#23.... Completion...

So what do I do now...now that I don't have instructions to follow to tell what to look at next?

I have been thinking of a few things that I want to do. The main thing that I want to do is to create a blog, or a number of blogs for my library service, book discussion blog, what's on blog, youth blog, local history blog? I also want to use Flickr more and I would love to start running some classes in the library for the public. Some of our libraries now have gallery spaces and I love the idea of getting the community involved in a photo display - people can enter a competition by submitting a photo to our flickr account, then all of these pictures can be displayed in the library?

My aunty is also being posted to Queensland (she is in the army), and I thought that a blog might be a good way to communicate with her and my mum could also join in... lots going on in my head at the moment... I have learnt lots of new things, have downloaded lots of new tools and I still love del.i.cious - every new website that I go to that I like, I just tag it so I know I can find it again. I love learning new things, especially technology related things and I really hope that other staff in my library service have found at least one new thing that they love.
So..now it is time to sign off from this blog...but rest assured....this won't be the last you hear from me!

#22 Audiobooks etc... 'Long live the book'

I had a bit of a look at the recommended site... as I said in my previous post, I don't really like listening to audio books. I have found that I can listen to young adult books on my MP3 player, I listened to the Keys to the Kingdom series by Garth Nix and that was OK, but my mind does tend to wander then before I know it, I have missed parts of the story.
But saying that, I do think audio books are a great resource for people and I think that public libraries should be offering downloadable audio books for the public. When I go to itunes I sometimes look up the downloadable audio books, they cost between $20.00 - $40.00 on average but they have the latest and greatest available.
Currently at my public library, it is too much of a hassle to download the 6-12 CD's from an audio book onto my computer, then load these on to my MP3 player, it would be so much easier to be able to download the whole book straight onto my MP3 player.
I must admit though, when I am walking the dog, listening to an exciting story...it does make me walk for longer - which is a good thing!

#21 Podcasts

I have to admit, I personally don't really like podcasts. I like listening to music but not really to people talking. I have tried subscribing to a number of different podcasts, but when I start listening to them...my mind tends to wander off and then I miss what is being said. I did subscribe to a few podcasts from the ABC radio station, Triple J, ones like the new music podcast, the film review podcast etc... but I ended up never listening to them. When I got my new iPod, I decided it would be great to subscribe to all of those radio shows with comedians, like Hamish and Andy, Merrick and Rosso.. but again, I never listened to them. But anyway, I did look through Podcast.net and one great podcast that I have subscribed to is from the SirsiDynix Institute, and basically you get the audio portion of seminar's delivered to your desktop.

Podcasts could be very useful in libraries in a number of ways. We could have our own podcasts that we do on a regular basis where we discuss books, library events etc, they could be targeted towards specific groups such as youth, book clubs, mothers. We could have podcasts of the actual library events, so if we had an author talk, we could podcast it and make it available from our webpage. Podcasting is certainly one tool that I think we can start to utilise.

#20 Youtube

I love You tube and use it frequently, mostly to get a laugh from a clip that I have seen on TV, but also there are some great clips out there... firstly, here is one of my faves...seeing I am a Mac Convert I have to say that I love the Mac vs PC adds...




and this is another of my faves.. all about Web 2.0...a great way to explain it..

#19 2007 Web Award Winners

I had a bit of look through a few different websites and tools.. I could have spent a long time playing around with a lot of these things. The one thing I found, which I have to say that I absolutely love. It is called netvibes and it is great.
Basically you can make it your desktop for whenever you access the internet, and you can choose what you want to have available on there. I now have an account and when I open the internet, all on one page I can see the weather in Ballarat, the top news stories from 'the Australian', my facebook and myspace accounts, my google reader account and del.i.cious account and also my gmail account...did I mention that all of this is on the one page?

It is fantastic..or did I already mention that? I think this fully deserves to win a web award.. although now that I realie how great it is, maybe I should go and have a look at the second and third place getters to see what they were like..hmmmm..

Still on Zoho....

It was very easy to post onto my blog from Zoho writer... I was already signed into my blog and when I clicked on 'post to blog', it just seemed to happen straight away without me having to do anything! The only thing was the post title, ended up being 'untitled' (I edited the post from Blogger afterwards to give it the correct title), and in zoho writer I used an emoticon which was a laughing smiley face, but in the conversion to blogger, the smiley face disappeared and the word, laughing' appeared in its place!

And I did try using Google docs to create a blog posting, it stated twice that it was successful but I still can see no record of it from my blog..so either it didn't work or else there will be two identical postings appear later on!

Anyway, I am off to look at the web 2.0 awards and have some more fun :-)

# 18 Zoho Writer

#18 - Zoho Writer (i do the name zoho)

Well I have created a Zoho account and I must admit, I do like the idea of being able to access my zoho account from any computer.  And I also like the fact that i the next time I buy a new computer, I do not neccessarily have to buy MS Office software (especially now that I am an Apple Mac convert).
I like the idea that I could create a document and share it with others... and possible the fact that there seem to be more editing tools available in zoho writer than in blogger, I am going to try posting this straight to my blog and see what happens....

#17 Playing around with PB Wiki

How easy was that? First of all I was a little stuck as to how to add my blog to the 'favourite blogs' on this, but then I went back and reread an email about doing it...and it was fine. Simply logged on and then it was easy peasy to add my blog, I also added my library corporation's name and logo..
I must say I am getting very used to writing on the web, using the editing tools such as hyperlinking and adding pictures.

I still can't believe how easy it was to do this discovery task...very satisfied, think it must be time for a cup of tea?

#16 Wiki's

I have been a big fan of Wikipedia for quite awhile now - I think it is great to get information on popular culture... especially finding out who has been voted off my fave reality TV shows from the US, before they screen in Australia! I can see great benefit of using Wiki's in libraries for things such as training. Staff could create training manuals which could be easily edited if needed. They could be easily searched and accessed. I have seen recently a library use a Wiki as the place to get all of the information about an upcoming conference. It is a great idea as they could just upload the relevant information as they got it, different people could upload their own information, all of the conference papers could be uploaded.....Probably a lot easier than having to create a webpage to contain all of this informaiton as you don't have to be a web developer to create a wiki!

#15 Web 2.0/Library 2.0 .... The future?

Technology certainly has come a long way, in a very short time frame, there are still people out there who think that 'Google' is the internet and I can see more people getting left behind in the technology game. I think in the future libraries will still be used for people to borrow books from, and to get information from but the information will be in a different format. People will be more likely to contact the library online, whether it be through a website, a chat room, a networking site or something similiar, and then library staff will deliver the information in an electronic format. Libraries will become more important in regional and rural areas, where other services may close down, the library space will be used by different community groups, and this will be one way that the library can help the community use the internet, the web 2.0 technologies.
I personally would like to visit my library in a virtual format - where I can enter it online, browse the new books as if I was standing in front of them, select what I want and then get them sent out to me - this way I would never have to enter the physical space of the library. Although, I still like the idea of holding a physical book in my hands to read, don't really want to read from the screen....just yet anyway :-)

#14 Technorati

I can see myself using technorati in the very near future, when I might be writing a report on 'people playing online games in libraries' - I can search for blog postings on this topic and get some great information.
It is also useful to search for fun things as well, such as blogs about food, and books :-)

#13 Del.i.cious

Yum, yum, yum!
I love delicious. I have created an account and have also downloaded some very useful delicious buttons. I have the tag button, which means than when i visit a webpage that I want to save, all I have to do is click on the tag button. This has been extremely useful when I am reading through the blogs that I subscribe to. Quite often I see a website or something that someone has pointed me to and I don't always time straight away to explore it further, now all I do is tag it for later on! And if it is just a 'fun' site then I tag it with 'fun' so I can look back later on for anything that I thought was fun!
The other great thing with delicious is that it is just like your favourites, except you can access it from any computer.
So, I will be using delicious all the time, in my work life and personal life!

#12 Rollyo

I did not get into this as much as some of the other tasks... (I am still enjoying playing around with online image generators!!).
I have created one search engine which is titled 'Books'. It is made up of some the book shops that I regularly use to buy online from...I thought that this could be used when I want to find out the price of a book that I wish to purchase, rather than going into each book shop individually, I can just use my 'rollyo'.....

And if you look on the left hand side of my blog, under 'about me', and 'my librarything', you will see my Rollyo search box!

#11 Library Thing

It is interesting to see that libraries are starting to use LibraryThing tags, in their online catalogues. I do like this idea as I think sometimes when people are searching the catalogue, they might not necessarily know how books are catergorized... this way, people can put in their own keywords and they are more likely to get a result. I also like the way that the tags appear.... you get a lot more suggestions to try different words... it is kind of like a Google, 'did you mean?'
I have not linked to my library thing catalogue but instead have added some code so that random covers of my books will appear on my blog!

# 7 Something technology related that interests me..

I know I am doing this out of order.... I think I must of got too excited playing with Flickr and I forgot to do this task!

Well, the thing that is technology related that interests me today is.... Bluetooth!
I have just discovered how to transfer photos and music from my mobile phone over to my lap top..it is so easy, and it is also heaps easier than connecting my phone to the lap top with a cable and transferring them that way. All I do is have my lap top on, click on the photo I want to send to it, then choose bluetooth and the photo goes straight to my laptop...it is great!

I am also liking www.livemocha.com, which is a site I found when I was sick and laying on the couch with my lap top... it is an online community where you can join up and learn a new language...all free! You just chose which language you want, then you start learning with online course notes. 'No soy hombre'.... (I am not a man)- in Spanish! Check it out here...

#10 - Online Image Generators

Fun, Fun, Fun - that is what I have been having for the past few hours playing around and creating things!!! I found some great online generators at generator fun online.
And I have included three of my creations to show off on my blog!

Still going at it.....

Reading blogs that is!
One of the blogs that I subscribe to is Information wants to be free written by Meredith Farkas

Check out her blog for a list of lots, lots and lots of library related blogs...

#9 News Feeds - gotta love ANZ Ref

Well, I just logged onto the ANZ Ref centre through our libraries online databases... did a bit of a publication search and found all of the publications that I was looking for, 'Incite', 'Magpies', 'Reading Time' and even 'Macworld' (I am the proud new owner of an Apple MacBook)... and I have just subscribed to alerts from these publications..Yay!! It was so easy, I just clicked on the little orange RSS button, then clicked on the alert link and I was then asked, 'would you like to add this to Google Reader? I said YES and it was added.
I just love RSS feeds etc because basically I am a lazy person.... i want to sit at home and have all of the information and news that I need coming straight to me, rather than me having to go searching for it! I have subscribed to around 70 blogs/news feeds...I check them every second day or so and I have gotten extremely good at 'browsing'.. I just read the headlines, like you would a newspaper, and then only read the things that think I really should!

#8 Feed reader..

I must admit that I have already been on the 'RSS Feed' bandwagon for a few months now... I started by using Bloglines and I did like it, I searched through technorati to find some interesting blogs... and I got used to reading them every few days. The one posting mentioned the 'Google Reader', and so I thought I would try that...and I have not looked back. I like it better than Bloglines as I find it easier to use, it is great that I can email posts to people, or share them, or star them... and I find it a lot easier subscribing to posts.
So I have to say, Google Reader is the way to go for me!

My Librarian trading card

My creation
Originally uploaded by valeblue46

Wow...this is cool! I made my own librarian trading card...had to make the picture black and white as it really does a good job of hiding the dark circles under my eyes and makes me look less tired!

#5 Flickr

I think Flickr has many uses, both personal and work related. It is a great way to share photos with family and friends..especially if you don't see them very often. For work I can see many different ways to use Flickr - things like looking up different library displays to get ideas, I have heard of libraries running competitions where they get people from the community to take a photo that matches a theme (maybe, a day in the life of my library), and then the people can upload the photo to flickr using a predetermined tag.. this could then be displayed as a slideshow throughout our branch libraries...
And I have also used flickr to find some photo's of certain parts of buildings for some borrowers, so overall, Flickr is a great tool to use.

More fun things with Flickr

Well, I have added some code into my web page so that on the left hand side of my blog, you can have a look at some my photo's which I have uploaded to Flickr. I have also downloaded a little tool which means I can easily right click on any of my photos and choose to 'upload to flickr'...very cool.

And I do so love the 'Color Picker'...Check it out here...I don't know what I would ever use it for but it is great fun to play with

CHECK THIS OUT AT FLICKR

What a great idea..I am seeing loads of great ideas today!

A library using Flickr to post pictures of book covers with the heading, 'New Fiction'...and the pictures actually link into their catalogue.....

http://www.flickr.com/photos/54117187@N00/747212623/

I am so proud of our staff

I was very happy a few days when I first made my blog for Learning 2.0 and dicsovered that 3 other staff had already done theirs... I just checked to post some comments and there are now 12 blogs..and they are all fantastic.. I feel like a proud mother watching her children succeed at school :-) (even though i don't have kids).

I think it is great that staff are finding it easy to create blogs and I am looking forward to see what happens when we start looking at Flickr
so.....if anyone reads this...Well Done

Week 1 & 2 of Learning 2.0

Well, here it is - my first blog posting for the Victorian Public Libraries 'Learning 2.0 Program. I must admit that I have played around with a few Web 2.0 technologies and I had already created a Blogger account - I am hoping to learn lots of new and interesting things in this program and I am really hoping that other staff from my library service will enjoy the program.