulness in the work situation. Keeping people up to date with happenings at Manukau Libraries in a quick and short format sounds a very good idea. I've checked Twitter a few times since joining up and as a library user I can see its usefulness as the Manukau libraries tweets are very informative.

Zamzar - converting file formats

I used a Word document - a Community Workstream newsletter - and converted it to a PDF file using Zamzar. It was so quick and easy to do and I can't believe I haven't found or been told about this application before. I have a sneaky feeling my husband uses it and will confront him about this! A really useful application and I think I will be using this quite a bit. I then converted the same file to an html file and again it was quick and easy. A great application and thanks for introducing this to us.

Blogger

I really enjoyed the last Web 2.0 exercise, but haven't actually used my blog since we finished it.

However, I have used some of the applications we used and I'm a confirmed Facebook addict often visit Youtube and regularly upload my photographs to Flickr. Some applications like Technorati were irrelevant to me and I haven't revisited them.

Blogs are now quite common in the library world and are a useful way to keep in touch with your clients and let them know what is happening in your library. Events can be advertised and new books discussed. It provides a personal touch to our customers, rather than the formality of a website.

Hello from sunny Vancouver - and boy is it sunny. We came expecting autumn weather and have had nothing but blue skies and sunshine. On the left is the central library in Vancouver city and although I didn't have time to visit it, I could see through the windows that they have an incredible selection of material. The languages section covered about fifteen stacks and had every language on the planet from the look of it. The building is very new and impressive.



On the right is one of the local libraries on Vancouver Island. I did have time to visit this one and it was similar to one of our branches. However, their equivalent of our LearnNet consisted of four old computers in a row with plywood partitions, so they seem to be a bit behind as far as technology is concerned. They have a similar system where you can return books at any branch and the libraries cover a few hundred kilometres, so lots of driving for their 'Phil'.

Apart from looking at libraries, we have been to islands and beaches and mountains. If anyone visits Vancouver Island make sure to take the chair-lift to the top of Mount Washington - the views are awesome.

The end - or the beginning

Definitely the beginning - there is so much I didn't have time to explore, especially the image generators which look like a lot of fun. One of the things I've found really interesting is the connections between all the various sites and how easy it is to take stuff from one to the other.

Probably the least impressive for me were Technorati, del.icio.us, and Rollyo - but who knows they may come in handy to help a customer one day. I've also started finding out other ways of bookmarking and have now downloaded Firefox 3 which gives you the option of just tagging your favourites and keeping them as unsorted bookmarks. You can then just search for tags.
The power of blogging was brought home to me by a comment from the support person at Zoho within hours of me mentioning on my blog that I had problems using Zoho Writer!
Kindle really excited me, and I'll be having a look for one in Hong Kong at the end of my holiday - although I think the price will still be prohibitive.
Flickr is now part of my life and I will be loading my holiday photographs on there as we go.
So many things - well 23 things - and most of them really interesting.

The realisation that I have learnt quite a lot came to me when I was chatting to a colleague at the Customer Service course about some of the things we have covered and the facilitator told me I sounded like an expert! I'm not of course, and there's still lots to learn, but at least I sound knowledgeable now. So that was my pat on the back.

Finally, will the learning document still be available after we have finished the exercise? And what about all the good ideas that the participants have thrown up - are these being collated?

E-Books

Project Gutenberg is an incredible project that makes it possible to download or read books online. Obviously only books that are no longer subject to copyright can be made available and the site warns users outside the USA to check for copyright in their own country. The Project Gutenberg Philosophy is to make information, books and other materials available to the general public in forms a vast majority of the computers, programs and people can easily read, use, quote, and search. The books are text only because of problems of space, but they are planning to incorporate pictures as soon as technological advances make it possible.

I browsed the catalogue by author - letter O and found Scottish Ghost Stories by Elliott O'Donnell (1872-1965). There are various different ways of downloading - in HTML or plain text or Adobe (all zipped or not) or Plucker [free software]- which lets you read plucker files on your Palm organizer or smartphone. Or, of course, you can just read online. You can bookmark your e-book, just as you can a 'real' book. There is also a GoTo Page function, so you can browse the book. As my chosen book has many stories, I can choose which page to go to from the index A site like this is ideal for the classics, which are out of copyright, and I read a little of Emma by Jane Austen, one of my favourites. Project Gutenberg are looking for volunteer proofreaders for this huge endeavour, and this is certainly a place where library employees could help.
Of course you can't curl up with a computer in the same way you can with a book. Which is where Kindle comes in - a wireless electronic book reader, priced at around US$400. You can download up to 200 books to Kindle, in the same way that you can download songs to an IPod. Kindle does not need a PC to be loaded with books, blogs or papers - instead the content arrives via wireless. According to Amazon, around 90,000 titles are available for downloading. Bestsellers are available for download for as little as US10.00 - quite a bit less than the book price. You can also subscribe to magazines, newspapers and blogs on Kindle - but at a price. There would be little point in subscribing to the Herald online when you can view it for free on the internet. This looks very interesting and I look forward to seeing one. At the moment the technology used by Kindle is not much used outside North America, so it might be a while before it gets here. Reading on computer is unlikely to replace reading books, but this book reader might well. What role will we have then - renting out readers and facilitating book downloads?

Podcasts

I signed up for Podcast.com and started looking for library and book related podcasts. I thought The Washington Post Book World Podcast looked interesting so subscribed to that and listened to some interviews with authors and snippets of book news. A great way to learn what's happening in the book world - and something we should explore for our website. I'm sure our customers would love to tune in to Manukau librarians talking about new books - even if we couldn't run to interviews with authors. I couldn't find any New Zealand book sites, so we could be first in this field. Alternatively we could just have feeds from the professional podcasters. These podcasts can be accessed on cellphones and Ipods as well as computers, so are really versatile. It's good having the podcast playing in the background while I write in my blog. I then visited The Library Channel and tried to subscribe to the RSS feed to my bloglines account but unfortunately it did not have an RSS feed. My next stop was Nancy Pearl Book Reviews - Nancy Pearl is a librarian with a love of books so strong it has been officially classified as lust - and I found such a lovely mix of reviews. The first was a book on the Olympics, the next a children's book by Allan Ahlberg. Then I found a review of Dear American Airlines by Jonathon Miles and I have to read it. A traveller stuck overnight at O'Hare airport in Chicago writes a letter to the President of American Airlines demanding a refund, as he will now miss his daughter's wedding on the West Coast. As he writes he takes stock of his life and explains why it is so important to get to his daughter's wedding. It is recommended as a good trans-American flight book. As I'm off to Vancouver tomorrow, I'll be looking for it at the airport. On the technical side, I set up an RSS feed to my Bloglines account and now will be able to listen in regularly to Nancy Pearl from there.

Chuck Berry - Johnny B. Goode live

Just for fun - some vintage 60s rock.

Podcasting in Plain English

These Plain English videos are awesome!