#23 The Finale

Less than a week ago I had given this away as I hadn't looked at it for 3 weeks and thought there is too much to do, in too short a length of time. But after being given a 'pep' talk by the AVL team (you know who you are!) I was back on track and have surprised myself with the way I've managed to work thru the second half of exercises. It has meant some late nights but I really think I have learned so much and didn't have a clue that some of the things we experienced were "out there".

Loved Flickr, Generator, You Tube (if only I could have got to see David Cassidy!). Didn't like Technorati (nearly finished me off!), RSS Feeds, Rollyo.

If we were to tackle something like this in future, would like consideration given to time at work to research, discuss, work thru as was a bit demoralising at home getting more and more frustrated (and behind).

So this Raven is flying the coop ...

Ex 22 Social Networking

I had a look thru the suggested resources and liked the "Your Space or My Space" article in libraryjournal. com. It surprised me that the younger ones don't necessarily get their emails thru traditional means, e.g. Hotmail, GMail etc but thru their MySpace inbox, etc. So I suppose this is a way of connecting with a particular age group but you'd need people who were on the same wavelength to be on top of this all the time and maybe in a Council run library there are not enough resources and 'moolah' ($) to go around. And what % of library users would this account for? For alot of people visiting a library is so much more than picking up a book ...

Ex #19 Podcasts

Back to this one after getting my daughter to sign me into her itunes a/c - I'm the only one in the house without an ipod but the one who sees the charges for it on the credit card! Found it quite interesting and heaps of things to look at, subscribed to a couple of downloads but they were going to take too long, so may need to look at this again later.
Tried to add an RSS feed but it kept coming up with an error - it could be me?!?

Ex 21: Getting Social with it: Facebook, Bebo etc

I thought the library Bebo sights were quite good, especially Rotorua's one - it's another tool to get out what we do, are, and are going to be in the future in the world of libraries and thats got to be a good thing.
Surprisingly I had already set myself up with a Facebook account but then chickened out thinking I didn't want to make myself available to the world but I guess you can put as much, or as little as you want. I searched for someone I know is on there and when it came up with 252 people with the same name, I wondered how I might find her as there didn't seem to be a picture of her (unless that was her mountain biking!!). Clicking on her friends answered the question tho'.
MySpace looked quite good and I was keen to watch a couple of videos but unfortunately the speed (or lack of) was offputting for me, so I will come back to this at a later date.

Ex 20 - E Books

I went into Amazon, Kindle to do a book search for "Wuthering Heights" and found many different copies available in various formats: Hardcover, paperback, audio download, kindle edition. Eh? Backtracked to find out exactly what a 'Kindle' was - quite strange when you have absolutely no idea what it is and there are headings saying:

"See a Kindle in Your City. Want to see a Kindle? Visit the See a Kindle in Your City area to connect with Kindle owners and get a chance to see a Kindle in person. "

What could it be? Oh such relief when finding out it is a device to listen to your books on!! (Rather expensive though).

It made me think of when I was doing a "sell job" on playaways to a patron with a stack of Audio books and him saying "I just download them onto my ipod and listen whenever I want" - I was pleasantly enlightened ...

Ex 18 You Tube etc

At last I thought something that I've at least heard of and have visited before! Unfortunately I was to find that it was painfully, painfully slow at loading and as time is of the essence I didn't have the patience to wait and wait.
As I said I have dabbled a little bit before in You Tube and I really like it - just had a look at the old TV show "The Partridge Family" (I used to luuuuve David Cassidy - Who? I hear some of you say?!?) but would love to have another play when its back up to speed.
What I have learned is that my daughter has a username and even when signed in it doesn't make it any faster.
I think a library video could be both entertaining and informative - each library could make their own production - as long as we all don't have to dress up as "Super Librarian" - some of us look better in tights than others!!

Ex 17 Web 2.0 Awards

Quite an interesting place to go to get the "best of the best".
Tried to sign-up for a Genealogy page but encountered a few 'security' issues; had a look at travel and then Lulu which looked quite good if you wanted to publish your own work - could be a 'step in the door' but maybe you'll get buried in the thousands who came before you and after you- sorry thats a bit negative!
Also looked at Cocktail Builder, great idea, just put in ingredients you have and it'll show you something you can make - handy for those "spur-of-the-moment" cocktail parties we all have!!!

Ex 16 Zoho Writer

Wow, that is so cool, didn't know it existed. It was easy to use - unfortunately wouldn't let me sign up and shut down my internet connection - but was easily accessible thru Google docs.
Its really good to know that this available and you can share or email to others, etc. Would be good for the grandparents who don't have Word, Excel or any of that extra software and can now access it for free - will have to offer a free tutorial!!

Ex 15 Rollyo

Rollyo I didn't find terribly interesting. I did open an account and set myself up a search roll but am not too sure who would use this
http://rollyo.com/search.html?q=Search+for...&sid=467637&x=39&y=19
I still like "favourites" on my Google page - it took me long enough to find it after updating to Vista - I don't have heaps in there so it's not hard at all to find what you want and they certainly wouldn't be anybody elses favourites!

Ex 14 Library Thing

This was quite fun and easy to set-up and navigate. Added my five books, noted that the two English books I added weren't already on someones lists whereas the USA ones were - maybe because I only searched Amazon's website. Have a look
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/raven57

Ex 13 Generator

Explored FD Toys and Letter James and found them really user friendly. Loved some of the existing pictures in Letter James so would like to go back and start playing and creating soon.
Created a jigsaw in FD Toys and am endeavouring to upload to my blog page - don't hold your breathe, but I will persevere. This is where I found it: http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/jigsaw.php
I know my daughter would love this site but will never get the computer back so will keep it to myself for now!!

Ex 12 Sandbox Wiki

I found this very easy to look at and search through. It becomes much more interesting when the information found therein is from people you know and on topics, places etc that are familiar.

Exercise 11: Wikis

I do like Wikipedia and it has been used quite a bit in our house on a Sunday night for a homework assignment that has just been "remembered"! It is very well laid out and appealing to the "younger set" - thats half the battle - although it can't be taken as 100% factual it seems pretty accurate.
I also liked the Book Lovers Wiki by Princeton Public Library and was particularly thrilled to see a review of Kiwi author Mark Haddon and several copies of his books available - it shows how easy it is to "infiltrate" anywhere and anyplace!!
Though had to laugh at the Update notice saying that anyone wanting to change Wikis now needs email confirmation due to "Vandalism", what next, Graffiti!!!

Ex 10 Web 2.0, Library 2.0

Read the OCLC Next Space newsletter perspectives a little while back and have skimmed them again but find them pretty heavy going with so much to consider. I'm not a great one for change but when shown how things might improve or progress, then I'm keen to take it on board and 99% of the time it's for the better - although there will always be a need for "fine tuning".

Although there is still going to be a place for "a traditional library" in some form or another where people of all ages want to have a "social" experience; or an outing; study time; sing-along for the littlies, etc. etc.

Viva The Library!!

Ex 9: Technorati

Ok, Ok, I know it's been a long time (too long) and I have to say I had "flagged it" but have been given a big pep talk (and loads of advice) today by the "Posse" and am back in the game - not sure if I'll make the deadline or not!
Anyway Technorati has been my stumbling block and I have looked at it three different times but not gone on to write my blog because basically I found it really hard to get around and not terribly user friendly - don't know if thats going to "answer" the exercise questions but thats the best I can muster!!