Week 12 - NSW Public Libraries Web 2.0

It was interesting to see that each country predominantly used the one brand of social networking. I thought that there would be much more of a mix of services used within each country. It was interesting to note that My Space was popular in Australia, America and Europe.

The My Space page by Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) has 11690 friends which is an impressive size group to be interacting with continually. It is very true that all these Web 2.0 technologies give us new ways to not just interact but listen, converse and promote to our customers. They also assist us to promote to some target groups that don’t make us of our libraries currently but that could. It is an innovative idea to have patrons of all ages to speak about why they like the library to assist as a promotional tool for the library where it is a podcast, vodcast or just a simple sound file we could use on our website.

Coshocton Public Library Animanga Club's is a wonderful example of connecting with kids with anime and manga which are currently very popular with kids. If we can entice kids into the library for any reason they will then have a chance to see & use the other services we offer.

Communities of Practice was an interesting site which I believe Local Government or the State Library should emulate to harness the collaborative efforts of the libraries community. I am sure each library has something new, interesting, and different that they do well and could share these ideas. It is a great way to stop local libraries having to reinvent the wheel. If someone else is doing it well why not base yours around that model.

When looking at some of the examples of councils and libraries using social networks to promote themselves it is important to remember that these sites take time to develop a style and value to potential clients. It should always be looked upon as a long-term project, not one that will give huge instant results. When developing Social Network pages I feel it is very important to do your homework and make sure you start out by using the service, which is the most popular in your part of the world.

Week 11 – NSW Public Libraries Web 2.0

SlideShare looks like a valuable site to create slide shows for public use. I found a wonderful slide show on Web 2.0 on the site. At the library we could use slide shows to show off pictures of past events and to promote new events and tools. Also SlideShare slide shows could be used to teach clients about tools the library offers. Wow, there are heaps of Web 2.0 free applications out there as shown by the slide show link from the PLN web 2.0 course site. I think it will take me some time and a little more study to figure out the best way to utilise web 2.0 technology. The one thing that I am sure of is that our library will be considering and researching how to make the best use of web 2.0 applications on an ongoing basis.

I would like to find the best way to have a calendar (maybe Google Docs) that we can customise so that we can place our library events onto for all of our 13 libraries. It would be great if the remote libraries can access this calendar to update their events including pictures of the last event. It would be best to have a standard template to keep uniformity on the calendar.

Google Docs could be used to create an online support centre for our Systems team. It would great to be able to place answers to repeat questions or repeat problems so that they could be accessed from anywhere. Then our Systems team of 4 could access these from the internet at any of our remote sites to help with troubleshooting problems as they arise. Google docs could also be used to store files that remote staff have placed their when placing a helpdesk call. These files would include screen dumps on any error messages and step by step notes of exactly what the problem is and how it occurred. Again these documents could have the answers added to them and become part of the support documentation for Systems staff.

Week 10 - NSW Public Libraries Web 2.0

Mashups come in many forms with new ones being created everyday. This means people are finding new ways of combining data and new applications that are web based to add value to this data.

The Mashup above was created on the Big Huge Labs site and shows a woman working in the glass blowing section of The Jam Factory in Adelaide. It was very interesting to watch the students work and to feel the heat (which seemed about 35 degrees on a 25 degree day) of the room where they worked.

It is fascinating to see how simple it is to manipulate pictures on the Big Huge Labs (BHL) site. I believe the BHL site is very simple, practical and easy to use because they have organised it well and tailored the site to handle one main process which is enhancing pictures. It is great to see that BHL can interact with flickr and other sites. I believe that the BHL service could be used to make our children’s and youth web pages more funky to add appeal for our target audience. As staff are very busy this type of graphics enhancement is not going to happen unless the service is freely available and very quick and easy to use which BHL is.

I really like the way the British Library has used a Google Maps Mashup with their site London: A Life in Maps. This is very neatly presented and easy to use. It did not show any of the pictures that I think should have been associated with the map pins but I still thought the site was great. I feel we could do something similar to highlight the locations of our 13 libraries and any major history or features of that town. It would be a novel and interesting way to show this information.

VoiceThreads is a Mashup that could be good to experiment with. I feel it maybe useful for special training sessions with staff in remote towns but it looks as if it could be a bit expensive.

Week 9 - NSW Public Libraries Web 2.0

Podcasts make shows personal and on demand which is a big improvement over broadcasting. Most podcasts are available free. There are 3 reasons why podcasts are so popular, 1 anyone can do it, 2 Subscriptions to podcasts with a tool called a pod catcher make easy to get new podcast sent from any website when they are updated with a new podcast, 3 Gadgets allow you to not only download podcast to PCs but devices like laptops and Ipods which you can take with you and view the podcast anywhere anytime. So podcasts are more convenient as you can download them anytime and automatically as well as allowing flexible delivery while doing other things such as travelling to work.

It was interesting to see OCLS promoting their coming events in the library such as author talks. It would be great if we could do the same thing. This would give us a great way to information about our events to our patrons especially if they could subscribe to our podcast. On the OCLS site I was able to listen to the MP3 & WMA podcast but our computers which are running Windows XP Pro and are about 6 months old and our version 9 of Windows Media Player will not play MP4 files a present.

It was interesting to hear the LibVibe library news and interesting to see the wonderfully clear layout where you are given the length of the podcast and an outline of the story.

It was interesting to hear the British Library interviewing the compiler of a CD on famous British and American authors. They also use podcasts for interviews of authors, film makers and to promote the library especially the exhibitions. The ABC has used podcasts to make available some great stories including: Radio National News, Interviews often done as part of the different show they have on the ABC Radio and some music collections.

After listening to some podcast from the Library Success wiki I think podcast could be used in our libraries for any personality interviews, Author talks, celebrity story-times as well as our staff story-times and as a promotional tool to show potential clients the facilities we offer. I feel this would help us target computer users that may not normally think about using the local library’s range of services. Promotion could be done for coming events and programs that the library is offering like the Summer Reading Program.

Week 8 - NSW Public Libraries Web 2.0

When librarians slam the boards with answers they often use their initials.librarian as a signature. They often get five star ratings as they provide very good answers. The answers are often better than other non-librarian answers as they cater for the options that may be helpful. Take the question on How do I improve the look of my house through landscaping. The librarians answer won over a landscaper because it offered site where a person can research what they want and ideas to help them decide what they like best. This is simple but very valuable to the clients but it is second nature to most librarians. Our library is very busy at present but I think it would be a great way to advertise the value and expertise of libraries and librarians by answering questions on Answer Boards.

With our latest Library Management System upgrade came the ability for the public to rate and review any item in our catalogue. This is very valuable because people love to read books that have been recommended, (it would be great if libraries has some method of sharing reviews and rating services as this increase quantity and the value of any average ratings). This has been proven at our library by using a small pyramid stand where recommended books are shelved with a small slip with a written recommendation on it as well as who recommended it. I have seen people look over the whole stand go away and come back to find something off the stand on their third attempt. They really wanted to pick something from the stand.

I believe the public would most likely want to rate many of our other services such as storytime, lapsit, author visits, databases provided, our Inter Library Loans service and of course service from desk staff. I am not sure what is the best way to do this yet.

Week 7 - NSW Public Libraries Web 2.0

Bookmarking done on sites like Delicious is clever because it is not tied to any one computer and is social because you can share your bookmarks with others and they can share theirs with you. The Delicious site allows you to add tags to each bookmark which make it much easier to sort and find anything. National Library of Australia, using del.ico.us to support collaborative virtual reference seems to me to be a wonderful idea which I would think could save librarians considerable amount of time once it has built up to house websites that help answer many of the most often asked questions.

The cloud tag that Sutherland Shire has used is a neat and interesting way to index all there tags. It is great that the tags in the cloud are in alphabetical order and easy to find. The fact the Delicious site gives people the choice between the Home page’s more standard indexing style and the new look cloud index is great. I like the way Cleveland Library has placed a single link and a categorised index to their bookmarks on delicious.

LibraryThing has taken the power of a mass coordinated effort to bring some amazing information together. It is wonderful to see what the majority of people using the site like when it comes to areas such as 25 most reviewed books, top 25 books by star rating, top 75 authors (author cloud) by number of copies and the other side of the coin 50 lowest-rated authors Authors with at least five ratings and three raters (rating/number/raters). Isn't this fascinating?

Technorati normal & an advanced search of bookmobile both found 264 results. It is impressive to hear that Technorati is tracking 112 million blogs. A search on nswpln2008 did not bring up any results except under images where there are heaps.

Week 6 - NSW Public Libraries Web 2.0

The “Welcome to the Williams College Library Mystery Tour 2006” ... This was a great promotional video which included testimonies from students who have been helped by reference librarians. The video can be viewed at http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=i-t0LHnw-fc

Having Author talks to be viewed at Google Videos as Mosman Library have done seems a great idea. We have had some fantastic authors visit like James Morrison, Di Morrissey plus loads of others. One scene which would have been great captured on video would have been when we had the Wolverines riding their Haley Davison bikes into our library to give a storytime to kids. They did a fantastic job. It was a real spectical.

A guided tour on video would be a wonderful alternate way to show and promote all the great facilities that our library has to offer even the databases we offer access to over the web. It would be best to have some young people tell their story of why they like and use the library. Using a YouTube video for this would be a wonderful way to target a younger audience to help entice them to come into the library and use remote library tools like our website.

Other video uses could include giving a sneak peak to the latest gallery exhibition which is housed just upstairs from our library. I like the idea of having oral history videos especially if you can find some great old characters who can spin a good story of historical events.

Week 5 - NSW Public Libraries Web 2.0

I have looked at all the suggested wikis and found those with more pictures are more interesting as I am a very visual person. I like the ideas of using wikis for sharing out information either to a select group that is spread around a region or even a state. I feel a wiki’s strength lies in servicing a target group with a particular interest and if the wiki can be done on a larger scale with a collaborative effort it would be more vibrant, larger and more useful.

A wiki could be a great way for staff to build up a collection of resources. For example Reference desk staff could create a wiki to hold answers to the most recent reference questions that have been asked. Only staff would be allowed access to this wiki but all staff could be encouraged to use the information and add information and links to the best websites on each particular topic. Computer staff could use the same format with a focus on all things technology based. As the wiki grew it could be a great tool for staff to share knowledge with co-worker where ever they maybe. The wiki would become even more powerful, vibrant and useful if it was to be shared between all the public libraries in one state and they all contributed to one instead of each library doing their own thing. I feel the key to a valuable and vibrant wiki is that it is used often with lots of input on topics that are relevant to a specific group, for example librarians.

A wiki could also be used for Family History / Local History to be shared with the whole community. The aim would be to capture the interest of the community to empower them to add content to help keep the wiki growing with new pictures and information.

Week 4 - NSW Public Libraries Web 2.0

I think RSS feeds and Newreaders are great. They help to save time and effort by bringing new information and pictures from sites and blogs that I am interested in to the one place where I can quickly review any updates. I have chosen a number of library blogs and sites to help keep me more up to date with new innovations and changes that take place in the industry. I have also chosen the Humor Power site as this will help me with Toastmasters.

I think that our library could use RSS feeds to help keep our patrons up to date with events and news from the library. It could be a good tool to help bring patrons in more often as they read about the attractions we have to offer.

I like the Librarian.net site as it has some interesting information. It is also laid out very well utilising simple uncluttered layout. This is important on any site or blog because people want to find information quickly and easily. This is because we are trying to fit more into our lives today.

Week 3 - NSW Public Libraries Web 2.0

I was intrigued by this cat being in the correct position to be riding a bike when there is no bike. I think it is funny because the author looked carefully at the picture to see what it could represent. The photo was taken by Grant Clail and was downloaded from Flickr.


I thought that it was interesting to see what photos Mosman Library had on Flickr. When I entered "Mosman Library" I got there are no results... It worked OK when I removed the " ". Our library also has many author visits and at Country Music time we have well known singers doing storytime including the Wolverines riding in on their Haley Davidson bikes. We have some great photos of the author visits as well as most special events like cooking demonstrations and the time we had 200 visitors to see a lecture on the Art of the Di Vinci Code. Many of these would be great to share on a flickr account.

I was shocked to see over 10,000 pictures available when I searched for my home town Tamworth. Then as I looked through them I found that many where from Tamworth in England...great pics of castles. When I searched for Tamworth Australia there were still more than 6,000 which was very supprising. Many of the photos were related to country music but that was OK.

It was interesting to see 36,845 images on Picture Australia from Flickr.

There is a wealth of pictures on Flickr, they teach, entertain and are lots of fun.

Week 2 - NSW Public Libraries Web 2.0

The 23 things course the State Library has put in place is a great idea. I love using computers and am often responsible for working on and updating our library's website. The problem is that running a group of 14 libraries keeps the staff extremely busy. So by doing this course I hope to that by dedicating my time and effort working through a structured course will allow me to learn many areas of Web 2.0 that I don't know much about. By learning more I will be in a much better position to work out where we could use these tools in our library service. I feel even now that there will be many uses for Web 2.0 in our library but would like to work further through the course before I would make concrete decisions where to start. Blogs could be used to host an events page where regional staff could post up the events they are hosting at their own libraries without having to send these into me to post to our current website. I this way posting for promotional events would happen in a much more timely manner. Flicker could be used to host pictures once events have completed. I am sure that we would find many more uses for the web 2.0 tools as we went along. Lifelong learning is something that I believe all people should make a habit. It is a great way to keep your mind sharp and it is often fun finding out new things. Variety is the spice of life and learning new things keeps us from getting to deep in a groove.

There are many excellent blogs out in cyberspace and they are great for providing information in a neat and well structured way. Since I am in Toastmasters I have a strong interest in all things to do with speaking. This site on humour is a marvelous site which conveys lots of interesting information on the subject http://www.humorpower.com/blog/2007/10/a-toastmasters-speech-contest/. I presume that your interest in the subject of any blog will make the difference between it being valuable or interesting to you or not.