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???