Wednesday, December 2, 2009

WEEK 10 - PODCASTING AND YOUTUBE

Using Podcast Alley, selected:
1. Arts - Celtic Myth Podshow. Had to listen down in the library because my computer distorted the sound so badly I could not understand the speech.
2. Music - DylanRadio Podcast
3. Filmbuffs Podcast - RRR Film Buffs' Forecast show on Saturdays.

With author permission and if they are comfortable being recorded ie microphone etc. could podcast talks at the library for people who are housebound or unable to attend a session.

YouTube - Found clips for Melbourne band Collard Greens and Gravy. Found clips for Martin Scorsese.

YouTube




WEEK 9 - BOOKS AND READING

Read the LibraryThing blog. A film reference - great! eg. Chris has added a feature for related movies in Common Knowledge. Here's an example, from Romeo and Juliet. Zeitgeist could do your brain in, oh my god, also very popularist in focus, representing every reading group title we get asked for.
Virtual shelf - pictorial - covers of books
Widgets - a link or jumping point in your blog to connect people to LibraryThing.

I did not open a LibraryThing account but used Fiona's account to explore.

Checked out Booktagger.com.au as an Australian developed site. Thanks to Fiona for suggesting this when I despaired of the American slant to all these other sites. Why is entrepreneurial drive in the internetosphere an exclusively American gene? Where are the Brits or continental Europeans or Scandinavians? Why only the USA at the coal face of possibilities?

Could offer borrowers another place to check out reviews (albeit not mediated or edited etc) apart from our E resource list with these kinds of sites. Booktagger has a Book Club section - both real and online clubs which might be of interest to borrowers who want another kind of Book Club model to join.
WEEK 8 - PRODUCTIVITY

Eventbrite has been in use at the library for events and staff have familiarity with it.

Zamzar - useful if people come in to the library having used a computer at home and want print off files, Zamzar allows conversion to match library software.

Googledocs - took the tour, read the testimonies. Easy access from anywhere for collaboration between our team members for example. Would be useful for people working from home too. Interesting tool.

Google reader - I would never have that many RSS feeds that I would need to organise them, but it is useful for those who do (Miss Fiona is one)

Web2 Award categories - selected YELP. Noted that it is very USA focussed but UK now adding to it. Searched on Seattle - bookshops. Searched Glasgow sites and had a look around. Lovely if you are lucky enough to be travelling and want to plan some special things to check out. Checked out LULU for books but didn't think much of it. If borrower wanted up-to-date travel info we could suggest YELP for exploring topics in addition to our travel guides.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Week 7 - TAGGING

Del.icio.us - used search term 'Tim Winton' - and it listed articles with various tags that I could choose to explore.

Librarything - using title 'Let me sing you gentle songs' - was able to find out it was originally published as Astrid and Veronika. Indentified the 'cloud' of terms used to tag the book. Note: books could be owned or simply read by teh contributors.

Useful for the borrower who comes in to get new ideas for books to read. Can show them the catalogue and indicate Librarything clouds and they can jump off for new directions in reading. Also the reader can get reviews (before going to our E-resources) for particular books they have enjoyed and suggestions for books that they might like as further reading.

Good for creating a personal list of books read/wanted to read in a particular year for example. This is a good place to store this information for future use.

This will be very useful and of interest to me.

Technorati - address book for blogs. Used search term 'boroondara' - brought me to the library blog. Lots of advertising yuk. This is only one way of blog searching - millions of ways are available. Could use Bloglines for example.

Using Tim Winton first as a blog search and got one result. Used as a 'post search' - it expand the initial results to 28. These are posts that mention Tim Winton as opposed to blogs.

Used 'Vancouver Writers' Festival' and found a blog by David Hewson which gave a great overview of the recent festival. I will make a comment on his site responding to the info he has given re my desire/dream holiday to this festival (after having attended a session at this year's MWF hosted by the convenor of VWF - fabulous!)

Discussed how I might share this interesting article with others eg. send the link via email to friends or tag it in Delicious, Twitter, Facebook etc.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Week 6 - Fun stuff



A week of annual leave last week so the catching-up process is pressing in on me.



Everything is going very slowly on my computer today to hinder this effort. Waiting, waiting....



Used Stumpleupon at our last CL training session.



Today checked out Rollyo -kizuki - quotes stuff. Advertising links were evident for the topics I entered to get quotes. Kind of useful at a glance.



Lolcat - I ask "why?"



Lastfm - much more engaging. Although one wonders whether the artist I was reading about really needs to get "happy birthday" messages from all and sundry. Do they care? But will explore this further as it is quite compelling for someone interested in the world of music.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

WEEK 5 - PHOTOS AND IMAGES

Went into Flickr and searched Angkor Wat. Noted that copyright "all rights reserved" meant you cannot use this image to publish or to download etc. Angkor Wat by Dragon Caiman was the image I selected but I cannot use this.

I noted that above the image was "All sizes" to click.

Flickrcc, however, will provide all images that can be published within more flexible copyright parameters ie. Creative Commons. Will provide images may have more accessible copyright.

Searched for "libraries". Found Boston Public Library - library entrance hall by Haydnseek.
Checked out Flickr Services.
Did The Tour.
Flickr Toys - looked at how to construct a Magazine Cover, also Flickr Toys and Mappr.
Checked out Flickr - Boroondara Libraries.
I liked the idea of finding images to help jazz up displays for the library.
I do not own a digital camera. I love photographs. I am waiting for retirement for the big "organise the photos" project so I doubt that I would be frantically organising my digital photos. However, I love the idea of creating my own personalised cards so working with mash-ups would be fun. Now I have an inkling of this, it is something I would probably come back to for the creative stationery elements it provides. I am addicted to stationery so this is very tempting.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

WEEK 5 - Photos and Images
This morning I was about to embark on Week 5 tasks, however I had the following to contend with in the first hour and a half (after a day at CL yesterday) : an urgent email to do a mailout for a Nov event - done; staff member not turning up for set up duties so helped do newspapers downstairs; phone call for Nils re meeting room booking - ended up spending time going through several potential dates for the group and doing the booking because they had to have it confirmed TODAY. So another morning gets filled up with unexpected diversions.....