Week 9 # 23 Wrap up

Well, here I am at # 23! I have just looked back at my oldest posts, and I am reminded that I really had no idea what I was embarking on. The week of looking at social networking sites coincided with my son and his flatmates putting our dog’s profile on the Dogbook section of Facebook and they were very surprised that I knew what they were talking about! On to Flickr – with a new grandchild due next year, this will be a great way of sharing photos.

The next stage was RSS feeds and I have to say I found this section the most difficult of the whole journey, and had to call upon a more IT savvy workmate to assist the first time I added a feed. The library feeds exercises showed very useful ways of both helping our customers and helping ourselves to locate useful information about book reviews and so on. The Image Generators would be a good place for finding ideas for Christmas themes, both for library decorating and for personal use. The folksonomies concept caters very well to people with like interests, so that they can take advantage of others’ knowledge in building their lists of favourites. Wikis and online tools are unbelievably useful, so thanks to the ACL Learning programme for drawing our attention to all these.

I had heard of YouTube of course and had even followed a link to one or two videos myself, but I had never before gone to the site and had a look around – I will be returning frequently. And the ebooks resources in our own library were a revelation! How can we advertise this better to customers?

Many thanks to Jane and the team for all their work. Congratulations – it’s a great programme.

Week 9 # 22 ebooks

NetLibrary
I successfully set up an account with NetLibrary, which was very easy. I searched for a few books which I guessed were long out of copyright, such as Little Women and Pride and Prejudice, and added them to my Favorites. There are many books by authors such as Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde available. The Anne of Green Gables series is there too.
I also searched for Shakespeare and saw that there are a lot of Cliffs Notes on Shakespeare’s plays which would be very handy for students of English literature, particularly since the text of all these ebooks is searchable, so it would be very easy to bring up a particular quote, rather than searching through a hard copy.
There were also many ebooks on computer software such as Photoshop, which would be very convenient to access if you ran into a problem and needed a quick answer. I can see I will spend many happy hours on NetLibrary – one thing just leads to another.

Kindle
There has been some publicity in the media this week about Kindle, the electronic book reader, so I had been doing some reading about it before it popped up in this exercise. It seems very pricy at $US399 but presumably like all new technology it won’t take long for the price to tumble if it catches on. It would be great to have on an overseas trip if it can indeed hold 200 books and last 30 hours before recharging. I would definitely be interesting in owning one if it lives up to its promise.

Week 9 # 21 Podcasts

For this exercise I first of all went to http://www.podcast.net/ and selected the alphabetical option. Purely randomly I clicked on B and then decided on Baby Boomers (simply because I am one!) This brought up four options. However, I then ran into trouble with my chosen podcast because I was required to download something called ActiveX, but ended up going around in circles because of course I couldn’t download it here at the library and couldn’t get any further without it. So then I went to Yahoo podcasts and searched on Library, and came up with “Resources for librarians who are interested in the application of web design and technologies in libraries”. This is the one I chose: lwc_podcast2.mp3 which seems to be an oral blog.
I suspect you would have to be selective in what blog to listen to, as come might be a bit rambling. Probably better to stick to radio broadcasts and other professionally made podcasts.

Week 9 # 20 YouTube

On looking around the YouTube home page I saw the tab categories, http://youtube.com/categories , so went there first to have a look at what was available. I chose the category Pets and Animals, and from there a video clip from National Geographic called Flamingos of Bogoria (duration 3 min., 14 sec) which certainly demonstrates there is no sentiment in Mother Nature. There were also homemade video clips on the site which people had made of their pets, some of which were very funny.
The first thing I noticed was the length of time it took to bring up a category once you clicked on it - bandwidth hogs indeed! However it seems to be a site of endless possibilities, and could keep anyone entertained for hours. Suitable video clips would be a great feature on library websites, drawing customers attention to events, services and resources.

Week 8 # 19 Discovering Web 2.0 tools

For this exercise I selected a site from the list of Web 2.0 Awards nominees at http://www.seomoz.org/web2.0#cat_66, under the category Questions and Advice, called Yahoo Answers http://answers.yahoo.com/, which is an interactive site for knowledge-sharing. This is not a search engine, but a site where you can pose a question and other people answer in real time. Obviously, you would not get an answer immediately, but if you had a specific question which Google or a similar search engine couldn’t provide the answer to, this would be a great place to go. Equally, you can share your knowledge with others by answering questions. An example of a question which I saw while browsing is How do you keep cats from climbing up the Christmas Tree??. I must say the first answer (“Screw the tree stand to the floor.”) seemed a bit extreme, until I read another (“Put mousetraps in the tree.”)! Pet repellent spray around the base of the tree seemed the most sensible solution.
This certainly looks a very promising and entertaining site, and one which I will no doubt use from time to time. It seems very simple to use. I think this would have an application in a library setting when schoolchildren pose those awkward questions from their homework assignments!

Week 8 # 18 Online productivity

I signed into Zoho Writer and then imported this Microsoft Word document from my own files. I notice the 'degree' symbol didn't import properly but can't initially see how to fix this. This programme obviously doesn't have all the bells and whistles of Word but I can see it would be a great way to ensure that everyone can read your document without having to worry about whether the person you're sending a file to has the software to read your version.

P.S Publishing to the blog from Zoho Writer was a breeze.

GRAPE-PICKERS' POTATOES

600g potatoes

50g butter

300g thin smoked streaky bacon rashers

freshly ground pepper

120g gruyere or similar cheese, grated

Heat the oven to 220ûC. Peel the potatoes and slice them very thinly. Brush a 24-26cm cast iron or similarly heavy ovenproof dish with a little melted butter.

Line the dish with the slices of bacon, covering the bottom and sides and leaving the upper third or so of each rasher hanging over the top of the dish. Put in a layer of potatoes, season with pepper and scatter over some cheese. Repeat the layers, finishing with potatoes. Cover the potatoes with the bacon overhang. Dot with the remaining butter, cover with a double layer of foil and bake for about 1 hour or until the potatoes are cooked.

Remove the dish from the heat, uncover and let it stand for 5 minutes. Loosen the bacon rashers from the sides of the dish and turn the "cake" out onto a warm serving dish. A green salad is a good accompaniment.

Serves 4.

Week 7 # 17 Playing around with PBWiki

My first task was to find out what PBwiki means, and apparently it means Peanut Butter Wiki, as in “it’s as easy as peanut butter”. Users can create free wikis with advertising, or pay for a wiki and avoid ads. Wikis can be public or private (password protected). The ACL Learning wiki was created using the free version. I logged in and added my blog to the Favourite Blogs page and it seemed very easy – too easy, so maybe it didn’t work!

I went to Favourite Books page and immediately saw two of my favourite books in the first few listed, so I knew I would like this page. However only a few of the books listed had a link to a review or to the catalogue which was disappointing. I added a link to the ACL catalogue for the Poisonwood Bible, one of my all time favourite books.

I looked into Favourite Recipes and found only one link to a recipe there (quick lasagne, yum) so added a link to a sticky date pudding recipe. Happy cooking!

Week 7 # 16 Wikis

I have been using Wikipedia as the first port of call for quickly needed information for quite some time, so I was very interested in this exercise. I was particularly interested to find that the name comes from a Hawaiian phrase “Wiki, wiki”, meaning “quick”, because I had intuitively felt that the word Wiki had a Pacific origin. The characteristics of a wiki are that they invite involvement of the user, and promote topic associations through links. Wikis are dynamic, in that when new information is discovered about a subject, it can be quickly added to the collective knowledge base by virtually anyone. This is also its weakness because authorship can be biased.

There are many wikis dealing with matters of interest to libraries. I was particularly taken with the Book Lovers Wiki, which has heaps of reviews of books arranged in different categories. How I wish I had known about it when I was running a library book group! There are even instructions for starting one’s own wiki in Wikis: A Beginner’s Look. It’s a relief to know you don’t have to have knowledge of HTML or other markup languages to do this!

There are suggestions on Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki for use of wikis for knowledge sharing and collaboration. Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki has links to successful library wikis, and examples of best practice. Tutorials in using a library’s digital resources would be an example of wiki use within a library – the people actually using the resource will no doubt have suggestions and tips to offer other users. Also a subject guide among students of a particular course of study would be very useful.

Week 6 # 15 Library 2.0 and Web 2.0

With Web 2.0, users can interact and participate on the web rather than simply “look things up”. The term Library 2.0 is deliberately similar to Web 2.0, and implies that as the web is going, so are library services, which must be frequently updated to meet the changing needs of library users. The active library user is an indispensible aspect of Library 2.0 - with information and ideas flowing bilaterally, library services have the ability to evolve and improve on a constant and rapid basis. All this is wonderful, but it also relies on patrons having good computer skills – skills which have to be picked up elsewhere because the average public library simply doesn’t have the resources to tutor all customers. And as anyone who has worked in circulation is aware, there are patrons who panic even at the suggestion that they consult the OPAC, so the contents of the library have actually become less accessible to them. (Maybe you have to think no further than your own elderly relatives.) Will these people simply be left behind? Is the gap between the computer literate and computer illiterate becoming unbridgeable?

I marvel at all the things I have become aware of just since starting ACL Learning 2.0, and sometimes have the feeling I am just clinging to the bottom of the knowledge ladder, never mind climbing it. This leads me to wonder whether people are actually becoming cleverer. Where was all this creativity channelled before the computer age?

From my own point of view I can see that there is great potential for streamlining and sharing cataloguing with greater web participation. The library of today has changed from being a physical collection guarded by a librarian to digital downloads and uploads, and a participatory exchange of information.

Week 6 # 14 Technorati

I accessed the Technorati website and started by setting up an account and then “claiming my blog” which seemed easy:
http://www.technorati.com/account/blogs?status=cu
I did a general search for “Learning 2.0” and got 513 results, including access to videos. Under the Blog Directory Search there were 753 results. A Tag search showed that 660 posts are tagged Learning 2.0.

There is also a list of 100 favourite blogs which seemed a varied and entertaining selection, with Boing Boing, “a weblog of cultural curiosities and interesting technologies”, being the most popular.

Week 6 # 13 Tagging, folksonomies and del.icio.us

I have looked in the websites suggested in ACL Learning 2.0 and in Wikipedia for the entries on del.icio.us and folksonomy, and from these I have gleaned that del.icio.us is a web service for storing and sharing web bookmarks. Users can choose their keywords freely and tag their bookmarks with these keywords, rather than with the controlled vocabulary which as librarians we are accustomed to, such as in LoC subject headings.
Folksonomy [folk + taxonomy] is the practice of creating and managing tags to organise content, in collaboration with other like-minded users. A folksonomy therefore uses a shared vocabulary that would be familiar to its users. It is intended to make a body of information increasingly easy to search and navigate over time.
I can see this would be extremely useful to groups with a similar interest to build up a shared list of websites relevant to their interest. The big advantage of del.icio.us is that because your bookmarks are stored in your account on the del.icio.us website, you can access it from any computer, whereas a conventional list of favourites is stored only a particular computer.
I think that folksonomies could easily take up huge chunks of time - one would have to be ruthless and cull one’s bookmarks periodically. However, they would be extremely useful to someone doing a course of study, for example, for accessing and sharing resources with others.

Week 5 # 12 Rollyo

I found this exercise particularly difficult, as the list of instructions in ACL Learning 2.0 for the Rollyo website don't seem to tally with what I found there (and I still can't for the life of me find STYLE to choose an icon, as instructed!). However, I have created an account for myself and added six of my favourite websites to this. I carried out several sample searches and got plenty of results.

http://rollyo.com/editroll.html

Week 5 # 11 LibraryThing

I logged into Library Thing, and had a look at the short tour. I then started to construct my own library, and I was surprised that it was so easy to find all the books I searched for, whether by title or ISBN. I was particularly taken with the recommendations for other books when you click on the title of the one you’ve added. This will be very handy when looking for ideas for similar books to enjoy. My library is at this address:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/patricia-thisandthat

I then clicked into the blog and was pleased to see the discussion about alternate default book covers, as two of my chosen books had the plain default covers. This library tool will definitely have my attention in the future.

Week 5 # 10 Image generators

I had a look at The Generator Blog and found an image generator that instantly appealed to me: personalising a chocolate bar. Anyone wishing to use this generator will find it at:
http://generatorblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/chocolate-bar-generator.html

I then investigated Letter James, which enables you to personalise your own images for calendars, posters, etc., by adding your choice of text to your chosen image. However when I tried to use it a message came up that the site was being updated, so I was unable to try it. I looked at FD Toys, and this seems to have a wide variety of ways to personalise photographs, such as posters, badges, calendars, mosaic makers and desktop wallpaper. I intend to do more with this when I have time!

Week 4 # 9 Library Feeds (Part 2)

I have had a look at some of the search tools for this week, and once again I am struck by the overwhelming amount of information and opinion available at the click of a button. I particularly liked the Topix tool, which allowed quick access to city-specific news. The topic I looked at led to an article on the New Zealand Herald's website.
I then had a look at the Technorati search tool, and was particularly impressed with this. I searched for Library under the Blogs tab, and had the choice of 9,562 blogs. And the first one in the list dealt with the artificial borrowing restrictions on digital audiobooks, which was of immediate interest to me as a potential borrower when ACL starts purchasing these.

Week 4 # 9 Library Feeds

http://www.booksite.com/texis/scripts/bookletter/showfab.html?sid=5027&qlname=NLBFH (Feed for Fiction best sellers supplied by New York Times to libraries)

Although I no longer run a library book club, I did this in my previous position, so I have an interest in what new fiction is being published, with a particular interest in crime writing. This feed should tell me about the latest in fiction from the USA.

http://rpc.bloglines.com/blogroll?html=1&id=&target=http://www.themanbookerprize.com/feed/ (Man Booker prize website feed)

This site has updates throughout the year regarding the longlists, shortlists, and the awarding of the Man Booker Prize in October each year. Useful for getting information for book clubs.

Week 4: What RSS means

I've looked up RSS in Wikipedia and discovered that RSS stands for either Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary. RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with their favourite web sites automatically rather than checking them manually. The user subscribes to a feed by entering the feed's link into the reader or by clicking an RSS icon in a browser that initiates the subscription process. The reader checks the user's subscribed feeds regularly for new content, downloading any updates that it finds.

Week 4: # 8, RSS

http://http://www.phrases.org.uk/a-phrase-a-week/ (Phrase a Week)
http://contemporarylit.about.com/ (About Literature: Contemporary)
http://www.accidentalhedonist.com/index.php (Accidental Hedonist)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/default.stm (BBC News)
http://www.bloglines.com/ (Bloglines News)
http://alison.knitsmiths.us/ (The Blue Blog: where blue is for knitting)
http://www.dilbert.com/ (Dilbert)
http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/nytarchive.html (New York Times article archive)
http://theshiftedlibrarian.com/ (The Shifted Librarian)
http://feeds.wired.com/wired/topheadlines (Wired Top Stories)

http://rpc.bloglines.com/blogroll?html=1&id=&target=http://www.bloglines.com/public/patricia-thisandthat (My link to my Blogline account)

Week 3: Flickr DNA

This page enables anyone to explore the public photos of individual Flickr members, which Flickr will “organise, analyse and create a high-level overview”. Members are able to request that photos they don’t want the public to see are marked “Private” so they won’t appear on the DNA profile. Anyone can join this by adding the DNA button to their profile. I looked at some “Random Persons” profiles and there were some very professional looking photographs on display. Photos can also be grouped according to subject – e.g. “Nature” has over ¼ million photos available.

Week 3: Mashups

My understanding of a mashup (which I had never heard of before now!) is that it is a web application that combines content from more than one source into an integrated webpage, i.e. they allow anyone to combine existing data from different websites in new ways. Apparently these are relatively easy to design and can be accomplished without a huge amount of technical knowledge.

Week 3: Technology

I have had a look at the tutorial for Flickr, and immediately thought that this would be very handy for sharing family photographs, as we have family members doing OEs, and others with new babies, so this would be a sensible alternative to emailing photos.
I signed up with Skype about three months ago and now have free conversations with a friend in England who also has Skype software installed on her computer. The software is free to download - all I had to do was buy a $20 microphone from Dick Smith and plug it into a computer slot.

Week 2: Social networking sites

I have had a look at MySpace and Facebook. The pages I looked at on MySpace (2 of them) were hard to read because of dark backgrounds. I don't think I will be becoming a regular contributor or viewer of these sites because the principal theme seems to be "Look at me!" and I'm just too old to be bothered with that nonsense!

Week 1: Introduction

Chocolate Pudding

2 cups flour
4 tsp baking powder
4 tbsp cocoa
1 cup sugar
50g butter, melted
1 cup milk

(Turn the electric jug on before you begin.)

Sift flour, baking powder and cocoa into large bowl, then stir in sugar well. Make a hollow in the centre and add the melted butter and milk mixed. Stir until mixed but don’t overdo it.
Put into a large greased dish (it will boil over in the oven if the dish is too small) and smooth out the mixture.

Sauce:
2 cups brown sugar
4 tbsp cocoa, sifted
4 cups of boiling water

Mix brown sugar and cocoa and sprinkle over mixture in dish. Pour over the four cups of boiling water carefully. Bake at 350ºF or 180ºC for 55 minutes. Check it’s not still gooey in the middle before taking out of oven.