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Just for you Jenny :-)

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#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..