The 23rd thing!!!!

Well I have to admit from a very slow and hesitant start - dragging feet - push comes to shove and all of that stuff - I realised just how much I did not know about what is out there in cyberworld. But as I progressed I realised how much I was enjoying the exercises and was eagerly waiting for the next posting. I have gained so much knowledge and will now be able to nod intelligently and understand when someone hurls at me a "tricky RSS feed, Delicious, wikis, Image generator, - Library thing and Podcasts( I still think its something to do with whales!!) "- golly the list goes on forever. I have come away from these testing exercises with a far better knowledge and understanding of what I can now offer my library patrons. As time allows I will be heading back into some of the sites and delving a bit further. My son still thinks I was pretty clever to find him on Youtube. Did not take me long to discover what I did not like - namely Technorati, RSS feeds and Rollyo. I will be heading back into Podcasts, YouTube, ebooks and Library Thing just to explore a bit further. Love the fact that I can add pictures to my blogg - could get carried away with my cat pictures. The whole Web 2.0 programme was a challenging exercise - it expanded and upskilled my computer knowledge - thank you Web 2.0 team for your patience.

Social networking

I trolled my way through quite a few libraries that are using social networking- randomly picking out a few. Found it interesting what attracted me to the various sites. Did not like New Caroline Kennedy Library, Denver Public Library or Fort Vancouver Regional Library - some sites I could not get into which frustrated me - but my all time favourite was the Kearns Library - - loved this site - very busy screen - easy to navigate around and I could listen to a couple of my favourite songs - OPshop "One day" and Guns n' Rose " Sweet child o' mine". Can see the appeal for the younger patrons - but even a mature patron like myself found it extremely appealing. i read the article Libraries in social networking software by Meredith Farkas - she highlighted some valid point. but she did say that parents need to be educated about what their kids are doing online - easier said than done!!. More often than not both parents are working and the internet is the babysitter. Many parents send their child to the library - so is it the librarians responsibilty to monitor what the children are delving into. As time allows I will go back and search out a few more libraries on the list.

MySpace and Facebook

Again this was a whole new learning curve. Social networking the implications of this are enormous. I was not fussed with Bebo and Myspace was okay. Liked Facebook - easy to use I even found my son on the site - he has a profile and a very nice picture of himself and a friend - at a league game by the looks of it. He will be impressed that I even managed to find my way to the site!!! Took a tour around the Rotorua Public Library site. Really neat - good for drawing in those younger patrons and mature users I might add. No longer should the library be viewed as a nerd's paradise - this library site will show you otherwise. Its very busy with heaps to navigate. Auckland Public was pretty cool - loved the adopt your own virtual pet - you can even customize them. Only good things can come out of social networking for libraries - really have to look to the future and all the wonderful stuff that is "out there"http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=birman

Ebooks

I have to admit before I took the plunge into the whole new world of ebooks I had an extremely cynical view of the electronic setup. But I am sold on the whole concept.I explored the public domain. this takes you straight into Wikipedia. This site is excellent for school assignments. Choice of formats can download the complete works of William Shakespeare in basic HTML. Typed in Macbeth - the choice was endless as to how I wanted it - audio, video, MP3 etc and I loved the setup of breaking it down into characters, synopsis, analysis and criticism etc. Librivox was so easy to use and navigate around. My all time favourite was Google book search. Loved the layout - so easy to use. Looked up my treasured book when I was a child. Seven little Australians by Ethel Turner - and there it was. This site was fantastic for out of print classics. The choice of formats was extensive. (Open formats, closed formats, Acrobat reader & Microsoft reader). Amazon e-book I quote " is frightenly influential and a bargain to boot $9.99 to download to a PDA - great for that long airplane flight to far flung places.

Podcasts

Certainly did not know what a Podcast was (could have been something to do with whales!!!) Anyways I had a good play around with these pod thingys. I hooked a link for the Podcastpickle.com into my Bloglines account - quite liked this site as there were heaps of dropdown boxes that lead you onto all sorts of different directories. I also got carried away with the Oxford University Press site - good implications here for library users and staff. Liked that I could have a tour of the Christchurch Art Gallery with Sam Neill.

YouTube

Well - I could have quite a bit of fun in this site. This is the first time I have been into YouTube and I really liked it. Looked at a couple of the library related videos. Librarian doo-wap - I found cheesy. School Library video Rock n' roll library - good for a laugh in a nerdish way - but don't really think it would drag the "with it" teenagers into the library in great numbers. One of the features I did like was using a high profile TV or movie personality to get across the message of how important it is to read and haunt your local library. I think this would be fantastic if it was integrated into our own library website - possibly a fun marketing tool!! Hopefully not too "infomercial"!!!
Liked the fact I could see one of my favourite bands Guns n' Roses performing my all time favourite song - Sweet child o mine!!!

Web 2.0 awards list

For this exercise I only went into the short list. I sure liked the way the sites were all set out in categories - with a 1st, 2nd and 3rd. I discovered names and sites that I had no idea existed - Wufoo, Fluxom, Twitter, Imbee. Where do they get these names from!!! My favourite was travel - found an excellent site called Forecast - can plan accommodation and travel. Can see many benefits for a library situation with quite a few of these sites and will now be visiting many of them as time allows