#17 Playing around with PBWiki

There are lots of good links here to explore, and it seems like a great way to share information.
A google search on Pbwikis came up with some similar tools- Wikispaces Wetpaint and Zoho.
It took me a couple of tries to get the link posted in the right spot, but it was straightforward enough to edit the page once I'd signed in.

#16 So what’s in a wiki?

I took a look at the St. Joseph County Public Library Wiki first. It seems to function much like a regular homepage for a library, with all the kind of information you would expect to find. The big difference is that staff would be able to edit any page without html knowledge, and update in real time. I was suprised at first that patrons needed to log in to edit the blog, as this seems to go against the concept of wikis as open access, but after looking at Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki the reason was obvious. Their wiki had previously been openly accessible but forced to change to an email confirmation& password system due to site 'vandalism'. So I guess the advantage of wikis in being open to anyone to edit is also their disadvantage. Most of these sites seem to have got around the problem quite well though, as anyone can participate once they have registered.

The Library Success Wiki is aimed at librarians, with a view to sharing information and ideas. This looks like a great way for librarians to exchange knowledge and experience in an informal way, without time constraints of meetings, emails or phone calls.

The Princeton Public Library Booklovers Wiki is self explanatory, and seems like something every library service should have, as it will generate more interest in reading and hopefully lead to more people coming through the door at the library.

Overall I see lots of potential for libraries using wikis. The fact that they allow user participation is a real strength, when all too often we are limited to word of mouth, email or feedback forms, and which only seem to invite passive comment rather than dialogue or actual engagement in library programs.

#15 On Library 2.0 & Web 2.0

There seems to be some difficulty in actually defining what the terms web 2.0 and library 2.0 are, with many different interpretations of what they involve, and argument as to just how revolutionary the concepts really are. Some have suggested, and I am tempted to agree, that the vagueness in the terms makes them little more than buzz words.

This said, I think the main concepts of library 2.0 like interactivity, collaboration and user created content are very worthwhile ideas, which haven't always been considered important in the past in libraries. There is still a risk, though, that we start to see the tools or technology (like wikis, blogs etc. in themselves as the revolutionary thing, when it's the way we use them that's important.

#14 Getting not-so-technical with Technorati

It seems that with such a vast number of blogs, and the rate they are appearing, that a tool like technorati is essential to try and keep track of what's out there. While it's good to know anyone who can get online can freely post up on just about anything, it's another question as to whether all of it is actually worth publishing, let alone reading...

Anyway searching on "learning 2.0" I found a lot of useful links. I found searching in blog posts to be the most useful in terms of relevant results. Searching tags gave the next best results, followed by the blog directory.

#13 Tagging, folksonomies & social bookmarking in Del.icio.us

When I first looked at this topic, I could see the use of having a site which could store your bookmarks and could be accessed from any PC, but the idea of 'social' bookmarking hadn't really occurred to me. Now I can see the ability to see bookmarks created by other users with common interests could be very useful, cutting down on time spent searching with search engines, and leading to new discoveries which you might never make on your own.

The layout of the delicious site took me a while to get to grips with, and I found this article http://www.beelerspace.com/index.php?p=890 a bit confusing, but after checking out some of the links I found on delicious- like this one http://schoolof.info/infomancy/?p=214 I started to get what tagging was all about. Interesting the point made here about subject headings being technically correct vs tags which are more often informally right, even if not always 'correct' . Given the way so many people search on the internet- mainly using keywords- it does seem tagging could be more suited than subject cataloguing.

#12 Roll your own search engine with Rollyo

I found the Rollyo site to be easy to work with. Registering with the site and creating a searchroll was simple enough, although I found it very difficult to figure out how to link to the searchroll I'd created. I'm not sure if I'm missing something but this aspect of Rollyo doesn't seem very user friendly.

I can see could be a useful tool for those wanting to simultaneously search multiple sites which they might favour getting information from, similar in a sense to the way RSS feeds centralise information. It could also minimise all the irrelevant results from keyword searches in google and other search engines, which often lead to dead ends.

Being able to share searchrolls is a good idea, as you can browse and find some good sources by chance.

http://rollyo.com/blogsphere/alternative_politics/

#11 All about LibraryThing

I don't seem to get much time to read these days, unless it's study material, so I had to think for a while about what I might have read recently, or, just in the last few years or so...! Anyway, after reading some of the hype about Library Thing, I headed over at set up an account, which was straightforward enough. Adding books is easy, although I found it a little trickier when Amazon didn't turn up what I was searching for.

Also it took me a while to find the 'delete' option, (which I found on the 'add books' function- there is a cross next to each book which gives the option to delete) after I'd inadvertently added a double of something. I'd prefer that to be a little more obvious, but maybe then again I'm just blind as it looks obvious enough now.

I was interested to see what the 'unsuggester' turned up when I searched on Chomsky. Here I was expecting Thomas Friedman or Henry Kissinger and all I got was Chomsky again...! Apparently you either love him or hate him, or... possibly both.

Anyway, I'm sure this site would be great for those wanting reading suggestions, or just chatting with other fans of their favourite author. That could be really interesting, or really scary depending on who you read I guess, and what type of fans are out there.
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/blogsphere

#10 Play around with Image Generators

I'm familiar with sign generators, having seen and used a few church sign generators. I thought I'd try something different using http://www.warningsigngenerator.com/ which I found by googling 'sign generators'. Good fun to try out different combinations, see example above.

Next I tried the Blues Name Generator http://www2.capitalgold.com/staticweb/EdFeatures/goldblues/
Apparently my blues name is 'Gloomy' Bill Clearwater. Guess it's not going to be upbeat stuff I'll be writing then...

Finally I had a go with this one, poor clippy... he is very annoying though. Example image is at the bottom of the blog.
http://www.imagegenerator.net/create/clippy/

All in all, these programs are good fun and mostly very easy to use, and there are tons out there. Anagram generators are another good one...

#8 Make life "really simple" with RSS & a newsreader

I must admit to knowing little about rss feeds before this exercise, but I found the process of creating a bloglines account and setting up the feeds very straightforward. The Feed Me: A gentle introduction to Internet feeds was a good starting point, though once at bloglines I was a little confused when I couldn't find the 'share' tab. Reading back over my emails I saw that it has moved to 'additional features'.

I can see that a newsreader like bloglines might be useful for library and other information professionals to centralise information from multiple sources which is updated frequently, saving lots of time searching for it at different sites. For instance, keeping up to date with news and events from other libraries, or from professional organisations such as ALIA.

I don't think I would set up an account for personal use though, as I don't really have specific sources I regularly seek information from, and would probably get a bad case of information overload!

#7 Blog about Technology

IT has certainly come a long way since I first used a computer back in the early '90s. It was an 486 with about 1 Mb of ram, the only back up option being the ever unreliable floppy disc (so many school assignments lost!) Now I rely on PCs at home (I have two) and at work, which is easily taken for granted. There are so many possibilities for using new tools especially online, and yet so much potential for frustration- where programs are not designed intuitively, or hardware is not up to speed with the software, incompatibility problems... the list goes on.

The latest set of study readings I received from my course with CSU are all contained on a CDROM. Sounds convenient at first, and no doubt much less wasteful than a hardcopy, but I just find it a distracting experience trying to think for long in front of a computer screen. I find it's the same with all the lengthy online readings. Don't get me wrong, I'm no luddite, I just think that sometimes we assume we must have the latest technology just for the sake of it- like updating to Windows Vista, only to find it's full of bugs.../rant mode off/ Anyway, looking forward to some more user friendly technology, in moderate doses...!

#6 More Flickr Fun

Browsing through I was surprised to see just how many different Flickr applications there were available, allowing some unusual ways of working with images. First up I found an application (name since forgotten & which I can no longer locate unfortunately!) that selected images based on a simple graphic representation drawn by the user in a box, like a simplified version of MS PAINT. While it is hard to imagine a practical application for this tool, it was kind of weird to see dots become eyes, and badly drawn spirals morph into ripples on water.

Next up I tried Flickr Colour Picker by Jim Bumgardner. This tool generates random images based on a section of the colour spectrum defined by the user. I'm thinking this could be potentially useful for designing a montage for a webpage, where ambience or ‘feel’ is more important that the actual subject or content of the images, but again it's just interesting to play around with...

#5 flickr

I found Flickr quite easy to use, and I was able to sign up quickly by using a pre-existing yahoo email account. I then used Flickr's blogging tool to add the image straight to the blog. I've used photobucket before (to upload photos and images to use as an avatar for a message board), but Flickr looks like it may be a more flexible tool. Until now I assumed that photo sharing sites were just for fun, but I can see the potential for building communities and the exchange of information using the visual medium here, given what libraries are doing with Flickr.

La Trobe Reading Room, State Library Victoria

State Library
Originally uploaded by j.auchinleck

This view of the Latrobe reading room at the State Library (which I visited last week) caught my eye. It's a good photo, though as always the real thing looks more impressive. Photo originally uploaded to Flickr by j.auchinleck

First post

Just to make sure it all works...