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.

Week 7 #16 Wikis

Wikis of all kinds are out there, some useful some not, some serious, some full of junk. The challenge is to extract from them the information that you want. The links to Wikis and the reading was useful and I have in the past used Wikis myself. I like the personal comments and additional information in amongst the more serious content. I can see how useful they can be for libraries. Whereas a library controls its website, a library wiki would enable interraction between the customer and the library. As a training tool, Wikis also have great potential as staff can add their own comments and helpful hints. I see that US libraries have made use of this. I was interested by the core IT competencies Wiki and think that is a very good idea for Auckland City Librarie to adopt. A core standard of IT skills is something that we currently lack.

Week 6 #15 Web 2.0 Library 2.0 and the future of libraries

The articles I have read on this build on a very inspiring paper I attended at this year's LIANZA conference. Roy Tennant from OCLC which is embracing Library 2.0 talked about the importance of presenting infomation and enabling our customers to source information in ways that they use on the web.
We need to acknowledge and quickly embrace Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 and its successors if we are to remain relevant to our customers. Young librarians have a lot to teach not so tehno savvy librarians. Small and often non-urban based libraries are able to offer access to a wider range of information with library 2.0 but are going to need a big hand up to do this. User education which provides a human front to information is where libraries can continue to grow. I look forward to a wonderful ongoing future for libraries.

Week 6 #14 Getting not so technical with Technorati

Technorati was interesting and built on my knowledge from the previous exercise. The search exercise for learning 2.0 produced no surprises for me. The blogs search came up with the greatest number of hits (6,319) but when used as a phrase "learning 2.0" the results showed entire post (518), and tags only (104). It shows the importance of knowing how and what to search, a skill that reference librarians but not all web users have.
I wasn't at all surprised to see the list under popular blog - everything I have become more familiar with since starting our on the web 2.0 training. Nice to see that Facebook is up for google challenges.

Week 56 #14 Tagging, folksomonies, and social bookmarking in del.icio.us

Tagging is a great concept and one well-used by library customers searching on the web as it means they are no confined to a strict vocabulary and can find all kinds of information. However, uncontrolled tabs do mean you can also miss things. I like the concept of being able to bookmark a webpage and add my own tags. I ended up at the New Zealand foodlovers website - yummy.
It is also interesting to see that libraries are incorporating RSS feeds from their catalogues. Mainly US at this stage, no doubt we will do so too.

Week 5 #11 Librarything

I like librarything and can see why it has wide appeal. It is a great way to see what others who read similar books to me also like. After taking the tour, I signed up and added 5 books to my library, a combination of fiction, travel and favourites from my childhood. One of them I entered manually as it is a New Zealand title and I also wanted to learn how to do it, including adding comments. It's dead easy. Cataloguers are going to be out of a job, but having said that this site does not have a thesaurus and so tags are extremely variable. This is a very American site at this stage but could well change. There are no links to NZ sources.

My librarything catalog is below. I will be back again to Librarything.



http://www.librarything.com/catalog/atramper

Week 5 #10 Rollyo

I have not taken to Rollyo. It is full of really annoying rubbish. It may well appeal to others but not to me. I found each Rollyo I tried ended up linking back to the same Rollyos. Having said that I have added a travel Rollyo to my blog. It was a useful exercise doing this as I learned more about different aspects of blogs. Who knows, I may even use my Rollyo.

Week 5 #10 Image generators

This is much more fun. I have chocolate online and a cappuccino which I will never drink. I have made a glitter picture, which sadly I lost. I will be back to visit the photo album features on Letter James. I liked the Christmas card making generator - give it a go for fun.

http://www.electricdecember.org/02/content/06/present.htm

FD toys has some good poster making functions but look out for all the annoying marketing links as you do them.

Week 4 RSS feeds

This week's learning has been the most challenging so far. I knew what I wanted to do but the instructions were quite complex and I got lost. Thank goodness for my wonderful team member who walked me through the process. It was much easier with her help. I am now linked to some news sites plus a blog for someone I know who is spending 3 months in Tanzania teaching art. I have also added to some other newsfeeds from my colleagues blogs.

http://cats.about.com/
http://newsrss.bbc.co.uk/rss
http://newzealandherald.co.nz/
http://artinafrica.blogspot.com/

Week 3 Flickr

I love Flickr and could easily waste hours exploring everything it has to offer. I will certainly be making more use of this website. I like not only the fantastic range of photos on the site but also the ability to map them. Playing around with the tags bought up some interesting and sometimes odd indexing results but did enable me to drill down to what I was after in most cases. The results of some of my searches are in the photo links below.

I had the pleasure of living in Mauritius some years ago and have attached some photos from Flickr of this beautiful island. I found the advanced search function userful for this. I have purposely found photos of the real Mauritius, not the touristy Mauritius.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/reduit/169917041/ - Grande Gaube beach with the typical casuarina trees shading the beach

http://www.flickr.com/photos/84951145@N00/64836453/ - sugar cane is traditionally planted and harvested by hand.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/laiv/349463427/ Port Louis market, a great place for fresh food delivered daily. Very little of it has ever seen a chemical or a modern agricultural machine.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/anupnarayanan/1474266491/ the local supermarket in Quatre Bornes where I shopped for groceries. It hasn't changed a bit!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7500443@N02/434939913/ - a beautiful Hindu temple in Port Louis

The flickr 3rd party tools are something I will return to after my brief look at them. Color Pickr is fun and I found all sorts of photos. I object to the advertising links on this webpage. I had a few problems with montagr.

I enjoy lansdcape photography and after enjoying various SLR cameras for several years have reluctantly put my camera aside. I have purchased a quality digital camera and am delighted with it. It has several SLR features but is much more versatile. I like the ability to view what I have just taken and delete what I don't want. Now that I have got the hang of the software I can now store images in a logical way.
Some already feature on my blog.

I am also following the development of blogs by my team and posting comments.

Critters of all kinds and cat colonies

I have always had a strong compassion for animals, both domestic and wild. I confess that there a few that I am less passionate about than others, especially the slithery poisonous critters. For several years I have been on a roster to feed 27 cats that thrive in our local cat colony. All the cats are desexed and live in the toitoi on the edge of the carpark in my local shopping centre. Why are they there? Unfortunately people do not desex their cats and they breed, people also dump kittens and cats. As a consequence we get cat colonies. Our cats are not feral, do not attack the wildlife and are fit and healthy, some even getting a bit fat.

My mother tells me I have been rescuing cats and dogs from the age of 4. Apparently I used to find "lost" dogs and cats as a young child and bring them home. My mother would then have to find the owners. I was convinced these were orphans with no homes. What a sucker.

All my cats have been strays. Penny, my new cat, was found starving and almost dead from dehydration on our drive in the summer of 2005. She is now a very happy cute and fluffy cat that still retains some of her wild ways. She loves watching the birds and catches butterflies and lizards. Hmm. Her photo is above.

Week 2

The social networking exercises have been really educational. Bebo, Myspace and Facebook clearly have a popular following with teens and I can see why. What a great way to share information, ideas, music and movies. Our ACL friend on Bebo sure has some "interesting" friends. On Myspace I linked up to Vegetable Manic a chat group for vegetarians. The attached picture is their logo - not very good looking! I did not like the fact that marketing companies can make use of Facebook - at least Facebook is honest enough to indicate this can happen. I liked the ability on all these sites to listen to music and video clips.

Week one has been interesting. I have learned a whole new vocabulary and am beginning to familiarise myself with the blog. I am sure I will get the hang of it. This week I am still finding my way around. I can see it is a great way to share information without the use of e-mails etc.

This photo is of me on a beach on the shipwreck coast of the Great Ocean Road in Australia. The weather was glorious and the scenery was stunning. The limestone formations are quite unique. I prefered the shipwreck coast to the more touristy surfers coast towards Melbourne.

Annette

Little Barrier Island

Has anyone out there been to Little Barrier Island. I would love to hear about your experience.