Thing 23

I have really enjoyed exploring Web 2.0 although have often felt pushed for time to do what was required. I have been surprised so many of these tools are so easy to use. I think it's fantastic that you can access very specific things which would be impossible without the collaborative ethos behind the technology.

The main attraction for me is the democratic principle behind it - that everyone has a voice. This I think is expecially good for people on the margins and finding alternative views not filtered through mainstream media. However, I'm a bit concerned about the possible misuse of all the information people reveal using these tools, by other parties.

Week 9 Netlibrary

Have created an account on this. Not very keen on the medium so personally didn't find anything I wanted to read - find the format frustrating to use/read - slow and cumbersome. Might feel differently if I was using it for study. The main use I see for digitised books is using digitised versions to preserve the originals. I see a problem long-term though with preserving the technology needed to access the digitalised item. Hard copy may prove more long-lasting.

Week 9 Podcasts

Looking at Podcast.net but am not liking it - the ads are in your face and it's very Americancentric. Moving along to Podcastalley where a 'library' search brought up 126 podcasts. Chose libvibe which features library headlines from around the world and added it to bloglines. These are today's stories :

City passes tax increase for libraries; Voters approve library funding measure; Controversy erupts after school libraries pull 'atheist' book (1, 2); Grass-roots effort begins to save school libraries (story, petition); Library wants to help people pick credible information sources; Outgoing library chief decides county job wasn't meant to be; Talker to go live from library (1, 2).

Week 9 Youtube & polar bear ice hockey

One of my favourite spectator sports is polar bear ice hockey and it played without stop-starting so it got the nod for including in my blog. What's not to like about Youtube? You can see clips of all your favourite things. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to embed this but will keep trying - can't be that hard.

Week 8 Web 2.0 tools and award winners

Chose the music category of award winners which was won by Pandora. However when I went for a look, it's only available in the U.S. It was very apologetic but there you are.

Second place- getter was Last.fm. I duly typed in a favourite band, Victim's Family which is moderately obscure, in the search and up came a video clip of a band unknown to me playing 'Take me back or I'll drown our dog' - and a suggestion of other bands I might like - Pachinko, Causey Way, Iowaska, Los Infernos and Evan Johns & His H-Bombs . Victim's Family was also on the list so there was a connection with what I asked for. Can't tell you more than this because got a message that 'Internet Explorer had encountered an error and would have to close' but setup looked intriguing. Have to go back and search for some NZ music and see how well it copes

Haven't heard of most of the sites in the 2.0 list so there's a heap out there to explore if one ever has time.

Week 8 Online applications and the Maniototo

Thought Zoha writer pretty fab. Table much easier to edit than in Word. Added the image with ease but when I published the post it did not come across so I guess I did something wrong (managed to get it back but now have lost the table which was just my Christmas leave hours). Really like the idea of not having to send the document (or spreadsheet etc) back and forth if you want to work on multiple computers or with multiple user input.

But most of all can't wait for holiday (these hills won't have any snow when I go but will look Graeme Sydney brown!

This is my Christmas leave schedule. My son and I are winging our way to Otago - hooray!

Week 7 Wikis

If funding allowed, a way to really cement public libraries as community centres and hubs would be to have the website act as community wiki as suggested in one of the readings. As a Waihekean, I would love to be able to go to my local library website and find out what's on this weekend, access a directory of services, blog my comments on last week's event, talk to my 'friends', find out where the fish are biting etc.



Librarysuccess.org is a great initiative. It groups the experiences of libraries worldwide so that those investigating new initiatives can avoid reinventing the wheel and learn from what others have done. E.g I looked under Gaming which linked to websites, blogs, books and journal articles giving information and advice about gaming in libraries. Would be good alternative to posting a question to nzlibs!

Tried to take the tutorial for the aclweb2 wiki but did not have correct version of Flashplayer so skipped it. Added my blog to favourites and added some favourite books/movies etc. Tried to add new page to home page (Favourite foods) without success - wouldn't let me.

Week 6 Reading

Wendy Schultz in the OCLC newsletter no 2 has a pretty out-there view of where libraries could go. She characterises libraries up until now as treating their offerings as commodities. Libraries 2.0 should be providing value-added products : the commodities but with enhancements such as tagging and user comments. Then we will move to Libraries 3 offering services which are virtual - the librarian as avatar. Surprisingly she looks beyond this to Libraries 4 which will be knowledge spas/salons "revives the old image of a country house library, and renovates it: from a retreat, a sanctuary, a pampered experience with information—subtle thoughts, fine words, exquisite brandy, smooth coffee, aromatic cigar, smell of leather, rustle of pages—to the dream economy’s library, the LIBRARY: a WiFREE space, a retreat from technohustle, with comfortable chairs, quiet, good light, coffee and single malt. You know, the library."

Phew, how long have we got to move through these stages? Seems to me we at the moment are playing catchup as we struggle to offer Web 2 services which add any relevance to what is already being done elsewhere. If only we could make the leap to being proactive instigators but the cautionary principle seems to prevail, especially when a bureaucracy is involved.

Week 6 Technorati & Delicious

Liked the idea of the flat heirarchies with the tags on del.icio.us and that if you used 'daily' as one of your tags you could pull up all the sites you would normally keep track of daily. Interesting to see who and how many people have used particular tags and what other tags they have used. So another surfing tool and another way of storing and accessing favourites. Not so keen on the interface and display of search results - it all seems to run together, nothing stands out.
Created an account anyway (see link on sidebar) as reckon that once I've done all the exercises will decide which tools to keep.

So joined up to Technorati as well. I'm sure I'll continue to use this for keeping abreast of who's blogging what about topics of interest. For instance, I searched for Tame Iti in an All Blogs search, as I'm following this issue, and got better information and pictures/video than I would Googling or at news sites. This even if posts haven't been tagged (only one result in tag search).
Not sure what 'authorities' means on Technorati though.

Week 5 Rollyo

A good idea to save time by filtering results to certain websites. Most useful I guess for a topic you want to keep abreast of and not just have RSS feeds coming from one or two sites, and to exclude sites which you don't find useful. I have added my searchroll to my blog.

Library thing Week 5

This and Flickr are my favourite sites so far. Library Thing is sooo well laid out. Nice brief tour which lets you know what it's all about, all the extra functionality on one page (Tools), great visibility for the various groups so it would be relatively easy to find ones that interest you. It's great that it caters for multiple languages. Word for the day is chiclet which is the name of the symbol I've added to my blog which links to my Library Thing.

Image generators Week 5

This is a fun idea and the possibilities are endless. I now know how all those 'joke' pictures are done which people e-mail you (like the cat with the machine gun that's had a hard day). How to be creative without having to be too creative. If I find time I'll go and look for some others. This is at http://www.jjchandler.com/tombstone

Week 4 Search for feeds

Had a quick look at these tools and not inspired by any of them in the limited time I had. Searched for a library topic as instructed on Technorati - erms (electronic resoruces management systems) and found mostly blogs using text shortcuts. Now intrigued what erms short for in text language. Checked out Feedster. Its search tips said that the results would hide multiple hits of the same thing but I didn't find that to be the case. Then looked at Topix which had a much more lively homepage but put off by the heavy US bias of the news feeds. Think I'd rather rely on word of mouth and serendipity than actively searching for feeds.

Feeds Week 4

This was a fairly straightforward excercise. A great time-saving concept and easy to do. I guess sooner or later it makes sense to choose one platform and aggregate all your web stuff at one site rather having this blog here and the RSS feeds at Bloglines. Being able to have public and private feeds is good. Added feeds to BBC news, Christchurch City Libraries blog, All Blacks news, PC Magazine etc and have added the easy subscribe bookmarklet to favourites. See http://www.bloglines.com/public/Joblogs

Week 3 Flickr mashups

Had a look at Travel planner where you can check out the itineraries of other people, customise your own trip after copying theirs or start from scratch. You can then add your photos to the schedule for your own record and other people to see.
I searched for any schedules taking in Kabul (Afghanistan) to see how it handled non-mainstream destinations and because I've always wanted to go there. Surprisingly several people recommended it : lovely weather, friendly people but I think they may have all been Muslim men. Several hotels were listed but it was a bit short on things to do - a keep your head down sort of place.
Good application to help you make travel decisions

Week 3 :Flickr and Afghans rule

Loved this photo and think Flickr is fab - rich content and mashup potential really interesting and creative.

As an aside, Afghan hounds have a very bad press. I had one for 14 years. They're reputed to be 'the blondes' of the dog species but I found mine to be clever in the way a cat is : do as you're told if it's in your best interests (eat, walk) but not if it's silly (fetch).

Had a look at all these sites. Bebo didn't appeal -wrong demographic. Conspiracist in me wonders about all the information gathering associated with these social development sites. Created a minimalist profile on Facebook for the sake of the exercise and added a link on the blog but can't imagine using it big time. Probably easy way to track what your kids are up to!

So far so good. This is a good idea but feel it could well take up more time than 15 minutes per day. Interesting that people who have grown up with this technology seem to have few qualms about revealing themselves compared with older people who may have tended to guard their privacy.
One misgiving I have is that there is already enough "chatter" in our lives - can we say that texting, blogging, social networking etc is really improving the connectedness between people?