Social networks

What a coincident, 2 weeks ago, someone told me about Facebook, you can find friends and share photos with your friends, here I am in week 12 of learning 2.0 program about social networking by using Facebook
and MySpace.
The video introduction of social networking is so amazing show that how people interact, you get to know your friends' friends and so on, an extend connection.
Social networking will be useful for client interaction in the library, they can leave comments, discuss their favourite books with others users or library staff, for marketing the page can be useful to display Local History photos for users to view. To promote library services, collections, school holiday activities, any events like internet classes, HSC exam preparing sessions etc. Librarians can invite users to participate a quizz competition. As well as interact with library staff, they can tell us what they like and don't like about our service, in that way we can keep improving and provide a better service.

Online applications and tools

It is really amazing there are so many free online productivity, although it does not do as much as the software, but anything basic will be enough for some people,
such as create basic documents from scratch, share and collaborate with others.
I can see it is useful for collaboration, eg. when I am planning an event, I draft up a document and post it, then my colleague makes edit or add text to the document and I can take the complete document for proposal.
Zamzar free online file conversion is a handy tool, without the need of software, for instant at work our admin person she converts the library roster document to PDF file with the Adobe software install on her PC, whenever we need something to be converted, it must go through her, as she is the one has the Adobe software, Zamzar tool would be helpful for us as not everyone has the software on the pc, only one thing that you need to wait for your file to download via email.
Looked at the Slideshare, amazing this is all free. This can be use for presentations like staff internal training eg. how to join up a membership, present our library's service to the classes at school, ie library tour with all the collection, new items available in the library, for library's report, yearly statistics of circulation, comparison of different year's figures etc.
Zoho is another amazing tools with more features and comprehensive set of applications, although some have a subscription fee. I am sure it will get more popular in a later days.

Mashups

It was very hard decision to choose from Big huge labs to create a mashup, I have to do a few to find out which one looks right with my own photos, finally this one looks ok, it's not perfect, as long as I got some idea how to create a mashup, anyway it was fun, so exciting to wait for how it looks like.

With calender mashup we can use it as a flyer for Library school holiday activities, list specific activity on the appropriate date of the calender and for patron to take.

I would think of a Library online Catalogue could mashup with LibraryThing. When patron use library online catalogue, also will be able find new books to read by similar authors or topics, able to rate and review books in the catalogue, interact with other patron who enjoy the same reading interests etc.

Keir Clarke's star view is quite interesting, must have taken heaps of time to do the work. You click a star , you get to see a video, each video has different star name.The Google Maps API lets you embed Google maps in your own web pages. We can use it mashup with The Council web page to get step-by-step driving directions to show patron how to get to the library, and street view to find restaurants for lunch.

Podcast and audio

Listened to many podcasts from the British Library and the ABC. Again these are new to me. I tried subject heading in both, the British Library does not have much podcasts, but quite like the ABC, there are a lots to see and listen, especially the 1 minute health, ie Benefit of soy? a quick reference and interesting, definitely will go back to check out more other interesting things.

The podcasts linked to the Library Success Wiki is very handy, many different types of libraries to choose for podcasts. I can see is very useful for teens, actually great for anyone, such as the OCLS podcasts to the teens to encourage them to come to the library, as often they find themself boring, nothing to do. Author talks is most popular in podcast to let the patron know authors coming to the library and promote their new books, can be used for story time, library news, special event for law week and HSC seminar etc.

Also it can be use for new staff's induction day, staff meeting for those absent in the meeting.

Answer Boards & Social Searching

Visited the Answer Boards Librarian's wiki and looked at the "Exemplary Answers" section.
It's nice to see that Librarians' answers were highly rated by members of the community, also looked at the "Signatures & tag Lines", I quite like the phrases they used "Librarians -- Ask Us, We Answer!" and "We eat questions for breakfast",
very friendly, directly to promote Librarian professional, providing good quality information, showing research skills to the public.
"Slamming the boards" plays inportant role for the library. It is a good idea to allow patrons to ask question online, especially for those who are unable to get into the library for many reasons. Also it is useful for school students to ask question for their assignment/homework.
This service would make opportunity for patrons to rate and reviews the library's collection & service very openly without the librarians knowing who they are.

Technorati, LibraryThing

Did a keyword search for "bookmobile", I got 658 results, tried in advanced search for "exact phase" there were 644 results, "non of the word" there were 30, for tag search there were 30 posts tags, a lot of difference.
I got no results for nswpln2008, does not matter whichever way I searched, a bit disappointed as I was expecting to see the Flickr image.
Went through the LibraryThing tour. I quite like this site, by looking other people's books rates and reviews, it gives you idea to recommend all different types of books to tour patron in the library.

Del.icio.us

There are a lots to read and do on week 7, I have spent many hours just for this exercise. I got stuck, did not understand what am I suppose to do, but keep looking. All of these Delicious, Technorati, Library Thing are new to me, never seen them before.
Set up a delicious account, added some favorites & tags, will do some more later.

Here is my link to delicious.

Had a look Del.icio.us, very useful website, makes everyone's life easier.
Look at both Sutherland Shire Libraries & Cleveland Public Library, like the way
Cleveland Public Library set up, they have the delicious service built into their home page with their other services.

This tool is greatly useful in libraries, especially for research assistance, Ask Now.
Often on the Reference desk, when answer an inquiry, you think the question very familiar, but can not remember where to find it? should use this tool to keep all the favorite sites in one place with the tags make life easier.

Youtube & Google video

When search on You Tube there are more results than from Google video.
I have seen You Tube before when my friends shared with me via email, now I know how they embed, from now on I am able to share with my friends if I find anything interesting. There are so many videos around, I think the one I have embed to my blog, "be quiet game in the library" is interesting.
QandANJ: now your library is open late night too is quite interesting too, it sounds like a "Drive in" library.
Libraries should take the advantage of video, there are so many ways to utilise, such as to demonstrate how to use OPAC, how to make self booking for public computers, or a video on library tour etc...

You Tube : be quiet game in library

I tried so many times to copy the big trunk of the text, but it did not work, at the end I used Edit Html, and I got it the first go, yeh.....

Wikis

I have used wikipedia so many times, but never know that anyone can edit, add any information.
Wikis are good for some, watching Leelefever's video clip, planning a trip is very useful to use a wiki, instead of emailing each other, but for medical information not sure how reliable it is, although there is some staff who will freeze a topic if errors reported by readers.
SJCPL subject guides wiki is interesting, the button Talk to the library is very handy for patron, you can leave your feed back, comments, opinions etc.
Using a wiki to coordinate library program, could save a lot of staff meeting time.
Wiki is great for book clubs, staff /patron can use it to write a book review, also it is a way to promote new books.
Wiki can be used in local history, people can share your family history etc.

RSS feeds

Finally I have now subscribed to both Google Reader and Bloglines, one thing down is too many account to create, although I prefer Google Reader, will stick with Bloglines.
RSS is very new to me, but I think is fun, the news headline come to you very handy.
This new technology is very beneficial for the library patron, Library can use it to promote events, newly catalogued items for those who don't come to the library too often.

I added 5 RSS feeds to bloglines, they are About.com Pilates, Blogline News, CNN.com, Power House Museum, Travel blog.

Have done a news feed to my blog too, and find it's fun, will do some more.

Go back week 1

Today I just happened to go back week 1, and oops found out that I missed watching Stephen Fry's video, but could not hear what he said some part, then scroll down saw the transcript, it really helped.
"The idea that you could be lose that moment is completely disappeared", I like this remark.

Overloaded truck

I have spent hours on this week's activity , I could explored photos from the Flickr for hours, after got the first photo posted and read FAQ, found out that I need to write something like how I learn, comments.... so I though I will do another one.

well, I find this is hard and time consumming. Especially it is self training, there is no one to ask if you get stuck, you end up spend a lot of time explore yourself, also it is not only 15 minutes, it's more than that, there is not enough time at work, so I choose to do it at home.

May be in the beginning, so many accounts to create, I am not sure if I am doing the right thing, as I have set up and registered my blog, but it doesn't appear on the Participant's blog list, I shall wait until next week (after 3 business days).

It is a good idea using blog as a news platform for library to promote library's events such as book sale, school holiday activities etc...., and also give library patron opportunity to write the comments on library services, or their suggestions.....

This is a photo that I took on a trip to Silk Road, it was a real overloaded truck turn over in front of our tour bus, danger.....

Blinddate to blog

Well, at last I am here now, it took me so long to get to write my first blog, as I know nothing about blog, although it's simple to follow, I am still very slow.



I am happy to participate this program, hope to learn more about blog, can be a blinddate to blog...