Monday, March 15, 2010
Final Thoughts . . .
Personally, the tools that have had the biggest impact for me are those that "simplify" and are "convenient" for the organization of my online information. Tagging, bookmarking (Delicious), online lists of websites (Rollyo) and the virtual bookshelves such as LibraryThing.
I would encourage even the most reluctant individual to consider learning about "2.0" and start exploring because it really does have something for everyone. Don't miss out as this has been wonderful being an information seeker.
Week 9 - YouTube, Podcasts & The Digital Library
This YouTube video was designed as a "conversation starter" to engage his students with respect to new technologies and their useage in our daily lives. In 2008, Dr Wesch won the award of "U.S. Professor of the Year".
In his words "it explores the changes in the way we find, store, create, critique, and share information."
Podcasts are a great way to get ways of capturing news and other snippets of information. Some of the links were not working to the sites recommended but accessed through iTunes. To obtain a series of podcasts it would be very convenient to have an RSS feed.
I have accessed the ACL Downloadable Media for the NetLibrary and audiobooks in order to use a book or two. This is a service that appeals to many of the older patrons in our library but unfortunately most of them feel they require a little bit of IT support to get started. Repeatedly, I get asked if we will be offering a class or demonstrations on using the technology. Its too bad that we cannot download from the Digital Library on the library computers as I think the service would have more uptake if we could meet our customers' demands. And, I am sure that eventually we will be able to so!
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Week 8 - Zoho Writer, GoogleDocs and Web 2.0 Awards
For a reader's advisory assignment I had to read this graphic novel - this is a new genre for me and it was extremely thought provoking read! Taken from http://www.readalike.org/
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood (2003)
Author: Marjane Satrapi
Genre: Graphic Novel (Memoir)
Book Summary:
This autobiographical novel tells the story of Marjane Satrapi’s childhood in Tehran. The story commences in 1979 when Marjane is 10-years old and wearing the veil has recently become mandatory due to the Islamic Revolution. Marjane, an only child, lives in a very progressive household where dissent is common and more than one of her relatives has been imprisoned due to his Communist beliefs. The story captures Marjane’s (also known as Marji) childhood from when she was ten up until her adolescent years of fourteen. Her personal life at home is inextricably bound to the downfall of the Shah, the Islamic Revolution, and the war with Iraq. However, her personal life is also contradictory to what she learns at school and what she sees on the news. By the time Marjane is 14, she has become rebellious and the regime has only gotten more repressive. One day she returns home from shopping for jeans and discovers that an Iraqi missile has bombed the family next door. No one in the family survived. Shortly after this occurrence, her parents decide to send her to Austria to live with friends of the family and to attend a French school.
The Persepolis summary was copied into a Zoho Writer document and then published on my blog! Easy technology to use and eliminates the need to purchase software as everything is done in the "cloud". I have used Google Docs on one occasion and the idea of it was good but the practical aspect of it was actually quite frustrating. I had uploaded a powerpoint presentation and it could not cope with the graphics and size of the file. So once I did get it into GoogleDocs, I had to simplify and edit a large portion of it unfortunately.
Looked at the 3 sites in the shortlisted "book" category. Lulu had some nice features of being able to print your books - thought it would be great to print cookbooks of my family's favourite recipes and give them as gifts. VuFind combining Web 2.0 and the OPAC, having all resources in one locations is probably the a direction that libraries will be considering in the not too distant future. Also looked at the "maps" as always interesting to explore with Google Satellite. Have bookmarked the site for future web surfing.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Week 7 - Wonderful Wikis
I visited the 2.0 Sandbox today. Had a small hiccup with access, took me awhile to figure out what email address I needed to use in order to gain access. All resolved in the end!
Week 6 - Del.icio.us, Technorati & 2.0
I had not even heard of Technorati, had a good look around and "claimed" my blog, which does sound exciting to be active in the blogosphere. Tagging the new replacement for post-it notes.
Library and Web 2.0 is having an impact and the technology that drives it and the ability to access it is very apparent in the library environment. In my daily work I notice that patron's require more assistance with technology and social media issues rather than accessing items in the physical library collection. The ideas do support what libraries have to offer of being user friendly and open to new ways of thinking and that is part of the appeal factor. The new tools only enhance what we have to offer as modes of communication for those patrons who do incorporate them into their daily lives.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Week 5 - LibraryThing and Rollyo
"There is a book for every reader and a reader for every book."
Rollyo is working again -- interesting site and concept. Set up my account, made my search roll as I am starting a collection of websites for Readers Advisory services. Great to see where others go in serach of book titles. User friendly site.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Week 4 - RSS Feeds with Google Reader and Twitter
Resolved! I was linking the RSS feeds but they were getting stored on my laptop under the tab "feeds" within my Favourites instead of my Google Reader. I also found a feature on my laptop that tells me if there are any RSS feeds available on the webpage I am viewing.
Can I stop at adding just ten?
RSS feeds will be very beneficial in keeping up-to-date on librarianship news and events. As a student I am always wanting to be informed on the latest. For my work responsibilities, I am linking in some reader advisory websites for finding new titles for my Homebound patrons.
I have joined Twitter, I really have mixed feelings about this one as I don't really want to know all the small details that are happening in other peoples' lives between their blog postings and emails as explained in the YouTube clip. With respect to implementing this in a community library -- perhaps for quick reminders of events or a change in services. Would staff actually be able to manage the tweets from all the tweetple that would be their followers? How many patrons would need to be on Twitter to warrant adding this as a communication tool?
Today on my lunch break I was reading the latest issue of Vanity Fair magazine (February 2010) and it had an interesting article entitled "America's Tweethearts" that stated "Google has signed a deal to prominently add Tweets to its search engine results". Its infiltrating!