GoogleDocs...not gobbledoks

I found GoogleDocs to be very user friendly. The hardest thing for me was actually deciding what document to create. 

I decided to try out a couple of applications ie a presentation and a spreadsheet, and to combine them. I made up a presentation adapted from some training notes from an in-house training session that I attended in 2001. I used the theme template throughout the document, even though I was able to change the background for each slide, simply because I liked it. It was easy to import clipart and provide links. The only thing I found limiting was the number of fonts available.

I have never been very good with spreadsheets, so this was a bit more of a challenge for me, but I think I went alright and was able to link to my presentation.

GoogleDocs could be used anywhere we already use Word, Excel and Powerpoint. The ability to import existing documents and collaborate on documents is an excellent feature. Wiki's used for updating manuals, policy documents and training modules could be replaced using Google Docs.

Letting students know about this site is the only thing I can think of so far for a use by our customers.

Return to wikiworld...

Well I finally got back to post my entry in the NSW learning 2.0 wiki.

It was really easy to add my entry and I was very careful as I didn't want to inadvertantly edit anyone else's entry. It seems that we are all in the same boat as far as too much to do and too little time.

I can't seem to get away from big huge labs and just finished making a photo cube of my great niece- it looks really good.

I have started on Week 11 but am not really sure about what sort of document I am going to create- it's been way too long since I have had to do any document creation for work-oh well, I'll have to keep thinking about it.

I'll keep you posted!

Applying applications...

Who knew there were so many free online productivity tools and applications- I certainly DID NOT.

I had a quick look at GoogleDocs and Zoho. It looked like Zoho had a lot more applications than GoogleDocs, however when I looked at the forum on Zoho it seemed that there were quite a few problems. As I only had a brief look I will have to explore this site further in order to evaluate it properly.

I am sure that Zamzar would be very useful but I haven't had a use for it yet- I'm sure I will use it in the future at some stage. It seems to be easy to use- four steps only.

When I first looked at Slideshare, I really wasn't that impressed, however on taking a second look I found some really interesting slide shows. I searched under 'storytime' and this brought up 41 presentations, a lot of them were virtual tours of different libraries which were quite good and there were quite a few I must go back to look at later eg ' Digital games in lbraries and Information Services...', 'Growing your next Generation of Patrons...', and 'Ready to read'.

Here is one I really liked...

| View | Upload your own

These slide show presentations could be used for marketing the library and the events being held in the library.

There were so many 'Fab Freebies' - it will take me weeks to have a look at them all. It could be very useful to know about all these sites as you never really know what we might be asked for in the library...especially with so many students using the computers.

Thumbstacks is still being built and as I use Safari I was unable to see the presentation.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/volodimer/614637287/

Continuing in the same theme..

I was actually trying to embed this into a google map but I didn't have any success- I liked it anyway and it fits in with the theme of my mashup.. I must warn you that this may offend some viewers... there that got your attention.

More things...

Create yours at BlingyBlob.com!

Just thought this was cute!!!- I found this site on an answer board.

My first mashup...

                                             
This is my first attempt at doing a mashup... so I hope it works out alright and that I have done the right thing. Using Big huge labs, I made a calender page for February 2009. The photo was imported from my own photos and edited in Picnik to add text and icons. I had to edit the html so that when you click anywhere on the calender page you are linked to the Library Lovers web page.

Mixed up about Mashups

This is a bit how I'm feeling...love the idea, but don't know that I am clever enough to get it all together.

I found the maps all a bit confusing until I went to the public library finder-that was pretty good and easy to look up.

I thought the Voicethread was excellent and as you say "could be really useful for adding information to digital objects from your local studies collection."

The Virtual Tourism site took me for a tour down the Nile, to Uluru, the Sydney Opera House and all without leaving my chair. 

I'll be thinking of some other applications for mashups in the library service while I'm trying to Discover how to make something presentable.

Being a highly visual person myself, I think that mashups on our web page , like the calender page would be good for alerting our patrons to events happening throughout the library service each month. We have a monthly newsletter so the events in this could be put on the calender with all the details. A google map would also be able to show where each service point is located with a link to the branch library page. Voicethreads could also be used to highlight items or collections within the library service.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/psd/492139935/

Can anyone hear me?

The Orange County Library System's podcasts were well set out and easy to access. They included talks by prominent people, stories being told by their storytellers and general information about programs the library was running for teens.

I thought LibVib had some interesting  podcasts on it, but when I tried to listen to some of them they were unavailable. The podcast blurb did however link to newspaper and journal articles which I was able to go to and read. One I looked at was called "Director, Couple scuffle at library over books", and there was a video of the local news bulletin that was done on this story.

Denver Public Library podcasts had quite a few stories for kids on it ... it got me wondering about the future of Storytime if kids can listen to these podcasts at home. There were also podcasts about books and from people who had given talks at the library.

Most of the podcasts at the British Library were really long, but I finally found one on "The Holkham Bible facsimile" which only went for 9 minutes and was a really informative talk about this book.

Loved it...loved it...loved it. The ABC podcasts- I looked under Kids- RollerCasts- The Rap and found an interview with Andy Griffiths where he talks about his writing, especially his new book at the time "What Bumasaur is that?"...I found it really amusing and I think kids would too. Full text of the interview is also available on the site and I found the Book Review section really good as well.

On the Library Success Wiki, I went to the Sunnyvale Public Library-'Children's Programs' and listened to "Mother Goose Storytime for Pre-Walkers"- it went for approximately 16 minutes, you could even hear the babies crying throughout it- it reminded me so much of our Storytime sessions. I then looked at the Kankakee Public Library, there web page was a little bit too busy for me-so I had look for the podcasts. Thought I'd listen to "Arlo Guthrie and Family Podcast" but this was a little fuzzy. 

I listened to some of the podcasts on Nancy Keane's site-'Booktalks- Quick and simple', and this is exactly what they were Nancy Keane talking about the storyline of the book. The good thing was that the books were arranged by subject...this could be useful for me for choosing books for storytime...mmmm.

Podcasts could be definitely used by our Book Groups, for author talks and book reviews. We have established a Living Library at our library service and I think that podcasts would be really useful in extending this service. Interviews with older residents for local studies purposes- I seem to remember we were tape recording interviews many years ago... how much more accessible this would be for people all over the world doing genealogy. In children's services I think author interviews  and book reviews, such as those on the ABC site, would be popular. I really don't know whether I would like my storytime sessions recorded!!!

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ollyhart/123420044/

Too many questions...and not enough answers...

Yum...really enjoyed looking at the Taste website...another one to add to my delicious account...yes it is really good to know whether recipes turn out okay so the rating are very important... because they are done by people who have actually tried the recipe.

I could not believe the number of questions that had been asked...awaiting answers...they just kept popping up every second. I never knew these sites existed...there must be people sitting on these sites all night and day. Where do you begin to answer some of these questions? There were over 2,000,000 questions waiting for answers on WikiAnswers when I last looked and I'm guessing at a similar number on Yahoo!7 Answers...absolutely incredible. There were definitely some pretty easy questions eg. "What are some good vampire books?" and "Which fruits contain vitamin B?" I would have thought these would be found just searching the web...

I looked at the Answer Board Librarians wiki and could definitely see a big difference in the type of answer given by the librarian to that of the general public. Q." How do I improve the look of my house through landscaping?" dt~librarian's answer was extremely comprehensive giving links to books, websites, articles and associations that could help, earning a 5* rating from the Asker where as Z-Dub's answer was "lots of pink flamingos and garden gnomes"... really!!!

The feedback from most askers was really positive with one saying- "Thank you for that answer. That is the most in-depth answer I have ever had, very informative and knowledgeable."... but isn't this what we do every day!

I would like to think that yes there is a place for our library in "slamming the boards". We have a great information services and technical services team, as well as some pretty well informed branch staff with years and years of answering questions... both the weird and the wonderful.

When I was looking for a definition of  'Slam the boards' I came across this in WikiAnswers-

"To 'Slam the boards' can also mean to slam two hardcover books together forcefully in order to shift dust from off them."... Maybe this is what I need to do to stop the dust from gathering-participate in providing some authoritative answers on answer boards.

Chockies, flowers and Thank You cards have been the way that most patrons let us know if they are happy with the service we are providing... nothing wrong with that! or the very infrequent letter of complaint.  But of course we must move into the 21st century and provide our patrons with a place for them to voice their opinion on services and collections... so yes maybe an answer board on the web site would be useful... of course only if it were properly staffed. A lot of our patrons are elderly so I still think we'll be getting chockies for awhile yet!

Photo-http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephanedelbecque/266175273/

Librarything...

Setting up the account and adding some of my books on to my account was really easy. The book covers gave me some idea of which edition I had so all I needed to do was to check the bibliographic details.

As soon as I starting reading about LibraryThing I knew I had found the perfect solution for helping a friend to set up their quite extensive library in some sort of order...at least knowing what was in their library... Although I haven't seen the number of books yet I know that there are way more than 200- and I don't think $25 US is too much to pay to be able to enter all his books on to LibraryThing and to keep adding on indefinitely.

I really haven't thought too much about library usage other than to let patrons know that it exists...I'm just so excited about it on a personal level...I will really start thinking harder about this!!!

" Books to the ceiling, 

  Books to the sky,

  My pile of books is a mile high.

  How I love them! How I need them!

  I'll have a long beard by the time I read them."  Arnold Lobel

Photo- http://flickr.com/travelinlibrarian/118260282

Going "ratty" with Technorati...

The most popular blogs were about all sorts of wonderful gadgets- with Boing Boing being the Most Popular as rated by fans and Engadget being the Most Popular by authority. Had a quick look at both and found some interesting things on Boing Boing both the weird and the wonderful...may have to have a closer look at this one. Engadget seemed a bit more technical.
I looked at Technorati again....and once again my search results were different...each time I have been on, it all changes...well of course...dah!!! as new posts are added the numbers change. There have been a lot more photos added to  "nswpln2008"  from when I looked over a week ago.

The keyword search definitely returned more hits than the Advanced search and the Tag search...but this is to be expected. Some of the videos that came up really had nothing much to do with bookmobiles other than it being in the title. I checked one about ninjas and one about New Year but never got to the end of these as they had nothing to do with bookmobiles that I could see...

Of course I couldn't leave without watching numerous videos- especially riveting was the video "How do you wash the Bookmobile?"...the Benny Hill theme music brought back memories- I'm pretty sure our bookmobile drivers took a lot longer than 2 minutes to wash their trucks... I remember one of our bookmobile drivers causing major disruptions at the depot when she would wash the bookmobile in her bikini!!!...now that would have made a good video!!!

Photo-http://flickr.com/photos/ross/7606812/

Scrumdiddlyumcious...del.icio.us

This is my third attempt to do Week 7 but by the time I get to finish it (with interruptions) I have to go back and refresh my memory... the joys of getting older...anyway I have decided to break the module up into three parts and blog about each part separately.

After looking at the Sutherland Shire Libraries tag cloud and the Cleveland Public Library's tags, I could definitely see how useful this could be for both staff doing reference work and library patrons who are looking for information, as they were both organised into easily identified subject areas. 

I thought that the National Library's Ask Now, was also a wonderful tool for finding reference information.

I looked at the following tags - genealogy, lost monies, national anthems, flags and country emblems. I think a tag cloud would be great on our library's website - it would certainly make finding authoritative websites much easier. With over 15 billion web pages on the internet we really need to be able to easily access reliable information.

It was extremely easy to set up my del.icio.us account and to add my bookmarks. My tag cloud is fairly small as most of the sites I had bookmarked were related to finding material for storytime. I particularly liked the fact that my tags linked me to other people and I found some sites I had never seen before... I know... social bookmarking.

This is definitely my favourite so far and will be something I will use regularly not just on a personal basis but also within the library for researching information.

With tag clouds the sky's the limit...

"You must not blame me if I do talk to the clouds." Henry David Thoreau

Photo: http://flickr.com/photos/oceanflynn/366423504/

Blog Withdrawals...

I am having blog withdrawals ... it's been too long since I have put anything on my blog... just no time and have had to wrestle with my husband to get to use the computer as he's just come back from Vietnam and has been doing his holiday dvd and photos.

He has now gone back to work so I should be able to catch up.... Oh NO the phone's ringing again!!!

Now for the good part...No food in the library

I chose these two videos-one old and one new but basically on the same theme...even though the first one is actually an ad for something completely different than books..hope you enjoy them.

Librarians-Try to connect with your patrons

Sesame Street Classic- No cookies in the Library

You Tu[can]be in 'pictures'...OR _ _ minutes of fame.

I am truly amazed by how clever some people are... I could never come up with the ideas for videos to promote the library and it's services.

Some years ago a promotional video was made for our library service- but it was very rarely used- and certainly did not get the same exposure that it would today if it was loaded onto YouTube or Google Video Reader.

Searching on Google Video Reader seemed to bring up a lot more entries in the general web search option as it included some of the YouTube videos. For example when I did the suggested "lego" search there were 94,486 in the general web search and only 4,999 in the hosted by Google search... in YouTube there were 60,000. I had similar results for the other searches, in that a general Google web search gave more options. 

Google Video Reader allows longer videos to be downloaded, YouTube only allows for shorter videos up to 10 minutes. Hence all the Mosman Library author talk videos were on Google Video Reader only.

We love our NJ libraries I really liked this clip... loved the library rap song in the background which promoted library services. The interviews with patrons seemed natural-not scripted-and highlighted the pluses of library usage from different points of view... this gets the thumbs up from me.

Q and ANJ: Now Your Library is Open Late Night Too! How clever... using a 'drive-thru' theme to show that there are still library services available to students outside normal opening hours through the web. Short and to the point.

How good was Olive Riley Returns to Broken Hill-what a wonderful lady and what a wonderful way to record oral histories. The combination of old photos, videos, re-enactments and of course Olive herself  talking about her life in Broken Hill when she was a girl, made this video really enjoyable... not quite the word I'm looking for!!! It makes you want to see the rest of the 56min video. It also gives the web address for Olive's story which I can't wait to look at... I then watched "Olive finds Emma's grave" - that certainly brought a tear to the eye. As much as I don't want to I must leave Olive now...

The State Library of Queensland timelapse construction video 3 was interesting but a bit hard to watch.

PLCMC New Employee Orientation was just a short welcome for new library staff... I wasn't overly impressed as I think the more personal touch is better in these circumstances.

Reference & Research Assistance video was narrated by students for students... the approach was casual but definitely showed all the services and resources available in the library and shows the ways that librarians can help. I liked It!!!

The book reviews that were listed on David Lee King's blog were done by young readers for young readers-simply done but effective.

The Art Express 2007 video shows the works and interviews some of the students who had their works in the exhibition.

All the above video show what can be done to promote library services... the possibilities are endless. All that's needed are a good imagination, a good script, some fearless actors(staff) and a video camera. The web awaits.....

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/shawnblog/297869196/

Getting tricky with a wiki...

This photo titled 'Wiki' was uploaded by kbaird on to Flickr. Could this really happen???

I'm not really sure about wikis - I don't think I would like just anyone coming along and editing something that I have written.  

I know that you have to have an invite key in most cases but in wikis like wikipedia I believe just about anyone can add or edit articles.

                                                            

I looked at The Booklovers Wiki at the Princeton Public Library. 

I thought that it was really excellent. Books were reviewed by members of their Booklovers Club and staff members. Book reviews were put into genre type. A good idea for our Library's Book Club members.

I then looked at The Montana History Wiki.

This wiki belongs to the Montana Historical Society Research Center.I thought this was really good-lots of authoritative historical content-lots of subject guides. Gives citations for each entry plus on line resources and a historical timeline of the subject.

The entries here were not open to editing but comments could be added.

Lastly I looked at the CSU Library Wiki. 

Although this looked really good to start with, further delving into the pages made me realise how little this wiki is being used by the students and staff of the university. There were lots of pages listed with all sorts of information on them- I liked the how to pages.

There seemed to be only 22 members. Quite a few of the pages I looked at had not been added to since early 2007 or had nothing on them. Maybe I didn't look in the right places...

This wiki states that  "Anyone can add, edit and delete pages, text and hyperlinks right from their web browser" - I'm not sure that this is such a good thing.

I particularly liked the Antioch University, New England wiki. 

I thought the 'Front Desk Training and Policy Pages' were terrific it even had an entry under Watering plants and showed which one to water... I loved the photos on each entry.

Only authorised  staff could change anything on the pages and any confidential policies/procedures were not on the public wiki. 

This is definitely something that public libraries could do.

The wiki entry for the area where I work was okay I guess but it did not cite any references or sources to suggest where the information came from to make the entry. The library service was not mentioned in the facilities section.

The only links were to Business/Community Groups. There was no link to the Council website-a little disappointing as it is a good website . The entry for the area where my branch is located was just a stub and had basic information, as expected. 

I am waiting for the invite key to make an entry on the NSW learning 2.0 wiki.

I think that there is definitely a place for wikis in my workplace, especially as a management tool. It could be very good for my job share partner and myself - a sort of  To-do page so we know what needs to be done and when it has been done (just like in the video). 

"In individuals, insanity is rare, but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule."- Friedrich Nietzsche

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevlar/1152595430/

                                                                                                                         

The need for feeds...

The photo is of the Bloglines plumber uploaded by moiles. 

Creative Commons-Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic 

and is from Flickr

This has probably been the most difficult thing for me to do so far... finding the blogs was perhaps the most challenging part of the exercise but once I got into it there was no stopping me...I could have gone on and on... enough's enough

Here are the feeds I added:

The obligatory Powerhouse Museum's picture of the day blog- which I really liked.

http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/imageservices/

One for my favourite hobby which is scrapbooking, this blog updates me on the new products that are available.

http://www.scrapbookingmomma.com

The next one I added was for work and has easy crafts on it that I may be able to utilise for my Storytime activities- I'm always on the lookout for new ideas...

http://www.freepreschoolcrafts.com

I then tried to add the Sydney Morning Herald 'Undercover' blog but had some difficulty- it eventually went through but had the whole entertainment blogs not just the one I had picked.

http://blogs.smh.com.au/entertainment/archives/undercover/index.html

I added a Vietnamese cookery blog as I love the food- Yum...

http://vietworldkitchen.typepad.com

Even though I read a lot about RSS I did not think that I really understood what I was doing or why I was doing it...I guess I'm Real Simple. Anyway I decided to delve further into this subject and found quite a good article...except for the technical bits I began to understand a bit more- The article is called " What is RSS and how it can serve libraries?" by Zeki Celikbas.

http://eprints.rclis.org/archive/00002531/01/RSS_and_libraries_EN3.pdf

I then went looking for libraries that provided RSS feeds to their clients. I was impressed by the Minneapolis Public Library which provided RSS feeds under the following categories:

New items in the Catalog

What's new at the Minneapolis Public Library

What's new in the List

Today at the Minneapolis Public Library

Live Bookmarks in Mozilla

I feel this site is really worth looking at and shows some of the ways RSS can be used effectively in public libraries.

http://www.mpls.lib.mn.us/rss.asp

I have been trying to add a feed to my blog but have not been successful so far... I will keep trying...

"Our best thoughts come from others" - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/andreasm/88912194/

Book Sculpture - SQC

Book Sculpture - SQC, originally uploaded by gwENvision.

I don't know why but I just love this photo- the sculpture is entitled "Good as Gold" and is by the artist Donald Lipski. It is located at the Country Club Plaza Branch of the Kansas City Public Library. 

The image of the man in the centre of the ring of books somehow reminds me of "The Thinker" sculpture by Auguste Rodin - I know... I have a vivid imagination.

This was not my first choice , the photo that I first chose was copyright restricted so I could not download without permission. 

This photo's Creative Common was

'Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic'.

"Is a stolen copyright a copywrong"- Anonymous

Photo ponderings...

I have spent way too much time (at home-NOT work) on doing the week 3 module of the program.

I seem to have got distracted a lot, looking at all the wonderful photos on Flickr... and following links to other photo web sites... it's been great but has used up a lot of time.

The photos from Mosman Library were really good-there were very few photos that came up when I put in the name of the library service that I work for- 37 photos came up under full text and only 8 came up under tags only. 

It showed how important it is to tag your photos properly when I searched for the suggested topics-when I put in

 'bad library signs'- there were 101 full text and 0 tags only

 'lamingtons'- there were 232 full text and only 48 tags only

 'vegemite'- there were 2069 full text and only 755 tags only

The tags only photos were more relevant than the full text ones but especially in the case of the lamingtons there should have been more photos-a lot obviously were not tagged.

Photo groups seem like a good way for like-minded people to share their photos.

Reading about Creative Commons got me pondering ...(oh No Not Again)... about photo ownership within the library situation. Who is the owner of the photo? It seemed to me that the person who takes the photo is the 'owner' as they have to consent to the photo being used- but if the photo is taken with the library camera don't the library service/council become the 'owner'? and then what about me... if the photo is of a display that I have created- am I not entitled to some creative recognition? Sorry, sorry...I am digressing again... but I was just wondering!!!!

I have found the image that I want to use but will have to get back to it later.

"You don't take a photograph. You ask, quietly, to borrow it"- Author Unknown

Thinking of Things...

I was interrupted while doing my first post and didn't really finish... so ...

I have been looking at a lot of blogs and I think there is definitely a use for them within the library service- especially to let our patrons and others within the community, know what is happening within the library service, and to give feedback on events that they may have attended within the library.

I am particularly interested in doing effective displays (with little or no money) and doing different storytimes (easy craft activities ) within the library, and a blog could be the perfect way to exchange ideas with other library services.

I went to Technorati and searched for library related blogs, I tried lots of different terms but the most unusual blog I found was when I put in Storytime there was a blog about self abusers in the library....different!!! I found that a lot of the blogs weren't exactly what I was expecting to find...if that makes any sense!!!

"When you are a Bear of Very little Brain, and Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets into the open and has other people looking at it." 

                          Winnie the Pooh-"The House at Pooh Corner." A.A.Milne

PS: Photo is of me dressed up as Pooh for Children's Book Week 1979???