Final post

All done once again. And once again I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, and learned some stuff, some of which will stick. I loved encompassculture and tastespotting, thought Box.net a potentially very useful thing and found the others to be more possibly than probably beneficial. But as my Mum would say, no knowledge is ever wasted.

Week 6 encompassculture

This could well become one of my best loved sites (I've already added it to My Favourites). I've picked out my next book to read once I've cleared the existing pile, Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage by Alice Munro. I'm sure I will recommend it to any customers I know who reads lots of books and can use a computer - unfortunately the two don't always go hand in hand. But for those who are not comfortable with computers I can search on their behalf to find more recommended titles of the sort they like. Another way we could use it is to print off recommendations and reviews to put with books, maybe on displays, or maybe just booklists made available for customers to request from. Avid readers are always looking for ideas for their next read.

Week 5 SlideShare - online presentations

SlideShare has a deceptively large amount of content on it, and I found there were many interesting ideas and applications mentioned that I would like to follow up on (particularly for my other job in a special library for blind and low vision children). I looked at a presentation on web 2.0, another that showed how libraries could use the Second Life game, with avatars, and the most interesting to me, a presentation named New Technologies that Save Time and Money - they had a tool for creating staff schedules!
Again, it was easy to use and I think customers would manage it fine. I'm not sure at this stage what it could be used for within our public library working environment (apart from maybe the staff schedules), but it's certainly interesting to know about. The pop-up ads were a bit annoying, though.

Week 4 TasteSpotting

This is a seriously evil site and I'm shocked that we have had to feast our eyes on it! My favourite recipe would be all of them but I've chosen Sharp cheddar and creamy fontina cheese with caramelized onions grilled between two slices of homemade beer bread. Even the homemade beer bread on its own has me drooling. And I don't even know what fontina cheese is!
The site is extremely easy to use and I think I would even recommend it to patrons, especially ones I know would be interested in food. And what I personally got out of this site is, as I suppose everyone has answered, extreme hunger!

Week 3 FeedMyInbox RSS Made Simple

Another pretty straightforward application. Seems a bit easier than the first one we used way back when. I would use it for blogs about books and reading (like those library ones), and I think this would be an easy way to keep up with the publishing world. I subscibed to the Christchuch City Libraries blog - some interesting talk about the Man Booker award. As for its use with library patrons - hmmm...most patrons wanting to do stuff like this don't really need our help, and as for using it for our own work, I guess it could be another way of communicating on particular topics, although there are probably more appropriate applications to use. Still good to know about though...

Week 2 Picapp

This was easier to get to work when I right clicked to select rather than copied the URL, but yay it's there now (love this cat!) I'm not sure we would be called on to help customers pretty up their blogs, although it could be another option for finding images for kids for assignments and whatnot.

Week 1 Box.net

Good start to this exercise - a very user friendly little application! It could be used for any of our little groups within libraries (for me that would be ESOL, Nextreads and interloans) for sharing ideas and keeping them in one place for future reference. It was easy to use and straightforward and I would definitely promote it with customers trying to save their work without a memory stick. I seem to remember another online application from our first web 2.0 called Zoho Writer that was also good for this purpose.

Last one

It's the end at last - it's been a little bit good and a little bit bad. I have learned some stuff, and for that I am grateful. Not sure how much I'll use it at the library, but who knows? Sometimes things you learn have their own momentum. I'll definitely try to work Zamzar and Goodreads into a few conversations.

I know what I would use - comprehensive courses on our Learnnet versions of Publisher or Word or Excel!! That's what we get asked about most. And scanning. (We've just done a refresher on this, but I'll probably need another one soon!)

So with all said and done, ciao until next time.

My Fickle Friend Facebook

As I already have a Facebook account and library colleagues as friends I began Week 6 by befriending Manukau Libraries and doing my little book spiels. Interesting to see what others were reading and what they loved.
I checked out the New York Public Library on Facebook and found it sadly facing a budget cut of $37 million, so most of their posts were desperate fundraising ones. I noticed that most of the other US libraries on Facebook had the same story to tell - makes me realise how lucky we are. We do take for granted here that everyone knows how important libraries are - especially here in Manukau! Over there they're really begging for their lives.
Facebook is so big here now that I don't think libraries can ignore it - I use it as much as it suits me too, and I think libraries can do the same. It keeps us in the public consciousness and is good cheap publicity for what we do. I haven't been asked about it much, only occasionally about how to get on Bebo. People who use these sites are usually pretty up with their technology and wouldn't like to be seen asking someone like me how to do it!

Aaah music!

I chose to visit SoundClick for my music site - created a log-in and browsed the music on offer. All the genres were there but I didn't find any tracks I actually liked! Am I too fussy?? Too spoiled by slick commercial offerings?? I tried some country, some bluegrass, some acoustic, and some goth rock - it was all a bit lame and clunky. There seemed to be every kind of music on offer but I didn't have much faith that I would find anything good. Too many people making music in the US? Not quite enough talent to go around?
Enough negativity! I have listened to music on MySpace and some of that wasn't too bad -I know there were a few free downloads on offer there too.
From a customer point of view, I'm sure SoundClick would be easy to use and they could browse to their heart's content and maybe find some hidden treasures that I missed...

Very Good Reads

Love this site - a bit like Library Thing. Kind of a book lovers heaven! I even found 2 people I knew on it. I can see myself recommending this to a couple of keen readers, although they're both older ladies who may have a limited tolerance for computer applications. I'll try though..

Twying to twitter

Twitter was OK to sign up with but diabolical when I tried to figure out how to send a tweet. I even googled instructions and went on youtube to get help, but in the end realised I was getting tied up with the language, and it was really quite easy in the end. Although I didn't trust I had done it right until I saw my emails the next day.
I chose Stephen Fry and Margaret Atwood to follow. I quickly had more tweets than I ever wanted to see from Stephen Fry, and could see that Margaret Atwood was using twitter to communicate with the students in her class, rather than say anything profound, although that is a bit of a snap judgement on my part.
I can see that twitter could be a good discussion tool for staff who can hardly ever get together for meetings, although email can do this too. I guess Manukau Libraries would probably use this in the same way as a blog, to promote things, and to discuss books. I might recommend it to people who wanted to follow the thoughts of their favourite authors or movie stars, but it wouldn't be a daily sort of thing I don't think. And I doubt I'll continue with it - just not enough hours in the day...

Zamzar (or Jamjar as I will remember it)

This is a genuinely useful application! Just a pity it takes a day to work, or it would be very helpful to our customers in the Learnnet, with their saved documents that won't open on our computers - and they're always urgent and vitally important! Still will be useful to some who can wait until the next day...
I converted a lovely interloan instruction sheet into a pdf and it was as simple and straightforward as everything in life should be. Yay for Zamzar.

Well hello (again) ...

I'm happy this is a much shorter programme than last time as I prefer to be able to do it at work rather than home (because I'm not paid enough!). I think a public library could use a blog but I'm not sure how useful or well used it would be (except for those whose job it is to write on it!) - maybe in special areas like teens or as an informal book club. I guess if people logged on to a public library blog they might expect information on events and new books and resources, although most would be used to getting this information from somewhere else.