# 23 Is this really the end?

This is only the beginning!

...to infinity and beyond! (Buzz Lightyear)

Now I know how much more I need to learn and I am excited about the plans for us to continue using web 2.0 technology in the library. I began this program confident that I would finish in time and learn a few new things along the way. I was surprised to find I was not nearly as savvy as I thought in my use of these tools and I had to ask my kids and other staff for help on numerous occasions. Here I am just finishing in time and I found it really hard going in the middle. I was frustrated by my inability to understand the instructions at times even though they looked pretty straightforward and I struggled to find the time to sit and concentrate on the excercises. I admit I was jealous every time I heard someone else had finished the program and I noticed how easily the younger staff moved through the various tools. I enjoyed playing with Library Thing and You Tube the most and will continue to check my bloglines account and use Del.icio.us for my favourites.
I am also looking forward to the library wiki and setting up a branch blog.




Thank you for the opportunity to play with web 2.0.
cheers
Sblog

# 22 eAudio Books

This was very easy to access and I listened to The Tale of the Ancient Marriner and Rumplestiltskin. These were very clear recordings and quick to download. I had already heard that great new innovations were on the way with audiobooks and the growth in this form of reading and listening for the future. We can download books the same way we do music and load it onto our ipods and MP3 players for more portable entertainment.
It is interesting to see that libraries can remain part of the lending and retrieval system for this sort of media in the future with subscription services for library customers to borrow these audio files.
cheers
sblog

# 21 Podcast

Podcasts have been around since 2005 but I first learnt of them last year when radio shows started promoting the podcast of their programs for people who missed the live version. In this way there are lots of applications for podcasts for learning and sharing public events. In the public library we could podcast our guest speakers, award ceremonies, training sessions and storytimes for access at any time.
I had a look around podcast.net and found some really daggy podcasts for the Australian storyteller which were stories for kids about poppy and his escapades in the war.
Then I found some lovely meditation music from the Meditation Society of Australia and added the RSS feed to my bloglines account.
cheers
sblog

# 20 You tube

You Tube is great fun.It is no wonder so many people are accessing this site everyday.
It's amazing what you can find here. I watched some old Dr Seuss clips, some beautiful ocean waves with accompanying soundtrack and some cool new music clips.

I am currently listening to Kelly Clarkson - Sober




cheers
sblog

# 19 Web 2.0 tools

So many tools to choose from now!
The Lulu.com site was one of the winners and it looks like a great place to go if you want to get creative and write something to publish for fun or profit. It also puts you in touch with other writers in an online writing community.
The world keeps getting smaller every day!
I saw a lot of names I now recognise in 1st place like Technorati, Library Thing, Rollyo and Del.icio.us
cheers
sblog

#18 Zoho Writer

Yet another intriguing tool to play with!

Obviously this new generation word processor continues the totally portable model of communication and interaction we have learnt about during this program.

cheers

sblog

#17 The sandbox

I had not heard about playing in the sandbox before! It is a neat term for the area in a website used for playing! I was happy to add my blog to the favourite blogs page under the ERL banner on the plcmc wiki.

PBwiki is an easy-to-use web page that multiple people can edit. The pbwiki walkthrough did make it look simple to set one up.
The pbwiki tips site looks very useful for making it easy to read and edit.
cheers
sblog

#16 Wikis

Well this bit was fun. I went in to look at the Princeton Booklovers Wiki and got sidetracked from the "Read around the World" link to the Princeton public library website. I liked their library lounge blog and the teen part of the site. Some good ideas for a Teen advisory Board and a Friday Night Live program of acappella events for teens too.
The Library Success : Best Practices Wiki looks more like the wikipedia I am used to. Interesting to note that this site has a warning banner that because of vandalism problems, e-mail confirmation is now required. I thought the sort of people who would contribute to a library benchmarking wiki would be too professional to try to vandalise it!
Wikis are a great tool for the informal sharing of knowledge and information. Lots of people are now prepared to share online in a way we never have in the past. They also look online for access to information and expect to take the facts along with the supposition that comes with a wiki being open to the voice of authority as well as the casual observer with something to add.
I think our public libraries are centres for community exchange and interaction and they can reflect the shared experiences of a group of people who essentially live or work near each other.
Wikis like this are an extension of that exchange of group knowledge.
The next challenge will be for us to make our wikis the place to look for information or to update community knowledge as proposed by webgurl at ERL.
cheers
Sue

#15 Web 2.0

I wish I had more time and skill to devote to learning about this wide new world of web technology! There is just so much more out there to discover. I still feel like a novice but I am glad to have been able to dip my toe in the water and try some of these new things. It is great to see Library staff embracing this learning opportunity and learning a whole new language and set of skills to use with our customers. As more of our users become familiar with these tools to organise and retrieve information they will be expecting us to be able to assist them or at least to understand what they are talking about!
As Michael Stephens said in the OCLC newsletter "User-centered libraries breakdown barriers and allow users access wherever they are: home, work, commuting, school, or at the library."
I have a lot of friends who are teachers and they say that younger staff at their schools are all using blogs and myspace or facebook and they want to know more about it too. I am happy to be able to say I am working on these as part of the web 2.0 program and my employer is actively encouraging this training!
cheers
sblog

# 14 Technorati

So many ways to categorise and access blogs!
Had a quick look around technorati and discovered Boing Boing,the most popular blog in the world, as ranked by Technorati.com. This is a weblog of cultural curiosities and interesting technologies. It also won the Lifetime Achievement and Best Group Blog awards at the 2006 Bloggies ceremony. Until now I had never even heard of the Bloggies Awards!
I also searched for Learning 2.0 and found 12,583 results. All these busy Library staff are obviously making an impression.
cheers
sblog

#13 Delicious and social networking

The name Delicious appealed to me straight away and I found it easy to use. It is a simple way to keep all your bookmarks together and tag them for easy retrieval. It is interesting to see what other people have bookmarked too. I have lost all my work favourites when the computers are upgraded so this would be a good alternative to access my bookmarks from anywhere. I will have to add the delicious button to both my home and work computers now. I was surprised to see such a wide range of boomarks in the hotlist right now. For example what exactly is the appeal of 'Vector Polishing Techniques'?
cheers
Sblog

#11 Library thing

I like this one! I love sharing the books I have read with others. I often write reviews for the readers corner staff picks too. It would be good if it updated itself as you added books to the library thing list but I found I had to edit the page element and add the new list each time.
cheers
sblog

#12 Rollyo

Roll your own search engine...now installed on my blog. I am finding it hard to make enough time to work on web2 but I am determined to keep on going. It is amazing how much there is to learn and play with and it is no wonder I am feeling lost. Thanks to all those generous bloggers who have been helping me through the tough times!
cheers
sblog

# 10 Image Generators

#8 RSS Feeds

I have found this week the hardest and I really don't like not knowing what I'm doing! It is frustrating feeling so unsure about this weird and wonderful world of RSS and newsreaders. It seems like Really Simple Syndication feeds can be a really useful way to sort your access to current information. I set up a bloglines account with a few feeds about the book world and I really like the shifted librarian and unshelved. I also realised I didn't need too many feeds as there isn't enough time to read everything I have access too! Not only is there my email to read but also my bloglines account and journal alerts and professional reading for work and all the great new books I have reserved or that pass me on the returns trolleys and the weekend papers and my subscriptions to Donna Hay, Home Beautiful and Better Homes and Gardens!
And now there is my blog and all the other interesting blogs I want to read...

Listening to...

Easy listening!

"Magic"

#7 Technology

" Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".
Arthur C Clarke

I think it is great that so many of us are having a go and playing with all this new technology in libraryland! There was a real buzz of excitement last week at Knox as staff had fun playing and achieving success with their first blogs! It was probably disconcerting to the customers to find so many of us glued to our p.c's and alternating between frustration and elation in the race to get online and catch up with our peers. Some of us were setting up bloggs, some were discovering flickr and others were moving between teaching others and learning more about this whole new world!
It is a kind of magic that I don't fully understand, but I don't really need to know how it works in order to be amazed and delighted by the power of the internet in creating new ways for us to share and communicate and learn together.
Congratulations to those who are making this magic possible and good luck to all of us on the journey.
cheers
sblog

#3 Flickr

Having lots of fun with flickr!
Still not sure what I am doing but I like this cute pic I was able to add to my blog. Now I want to add an image to my profile ... stay tuned for more!
cheers
sblog

Snuggles with mum

# 2: My First Blog

Who would have thought it would be so difficult to create a blog name that no one else has used!
I started out being witty and clever and then got more and more desperate as all my suggestions came back as unavailable.
I wanted to be a bit mysterious and that is not easy when I am running out of time and I have to be on the info desk in 4 minutes!
Anyway I have patted myself on the back and here I am in blogspace!
cheers
sblog