blogbaby

Week 6: Facebook

2010-06-28T16:49:00.003-08:00

I already have a Facebook page: I added my maiden name, leRoux to the mix, so my old school buddies can find me - and of course the old boyfriends who hopefully are miserable with remorse... Should perhaps put together the page for the Libraraian's Big Day Out as part of this exercise. Will keep you posted...

Week 5: Music & MP3s

2010-06-09T16:34:00.005-08:00

I checked out Free Albums Galore, as my taste is quite eclectic. There is a good selection of classical music and some oldies - will defintiley share this with my mom!

There is an A-Z directory which is very helpful

Mmmm - Australian Rock Underground sounds promissing...

I'm surprised to see so many sites offering free downloads - long live the Internet and Tosca!! Thanks for sharing!

Week 4: Books & Social Networking

2010-06-09T16:01:00.005-08:00

Goodreads

There is a list of the current most read books, and most popular (or unpopular) lists. It's funny to see how the same title makes it to both the best and the worst lists!

You can receive updates of book reviews and there is even frequently updated quotes!

Definitely a very useful site for reader's advisory services - it gives you a popular view of recent titles. As it is so easy to use, its a good site to recommend to customers.

Week 3: Twitter

2010-06-09T15:29:00.005-08:00

Tweetietweet.

Was originally not a great fan of the idea, as I hate being constantly cojoled. It does however satisfy my need to be kept up to date and all-knowledgeable, so I'm now signed up!

Very easy to use, and quite addictive, once you get going! Great as a a tool to keep up to date with news and what your friends are up to. Mmmm - not sure how else we could use it at work - good for being kept updated on City-widie events and new book reviews or web posts, so keep on letting us know about all the great stuff, Tosca!!

Week 2: ZAMZAR

2010-06-09T15:09:00.006-08:00

Zamzar is great! No more running around trying to get IM to give you conversion software - you can just go to Zamzar and press Convert!

I mostly use Zamzar to convert .doc files into PDFs, so no one can tamper with my facts and figures! I've not really explored other conversion types though, so it was good to learn that I can convert docx and bmp to gif or jpg. My goodness - there are hundreds of options under Conversion types!

You do have to pick the right time of the day though. Late afternoon is not the ideal and it can take a few hours for the document to be sent back. Early morning or late in the evening is better.

Will definitely promote this to customers - a great service!

More Web 2.0 - Week 1: Revisiting my blog

2010-06-09T14:53:00.006-08:00

Well it really is time for me to get on with this.

I do use a lot of the Web 2.0 technologies in my daily life allready - but it would be useful to consolidate and have a think about how to use it at work...

#23

2008-09-22T02:36:00.003-08:00

Well, well - it's definitely only the beginning!

There is so much we need to keep up with. We need to keep up, not just to not be left behind, but we also have a duty towards our customers, to educate tehm about web 2.0 and what it means for them.

Time is what we need now - to digest and to apply. Although, technologes move so fast these days, that we don't have the luxury of milling this over, we have to just get in there! What we do need to do is schedule time in our week to keep up so we can add the value to our service our customers deserve!

Week 9 #22

2008-09-22T02:25:00.003-08:00

Project Gutenberg

I always wonder if thye had to chop a book up to scan it in easily or if someone actually had to stand there for 50 hours painstakingly scanning in each and every page. However it happens, the end result is project Guttenberg - books on demand! Mmm maybe now staff will agree to weeding - the classics are all here!! I was surprised to find even psychology books on here when I originally had a look at the titles. It's incredible how much is allready available online.

"Tess of the d'Urbervilles" was my favourite book during my English Lit years. And it's here - complete with bibliographic record!

Week 9 #21

2008-09-22T01:58:00.004-08:00

Podcasts

I found a little audio clip when I origianlly created my blog - the baby laugh - to run with the baby theme - it's on my profile page.

I found a couple of ineresting library podcasts. One library posted teen network podcast discussions. Teen patrons get together and talk about books that thye've read and also discuss other library related topics - can't decide if people will really listen to this, but I guess it would be fun for the people who put it together. Other libraries uploaded poetry, stories and even oral history. You can subscribe to the casts so that you can receive a notification when they get updated.

Week 9

2008-09-22T01:36:00.005-08:00

Videos

Youtube is amazing! Besides all the funny videos on there, I've also found all my favourite music videos and just recently I disvoered all the episodes of my favourite soapie "Home and Away" (guilty pleasure shhh).

In the library We could use this to load tutorials for Learn.net, explain the library layout or introduce new services.

Here's my current favourite song

Week 8 # 19

2008-09-22T00:29:00.005-08:00

The best Web 2.0 tools

I had a quick look through the top list and was drawn to Backpack. Backpack is a business tool that allows you to create task list with uploads, share documets, calendars and discussions. It even has a simplified document management system with built in version control All of this summarised in a Newsroom, where you can quickly see which comments or calendar events has been added

It is unfortutnaly not a free prodcut :-( but I will go and have a look yo see if there is any similar freeware available - it's really cool!

Week 8

2008-09-21T17:22:00.005-08:00

Zoho

Aaa - the penny drops

I can now type my musings in Zoho writer and then post it to my blog. It gives me much more options - colour, layout etc and it is easy peezy! Below is a very short first draft of my very first document using Zoho:

Don't mess with the Zoho

This is my first zoho document. The title above refers to a silly Adam Sandlar Movie - Zohan...

Let's try a bit of coulour. Wow, the options are limitless! Easier than in Microsfot!! Beware Bill Gates!!

Week 7

2008-09-21T14:58:00.006-08:00

Social Networking sites

I use Facebook as apposed to Bebo or Myspace. It seems to be favoured by South Africans - Myspace seems to have a lot of American support while Bebo has British origins. But there is no restriction - country bound or otherwise for any of theses social networking sites - you could have a profile on each one if you choose to!

Facebook is used by several professional library groups and to promote library related events

An interesting case study done by the London School of Economics and Political Science exploring the use of Facebook as a tool for libraries and librarians highlights its use as a networking and marketing tool.

Council or at least Manukau CIty LIbraries will have to have another look at their restriction to social networking sites policy. If this provides us with a huge potential to reach new customers, we should have access to these sites.

Week 6

2008-08-26T16:37:00.013-08:00

Tagging

Wow, Delicious.com is great! So often you forget which search terms you used to find something on Google - and I have on occasion not been able to find some obscure sites again - so this is great - once bookmarked, you can access it anywhere. Tagging also helps you to easily separate social from work related sites. I've registered and am converted!!

Technorati

A keyword search for the phrase "Learning 2.0" resulted in 436 hits A tag search resulted in 640 hits, however a tag search for the phrase search for "learning 2.0" resulted in only 176 hits. Web 2.0 under the directory listings bring up a different set of results again.

Moral of the story - there is a lot out there and you will need to be a bit more specific with your search criteria when you're looking for a particular blog or a blog on a particular subject. I like blogger Central with rising blogs of the day. There were 8,038 posts tagged "library" Wonder if we could convince them to add "libraries" as a directory heading??

On Library 2.0

The article on "Icebergs" and "Into a new world of librarianship" really inspired me. It made me excited about the future of libraries - the way I felt as a student when I was doing my postgraduate library studies. It's supporting my drive to get rid of our "just in case collection" but have also made me rethink user education. We should not need to have to provide extensive training in library resources. If everything else informative out there is so easy to use - why will people use complicated library databases? Of course they will not!

I'm making these two articles compulsory reading for all staff - they provide some useful guidelines:

Librarians 2.0 plans for their users - Librarian 2.0 embraces Web 2.0 tools - Librarian 2.0 controls technolust - Librarian 2.0 makes good, yet fast decisions - Librarian 2.0 is a trendspotter - Librarian 2.0 gets content

Week 5

2008-08-26T16:13:00.006-08:00

Wikis

I'm definitely going to use a wiki for the library - its great for how-to manuals and library procedures.

We put together a wiki for Library Week. The idea was to upload your story. It wasn't hugely successfull - partly due to lack of advertising - we are limited to free community newspapers - but I'm encouraging staff to upload some of their stories, so that everyone can see how it works and share their thoughts on how we could implement it in our own library. You are welcome to add your story - go to https://livingbook.pbwiki.com/ and follow the instructions.

Week 4 Techno guff

2008-08-26T16:04:00.003-08:00

Mmm anything technology related... I must say, our telephone account would be so much higher without Skype. Skype enables you to call people anywhere in the world for FREE, provided you both have the software loaded and have an Internet connection fast enough to deal with it - broadband is usually a must. You can also conference call on skype and add as many callers as you would like. On Christmas day our whole family was together, I joined from Auckland, my parents from Cape Town, South Africa and my sister from London. It was as if we were all together - amazing!! Facebook has allowed me to keep in touch with Friends abroad. They can share a little more of my life as I can upload photos for them and even instant message them if we happen to be online at the same time. Old friends from High school have been joining Facebook and we've been catching up - it's quite incredible!

Week 4 Mashups

2008-08-26T15:08:00.005-08:00

Mashups

Flicker mashups:

I absolutely love FD Toys. I put together this magazine - these are my friend's dogs. She got them reindeer ears for Christmas - you can see that they're absolutely delighted about it!! I figured for all their efforts they at least earned their own magazine cover...

Week 4

2008-08-26T13:35:00.006-08:00

My introduction to Flicker. We use Picasa at home - not to post photos on the Internet, but to manage the photos on our own drives. It automatically sorts it according to the year in which the photo was taken and also give great options to edit not-so-good-looking pictures. But today is all about exploring flicker:

Have tried several times to upload an image from Flicker by using the "blog this" button on top of the image - but it's not playing! So I'm the other way now - using blogger to upload the image.

Nothing seems to be working for me today! THis is supposed to be an image of the Sydney Opera House and Harbour bridge. Will have to bribe hubbie to lend me his skills tonight...

Week 3

2008-07-30T02:40:00.004-08:00

Definitely a fun week! Here's my library puzzle... Am definitely going to create my own magazine cover! Plus very excited to see all the calendar options - o, if there were only more hours in a day!

Round 2

2008-07-17T19:40:00.002-08:00

It's been a little busy over the past few weeks, so I have not had much time to really get stuck in - being a newb and all, I am a little overwhelmed. RSS feeds is great. There is so much information out there though so the real challenge will be to try and make some time to read all of it - or failing that, being priority ruthless, so I just read what I need! What this whole exercise has just reitterated again is that things seem difficult untill you actually start doing them - then it's all easy! Check out my roles at http://www.bloglines.com/blog/bibl That's not the fat roles, the info roles...

Hey, Hey it's Friday!

2008-07-03T14:17:00.002-08:00

Great success! I've baby-stepped my way to blogging! This is such fun! Now I can finally have my own Bridget Jones's diary.

Mmm let's see... Kilojoules consumed: 20 000 (there was a strawberry cheesecake in the tea room this morning - these people are intent on making me fat) Brain cells used: 20 000 (there is so much to learn...) Good thing, as this cancels out the kilojoules

Words of wisdom for the week: He who foresees calamities suffers them twice over.