I hadn't realised that Myspace was the most popular social networking site in the US and in Australia, and I found it interesting that New Zealand is aligned with the UK in their networking.
I only have a faily basic Myspace site at the moment, mainly just a few pictures on there. I'm working on converting a video I took into a format that I can upload too.
I originally started up my Myspace site when I discovered some of my favourite musicians major web presence is on Myspace, for instance the local band Telemetry orchestra and Ed Kuepper.
Now that our library has its very own blog featuring library news, there's no reason why we couldn't start using Myspace. We could include our news and also highlights from various collections. We'd be able to maintain it ouselves just like a Wiki, so we wouldn't need to rely on the council's IT section to keep updating the site for us.
We will be able to have a social network of our borrowers! That is a little scary.
With regards to Second life. The only exposure I've had to it is via an episode of the Simpsons and the only use I can think of that we'd be able to benefit from is to create versions of our borrowers. When one of them does something bad, we could have a field day tormenting them in Second life. That would be a booster to staff morale.
These are some of the things we can do easily in the near future. Imagine what's to come in a couple of years. There will be things that don't exist now, things that none of us have thought of! It makes life so much more exciting.
Gotta go - the record had ended...
17 April 2008
Maid of Bond Street - Online applications and tools
I'm actually very excited about my discoveries this week. I love Slideshare. I've wanted to create presentations for years, but don't have access to the software needed. But now I have and I can share my presentations with everyone.
I have used Google documents before at home for tables of council development applications for our precinct meetings. I refuse to use Microsoft Word and excel and only use Lotus at home and work so there are lots of compatability issues as the Microsoft products won't open anything created using Lotus.
Google docs gets around this. I don't have to worry about compatability anymore!
It is very easy to create a document, edit it and share it.
At work we could use this to get documents from the draft stage to the finnished product a lot quicker. And the person who created the document wouldn't have to do all the work themselves. The only thing I'm worried about is the legality of using this for council business as we are no longer in control of backing up our work.
I have used Google documents before at home for tables of council development applications for our precinct meetings. I refuse to use Microsoft Word and excel and only use Lotus at home and work so there are lots of compatability issues as the Microsoft products won't open anything created using Lotus.
Google docs gets around this. I don't have to worry about compatability anymore!
It is very easy to create a document, edit it and share it.
At work we could use this to get documents from the draft stage to the finnished product a lot quicker. And the person who created the document wouldn't have to do all the work themselves. The only thing I'm worried about is the legality of using this for council business as we are no longer in control of backing up our work.
16 April 2008
She's got medals - Mashups
I'm already familiar with musical mashups as they've been around for some time now. David Bowie's 2004 single release "Rebel never gets old" was a mashup of two of his older singles, "Never get old" & "Rebel rebel".
I've now discovered there's a whole lot more to mashups.
Our library could use Google maps along with Streetview (when the local one is launched) to show our branches on our catalogue to make it easier for the public to find us.
Here's a mashup of my photo added to a calendar:
The library could also use mashups involving the catalogue so our members could use search results and data in their own applications at home.
I've now discovered there's a whole lot more to mashups.
Our library could use Google maps along with Streetview (when the local one is launched) to show our branches on our catalogue to make it easier for the public to find us.
Here's a mashup of my photo added to a calendar:
The library could also use mashups involving the catalogue so our members could use search results and data in their own applications at home.
Join the gang - Podcasts and audio
I didn't realise there were so many podcasts available. Educational, informative, fun, songs, video and radio programmes. I've discovered an interview I missed whilst I was at work on my local radio station. I was able to download the podcast and will now be able to listen to it!
A lot of material is being archived which is good as much of it is transient in nature. It's great for timeshifting programmes too.
A number of libraries are making use of podcasts and content is varied as you'd expect from libraries. I particularly liked the he way some libraries podcast their author talks and storytimes. I can see no reason why we couldn't podcast our forthcoming author talk. We could test-drive our new video camera. We could also podcast our storytime and lap-sit sessions so children who can't make it to the library due to poor weather or illness are still able to see the stories being told, or join in with the songs from home.
A lot of material is being archived which is good as much of it is transient in nature. It's great for timeshifting programmes too.
A number of libraries are making use of podcasts and content is varied as you'd expect from libraries. I particularly liked the he way some libraries podcast their author talks and storytimes. I can see no reason why we couldn't podcast our forthcoming author talk. We could test-drive our new video camera. We could also podcast our storytime and lap-sit sessions so children who can't make it to the library due to poor weather or illness are still able to see the stories being told, or join in with the songs from home.
Come and buy my toys - Answer boards and social searching
It is very good to see that answers given by librarians are often rated quite highly. I'm not surprised though after seeing the range of responses given to some questions. Many librarians go out of their way to provide informative and complete answers.
I've discovered, much to my dissapointment that some people who can't help at all, still reply with silly statements like, no I don't know! or No, can't help. Looks like they are trying to build up their points, but it spoils it for the rest of the community. That's the problem with a system like this where points are awarded for each answer. This to me is a form of spam. I've just joined up with YA and have posted my first question and given my first answer. It looks like this is going to be fun. There goes my spare time! Only have 99 points... Must build it up!!!
I'm already a member of Eatability, which is the best of the restaurant review sites on the web. I often review and rate the restaurants I visit, mostly highlighting all the positive aspects (as they are running a business) and hope that this helps to encourage them to continue to provide excellent service. I always mark other reviews as helpful, if they are useful, as I love it when others rate my reviews as helpful.
Our library is about to implement reviews and ratings on our catalogue. It will be interesting to see what books are rated highly and which ones receive really low ratings. We may be able to use this feedback to help with collection development.
I've discovered, much to my dissapointment that some people who can't help at all, still reply with silly statements like, no I don't know! or No, can't help. Looks like they are trying to build up their points, but it spoils it for the rest of the community. That's the problem with a system like this where points are awarded for each answer. This to me is a form of spam. I've just joined up with YA and have posted my first question and given my first answer. It looks like this is going to be fun. There goes my spare time! Only have 99 points... Must build it up!!!
I'm already a member of Eatability, which is the best of the restaurant review sites on the web. I often review and rate the restaurants I visit, mostly highlighting all the positive aspects (as they are running a business) and hope that this helps to encourage them to continue to provide excellent service. I always mark other reviews as helpful, if they are useful, as I love it when others rate my reviews as helpful.
Our library is about to implement reviews and ratings on our catalogue. It will be interesting to see what books are rated highly and which ones receive really low ratings. We may be able to use this feedback to help with collection development.
07 April 2008
Silly boy blue - Tagging, folksonomies, delicious & LibraryThing
Del.icio.us has been quite useful for bookmarking my favourite or useful websites. Only problem is I have to have many of the sites marked as private as they are innapropriate for shared computers at work. A few of my sites are shared and i'll get around to sharing more in the future.
I like the way some quick search boxes appear within the listings, so searches can be performed from within Del.icio.us.
Del.icio.us would make a great library reference links page, similar to the one Sutherland put together.
I tried looking up Bookmobile in Technorati and got the same results in both the keyword and advanced search, so I thought this was a bit of flim-flam on the State Library's part, then I scrolled down and found the tag search box and tried the search there. I ended up with a much more useful list of 25 hits.
I now have a LibraryThing account.
I like the way you can add covers and see other readers who like the same books.
I'm about to start using GuruLib instead though as I like the way I can catalogue my CDs, although that will take me a few years to do! I'll have to stop buying them.
I like the way some quick search boxes appear within the listings, so searches can be performed from within Del.icio.us.
Del.icio.us would make a great library reference links page, similar to the one Sutherland put together.
I tried looking up Bookmobile in Technorati and got the same results in both the keyword and advanced search, so I thought this was a bit of flim-flam on the State Library's part, then I scrolled down and found the tag search box and tried the search there. I ended up with a much more useful list of 25 hits.
I now have a LibraryThing account.
I like the way you can add covers and see other readers who like the same books.
I'm about to start using GuruLib instead though as I like the way I can catalogue my CDs, although that will take me a few years to do! I'll have to stop buying them.
24 March 2008
Little Bombardier - video online
I've just been searching on Youtube and google video and discovered there is a huge range of videos available. Some are good and some are so bad, I can't understand why anyone would bother uploading them onto the web.
There appears to be a lot of great library related material available. One video I found relates to renewing loans via the web catalogue:
We have a lot of trouble explaining to our borrowers how to do this even though it is simple. It would be great to upload a video showing how to renew items on our catalogue and embed it on our website.
There appears to be a lot of great library related material available. One video I found relates to renewing loans via the web catalogue:
We have a lot of trouble explaining to our borrowers how to do this even though it is simple. It would be great to upload a video showing how to renew items on our catalogue and embed it on our website.
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