My thoughts on web 2.0

I can hardly believe I have looked at so many new and exciting things available via web 2.0. It has been a voyage of discovery and there are several sites that I will certainly use in the future. I will probably give bebo and myspace a miss, but at least I know what they are and what the younger generation are talking about when they mention these things. Social networking is definitely the way people will be communicating from now on. I wonder what web 3.0 will be like?. Whilst searching through many blogs and information I have come across several librarians from different parts of the world who are working on web 2.0.
I am grateful to have had the opportunity to find out about web 2.0. The programme has been a big learning curve for me, but I do enjoy a challenge and look forward to future discoveries.

Podcasts continued

I have added my podcst links

ebooks

I have looked at ebooks several times before this web 2.0 learning experience. I find it frustrating reading a lot of infornmation online. I searched and found an a couple of interesting titles - Cooking the Chinese Way which has low fat and vegetarian recipes and @ home with your ancestors, how to research family history using the internet.
One positive thing about ebooks is the fact that you can choose your interface language to read the books. I must remeber this when recommending ebooks to customers. I didn't download any of the titles as I am still on dial-up which is so slow. I looked up what it says about downloading audio books and I think I could make several cups of tea whilst I waited :) I saved the above titles to my favourites

week 9 podcasts

Podcasts - I kind of new what they were but I had no idea how to access them etc, but all of that has changed of course. I have chosen Denver Public Library as I can check out their storytime podcasts and learn something new. I have added it to my bloglines account.
I have iTunes on the Apple mac I am slowly learning to use.
BBC and other news sites have podcasts. Wonderful to be able to listen to radio programmes that you miss. I looked up Radio New Zealand and there are a lot of interesting programmes that would be interesting to hear. Mmmm.... can see me walking around with earplugs now listening to podcasts!

Youtube

Youtube is fun. Trouble is there are so many video clips to look at. I have chosen a clip from the Shetland Islands as my Great grandfather came from there and I have been tracing the family tree. Shetlanders look like they have a lot of fun with their Celtic style music. Guess that is why I love Celtic calligraphy and music.
It is in the genes as they say
I also looked at a few of the library clips.Liked the library school student clip. Wonder who clears the outside book drop at the bottom of the stairs :)

zoho writer

Well, after a few tries at getting into zoho I finally arrived. Discovered that you need to have the correct email address typical me miss out a few things!

I like the fact that you can share whatever you are writing in the programme with friends or if you want to with the whole world, those that are using zoho of course. I love the emotion icons. Sure beats the :) when you can add a

I looked at Google docs as well and this also would be a useful tool to remember to use.

Now I am going to try and post this on my blog... here goes!!

week eight web 2.0 tool Medstory

I chose Medstory to explore for web 2.0. I have added it to my list on del.cio.us. I searched the topic arthritis and there is a lot of useful information on the site. You can refine your search at a glance which is helpful. I think this web site could be useful for customers as we often get asked for information about medical conditions. There are databases on Aucland City Libraries web page that are useful, but to have something in a different format is great. It was hard to chose which web 2.0 tool to use. I also had a look at Picasa butprefer Flikr as I really like the 'craft' type things you can do with photos. Digitalmax is a good NZ site for sharing and ordering photos to be printed.

week seven wiki's

Wiki's are really going to catch on. The fact that anyone can change the information could be a problem. I see that some sites you have to register so those pages could be monitored, which could be a solution. Library success is one of these.
I have heard that Wikipedia was reported to have been more accurate and up-to-date informaton than Britanica according to a check done on both sites.
Maybe we could have a ACL wiki site.

I think customers would love to add information and the fact that they can add the information directly would appeal to a lot of people. Princeton's Booklovers wiki is an example. The layout is attractive and more visual than St. Joseph County Public Library.
All book lovers would enjoy this wiki.

I looked at several library wiki's and' SJCPL Libraryfor life' was an interesting site. I am interested in Genealogy and looked followed the link on that subject. The information on the site was very USA based. I also liked the idea of the Local history page.

I searched for wiki pages and found several NZ wikis. Here is one called New Zealand wiki. There is not much information added to the site as yet. There is a logo competition on the site - popular topic at the moment :)

PBwiki
It took me a few moments to work out that I just had to start typing on the page, and then I remembered a colleague had said something similar. Phew! might have taken me ages otherwise - even though I had watched the video a couple of times. So easy when you know how and not so scary once you have done it.
Some of the holiday destinations look interesting places to travel to.
Great to read other folks blogs. There sure are some very interesting ones out there.

mix and match

Haven't worked out how to re-arrange my posts as week six is under week five continued. Anyone have an idea how to solve this problem?. Is it because I use drafts?

week five - images for fun continued

I have now put the correct link to Librarything on my blog for week five.. Trust me to get it wrong! I have also added a couple more books and added tags to the titles. I found some interesting titles that other people have added and will look forward to reading them at some stage.


A little more about Rollyo: Well here I am at home and 'duh' can't remember what I logged into Rollyo with. Time for a coffee and and kit kat and I'm sure the brain will do a recall.

Ah, that's better.......Usernames and passwords are so much part of our life now I think someone should create a blog just about them.

I like the fact that I can search sites that I like or use often by using the search roll. Also when looking at other blogs it is easy to use their searchroll to see if there is anything that interests you.

Finding someone had added a Gluten free search is something I can forward to someone I know who has a gluten health problem

Web 2.0, Delicious and Technorati

My thoughts about Web 2.0
Everything seems to be going digital. I can see how it appeals to people because it is grapic based and you can become interactve with whatever you are interested in. Gone are the days when we photocopied information posted letters and printed photographs to share with family and friends. Now it has become so much easie. Communication is 'instant' with discussions on blogs, the availability of news updates and other interesting web sites using these social tools.
The future for libraries is exciting as more and more customers will go online and blog their thoughts and interests. Libraries will be expected to provide exciting social networks . I guess the downside could be privacy issues with Web 2.0




Del.cio.us


This is a very useful site. I searched for Genealogy and found several links. A great advantage with this site is the fact that you can share with family (and other interested folk) genealogy web pages rather than having to email address links all the time, and being able to tag them will save a lot of time.
I have added several tags http://del.icio.us/shelfpatrol

The video on youtube explaining this site had very easy to understand instructions and with my slow dial-up computer at home I had to keep re-starting the video to get the whole thing downloaded so obviously saw it several times.

I read Yarra Plenty Library blog and saw the different things they have at Yarra library... Backyard poultry... now there's something different.Seems quite a few librarians from all parts of the globe are venturing into Web 2.0

Technorati

I found this interesting blog about techno stuff http://www.technorati.com/blogs/www.readwriteweb.com when I searched technorati for Web 2.0 ...wow! so many hits. I added the graph which shows how many posts use web 2.0.

Technorati had several interesting blogs that I looked at but after looking at Del.cio.us I decided it was a more interesting site then technorati

Week five Images for fun

Now I really am a fan. All the creative challenges in this session have started me thinking of lots of possibilities.



I created acouple of graphics using Imagechef www.imagechef.com/ I thought that the instructions were easy to follow and I preferred this site to the Generator blog and Letterjames.
FD toys had a lot of fantastic things that you can make with you photos and I would like to explore that site more when I have the time.


Librarything http://www.librarything.com/catalog/shelfpatrol very interesting and could be useful. I have added several books to my library.

Rollyo was fun. I enjoyed putting the search box on my blog.

Week three continued

I have checked out Flikr Mashup Tour and looked at a plan to visit Sydney http://travel.yahoo.com/trip-view-667693-sydney so now I can dream about the places I might get to see one day. Also looked at where other folk have ventured to, some places I have never heard about for example Bryce Canyon in USA. Tour planner could be a very useful site indeed.

Week four

Mmm.... RSS.... very interesting but it took me a while to get my head around the whole thing. RSS for me once I grasped it all after much explanation and reading became Really simple stupid !I have signed up with Bloglines and added several RSS links. A couple of news sites - BBC and Auckland NZ News (which I found when looking at Topix.net) I added more book and library related RSS sites such as NYT Book reviews, Readers Club: Inspirational fiction, Hamilton City library (because I grew up there) Christchurch City Libraries, Wellington City Libraries, and Librarians Internet Index. For interest I added Scrapbook love.com. and for something very different Zetcast Shetland Islands broadcasting site as my ancestors hail from there.
You never know, now that I am becoming Apple Mac savvy I might one day have walk around with an iPod and earphones :)
I am a very visual learner so I tend to lean towards sites that are quite visual. I found Topix quite user friendly and Syndic8 the one I least enjoyed using.

Week three

I often surprise myself because I enjoy technology so much, especially computers. Having passed my 60th birthday a few years ago I often think how much easier work would have been if computers had been around in the 50's and 60's. I think of all the hand painted signs I used to do when window dressing way back in the old days.

I have been lent an Apple MAC by my son and I have been experimenting with the graphics on the Apple as they are quite different from my old computer.

Flicker has some very interesting places to explore. I have made a CD cover using a photo and template and looked at several library displays and have been inspired by some of the ideas http://www.flickr.com/photos/oakvillepl/page8/. The display for Kids Planting looks great.
I use Picasa for my personal photos at home and also have been using Picasa in Digital Photography in Adult Learners Week.
Have added a comment on Sing Song's blog

At last summer is coming

Week two ramble

Had a look at Bebo, MySpace and Facebook. Being well past the use by date of being a teenager these sites didn't really appeal to me at first., but I decided to have a good look.


All that jargon and other stuff I am sure will be user friendly for the teens.

I listened to a couple of songs by folk singers I have never heard of before and enjoyed what I found, so I'll be having another look to see what else is added

On MySpace had a listen to New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

Decided not to sign up with Facebook, but took the tour to see how to sign up if I ever decide to use this site.

Ramble one

I had never read a blog before coming to this course let alone set up one. I am on a learning curve once again. Very easy steps to follow in setting up the blog, even more so with a very helpful colleague beside me encouraging me every step of the way. I am looking forward to the assignments that are to follow and I can then say I have rambled into another part of history in my life.