Weel 9 #23 Is this really the end? Or just the beginning

Wow, I have done it. I cannot believe all the web 2.0 tools I have touched on and the fact that I have completed the exercises. It has been a great journey and one I intend to continue. It does not stop here. Day one of learning to set up a blog was a huge challenge but I can now find my way around with no effort. RSS feeds were technically tricky but now I have the hang of them and had no problem adding the RSS feed for the podcast. Facebook etc is not for me but I loved Flickr and other photo sites, could spend all day on image generator sites and Youtube and for the most had a wonderful time. Thank you for giving us this great training opportunity which has been the best I have ever done. The exercises had me thinking of how this all tied up with libraries and how I could use various tools in my work. Naturally I have found plenty of home applications for web 2.0 tools as well.

week 9 #22 e-books

I have to admit that e-books don't do it for me. I have set up my Netlibrary account and explored the e-books that Auckland City Libraries subcribes to. The e-book world is still very much geared to academic material but is slowly changing towards more popular titles read by our public library customers. The titles are mainly US publications. The only title I found on sports was published in 1996. I have added Italian cookbook to my book favourites. E-book suppliers tell me that we can expect better things in the future. Call me old-fashioned, but I like to read a printed book - I can take it wherever I want and pick it up whenever I want. Saying that e-books are used by library customers and are part of the increasing new world of "books".

Week 9 #21 Podcasts

I had no idea there were so many podcasts out there. I have looked at Podcastingnews.com plus the suggested Podcastalley.com, podcast.net and yahoo podasts. All offer an amazing variety. I have chosen to link up to a BBC world corresponsdents one. I can see why people like podcasts as they are an easy way to keep up with what interests you without having to do the searching so long as with all things you realise it is selective and not all inclusive. Saying that some podcasts are dated, eg. sports events. I shall be adding more podcasts.

Week 9 #20 YouTube

Like many others I love YouTube. I could waste a lot of time plaing on this site (and did). I have looked up ads, including the Chesdale cheese ad from the 70's, looked for musicians and generally had a good time. I also had a go on some of the non-Youtube sites but downloadign was very slow - probably because they are globally popular and also because lots of us are working on Web 2.0 this afternoon. However, I know that I will be on my home PC this weekend and many more after that with YouTube. Reference libarians should be able to make great use of YouTube and similar sites as they are excellent resources for historical ads, musical clips, news and so much more.


I couldn't resist adding my two favourite Toyota ads :
The famous bugger ad



And the cows sheep shagger ad:



Being an Elton John fan I had to include a clip. It is a very early one of YOur song from 19721. I confess to being in my teens then ...

Week 8 #19 Discovering Web 2.0 tools - award nominees

I had a great time discovering many sites on the Award nominees list. I liked Farecast, the travel site. At first it seemed very American but it does cover most parts of the world. I was able to find out air fares and accomodation links for the places I wanted to visit. I would not say that the site provided the cheapest fares especially when it listed a fare of $1776.00 return Auckland to Melbourne for one airline. I think Farecast got confused as it managed to get better fares for other airlines. Some parts of the site, such as Expedia for cruises, are limited to US citizens for bookings. Cars, vacation packages, hotels are all there to be checked out. I would definitely use Farecast only in combination with other sites to be sure I got the best deal. I think Americans win on this one. While the greatest use will be for the home user, reference librarians can take this as a useful introduction for library customers to online travel as they can see the huge potential to save money and plan their own holidays instead of going through a travel agenth which offers a narrower range of products.
I have also checked out Newsvine (interesting), cocktail builder (some great cocktail recipes including the old favourites), Medstory (very American, we have better sites on our library web), Eventful (potentially good, but lacks sufficient information such as exact location and is dated).

Week 8 #18 Online productivity - Zoho writer

I love Zoho writer. It is a great new tool for me. I wish I had discovered it years ago. It is much more flexible than Word and can be accessed and edited as appropriate by others without the hassles of compatability of software etc. Obviously where there are issues of compliance or organisational storage requirements it might not be appropriate. I have created my own account, created some documents and had a good play. I like the easy to use tools, of which there is much more variety than with Word. Tags for filing are the best feature, it is so easy and so sensible. I also like being able to call up my files without having to remember filenames or where they are stored. I will be making lots of use of this at home. Just love the smileys you can add. Where would we be without smileys? I also liked the range of other Zoho things such as Zoho planner.

Week 7 #17 Playing around with PBWiki

This was not such a straight forward exercise initially as the instructions were not clear. I also encountered several instances of the web not displaying the favourite blogs. It is all part of the learning experience and I got there at last. My blog is now listed with the favourite blogs.