Library and Web 2.0

It's really hard to read sometimes when you are sitting in a room full of noisy, chatty women but I did my best. I read Into a new world of Librarianship and To better bibliographic services.
I like the concepts discussed in the first one which included what a user-centered library does and how the library involves the users in projects and plans that it makes. There was also talk in the first one I read about how the web could enhance Library services. This is a great concept but in our haste to keep up with Technology we can't forget our customers who are not au fait with it.
To better bibliographic services focused a lot on technology and using it to enchance bibliographic services which I think is a cool concept and it would allow you to think outside the square. You could even allow customers to contribute their reading views via a wiki. The idea of keeping up with technology and using it to enhance services to your users is great but technology costs money and you would have to convince the people who hold the purse strings of the validity of putting the money towards technology projects for the benefit of Library users.

Technorati

Well when I entered Learning 2.0 as a search I got 10,303 results. The most interesting titled one I found was "Malfunctioning Bladder could alter your Brain". Popular ones on Technorati cover a huge variety of topics.
I have to say Boing Boing was one of the more interesting popular blogs with a very interesting collection of tags that related to it.
All in all it wasn't of any use to me and I can't of the top of my head thing of any practical applications for it except maybe to drive staff mad.
Glad to be rid of that exercise.

Del.icio.us - maybe, maybe not

Del.icio.us was interesting. It did give me some useful links. Like under the recent posts you could go to Classic TV quotes which was quite hard case. The quotes one was well organised and you could go by show.

The other one that interested me was Abandoned Buildings, Towns and Cities WebUrbanist

However as interesting as I found this I can't at this point think of any useful applications for it.
If you have untold time to surf and explore this is probably an extremely cool site to muck around in.

It's kind of like going through Bebo or Facebook but for bookmarks rather than personal stuff that you would find on the two mentioned social networking sites.

Personally if I find a good site of use to me I prefer to bookmark them for myself if someone else is interested they can ask and I would share the address and let them bookmark it themself.

So while Del.icio.us was interesting it's not really of a lot of use to me.

Sandbox Wiki

As a kid I used to love playing in my sandpit. It wasn't quite like this one but hey the world has moved on. The sandbox wiki was fun and easy to use and I had great fun trying to decide which favourites thing I was going to add to or whether I wanted to create a new favourites thingy.

Decisions decisions decisions well in the end I decided to move the music one along a bit and added to that. So far the only ones who pretty much have any favourite music is me and Catatonia.

My blog is now in the favourite blogs list in there not that mine is in any way, shape or form actually worth reading but hey they say one man's trash is another man's treasure so you never know someone might actually want to read my ramblings and heaven forbid they may even enjoy them.

Wiki Wiki everywhere

Wikis are the subject of my ramblings for this post.

As an avid user of Wikipedia I was interested to look at this exercise. There seems to be no end of use in terms of application of Wikis in Libraries.

They can and are used for very dry subjects such as Project management and strategic stuff but also for more fun practical things such as book reviews.

Princeton Library applied the book review scenario to their Wiki but I found that it seemed to cover more fiction stuff and not enough good non fiction stuff.

It would be a great concept to create a Wiki fo staff and customers to use to post reviews etc about books even possibly linking it to the Library catalogue.

This would be a great aid in helping people to choose books.

Libraries could perhaps apply the Wiki process to major projects such as rennovations so that customers can not only see what the concept for the finished rennovation is but they could perhaps get on and contribute positive or negative feedback on the rennovations once done.

Well that's pretty much enough waffling for now but Wikis could be a good practical tool for Libraries.

My Ipod

Ipods are a beautiful thing. These days I have the classic 80gb ipod which holds something like 20,000 songs.
I don't know that I will ever get to 20,000 but I am up to about 500 songs at present. What i also like is that I can create playlists for every mood.
Ipods are also great for tuning out the world and ignoring people when you want to be left in peace.
I honestly don't know why people want to go around listening to music on their mobile phone when they can get an ipod and have ten times as much music on their ipod than they can on their mobile phone.
At least if the music is on their ipod the music is silent and everyone they pass isn't forced to listen to whatever rubbish they are currently blowing their ears out with.
Some of these teens have mobile phones that cost more than an ipod so hey do the world a favour and get an ipod so people don't have to listen to your music if they don't want to.

Big hello to Princess Smutty who is the recipient of a comment or ramble from me this week.

Mosaics and Trading Cards

Well I had fun using the Mosaic maker to do a mosaic of scenery type photos (see left)

I also created a very bland trading card ( seen on the right)

The mosaic maker was a lot of fun and you had choices for what format your mosaic picture would take.

Luckily not too much choice which is bad for people who can't decide between one or another. The mosaics make pictures look even better when they are arranged in an adhock kind of way. My creative back was distinctly absent this week especially when it came to the trading card but hey at least i fiddled around and did something with it.

Manukau Learning 2.0

This is my photo of Manukau Learning. Here a lot of kids are playing with little Police cars to learn about Road Rules and Road Safety as part of our annual Safety Week

Whether they actually learnt anything or not who knows I hope they did.

Flickr was kind of fun but I don't know that I will do anything more with it once training is finished.

Too many other things to do, places to go, people to see.

Well it's time to go and explore what the next training exercise will bring.

Rollyo

Well another lesson another grey hair. Actually Rollyo was sort of interesting especially with trying to decide what I wanted to do.

View this link to see my searchroll.

The fun and games started when I had to link everything. It's not always easy flicking between your blog and the screen of instructions and remembering the correct order of doing things, especially ifyou have a bad memory in the first place. However Waltzing Matilda got it done even if I was left confused at the end. Thanks to Catatonia for getting me unstuck.

Well that's it till next time.

Wasting Time

I had some fun wasting time and looking at what some of the generators were.

My favourite was probably the Honorary Italian Grandmother (and Saint) one.

See the link below
http://oneletterwords.com/ecards/saint/

I did do some fiddling with what some movie stars would look like with Plastic surgery and that was kind of funny.

I have also attached the certificate I made for Catatonia as she is always great at utilising what is to hand just like MacGyver.

Library Thing was very interesting to play around with. I had lots of fun and found there is a huge range of books in there. Good Book cover images as well.

I could have spent ages just browsing books but hey we have to do real work now and then. This is actually nice and relaxing and mindless to do after the chaos that was the first day of the school holidays.

Well it's just about time for me to go home now so until next time............Ciao

RSS is a huge pain

Well I endeavoured to do the RSS exercise and what a pain in the rear end that was. Still with the help of Catatonia (you rock) I got there in the end.




http://www.bloglines.com/public/waltzingmatilda


There were way to many things to choose from and then there is the samll matter of your workmates ones if you subscribe to one and not the other hello you have the whole I'm offended thing goin on.


I have included a clip from my favourite music group and since Catatonia already has posted a pic of them on her site I will post a pic of another of my favourite singers who is Mario Frangoulis and from a female point of view if you are alive and breathing he is a total hottie unless you are Natalie Mahoney who thinks guys like this are on every street corner and easily available.

We look forward to seeing what Miz Mahoney puts on her blog when she finally gets round to creating it since she has blithely informed us that she will outshine us. To that we here in neverneverland say a big fat ha.