Searched for "Learning 2.0" and read some of the blogs. Found less blogs by searching on tags. Most entries seem to be from American bloggers - hardly surprising, I suppose. Try as I might, I can't really see much application for myself. I searched under a couple of subjects that interest me, but did not find any blogs that excited me - maybe if that was my purpose and I wasn't just looking at the web site for the sole purpose of learning about it, I would find many of the blogs of interest. Like the other things on the Learning 2.0 agenda, good to know it exists.
Used Library Thing and added a few books from my collection. Again, I wouldn't do it for my entire library, unless I had unlimited time and needed the contact with other people who've read the same books. Maybe when I retire. Now, I have barely enough time to read books and have about 20 lined up at home waiting for me on my bookshelves.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
#8 Tagging, etc in Del.icio.us
I have used Del.icio.us in SLV Chat and can see the value for our reference service. We have all sorts of useful sites on there, to cover as many Australiana-related subjects. Good to have everything in one place and so easy to access. Also, good for organising bookmarks on a social book-marking site so that these can be accessed from different PC's, eg at work and at home or even when travelling (as we did recently).
I found the site on 'Steve the Art Museum social tagging project' very interesting and also the tags added to the Yarra Plenty Library catalogue records for fiction. Tags may increase access to information for non-library folk. However, I found the tags on the Yarra Plenty Library catalogue record for fiction items to be very broad and not so useful. It is an interesting concept and could work if the tags put on by non-cataloguers are readily identifiable as such. As fiction books do not have subject headings, I can see that it may add value to a record for a fiction item. I found some of the tags on the Technorati site to be odd, eg "Dumbasses". Can't see myself using such a tag.
I found the site on 'Steve the Art Museum social tagging project' very interesting and also the tags added to the Yarra Plenty Library catalogue records for fiction. Tags may increase access to information for non-library folk. However, I found the tags on the Yarra Plenty Library catalogue record for fiction items to be very broad and not so useful. It is an interesting concept and could work if the tags put on by non-cataloguers are readily identifiable as such. As fiction books do not have subject headings, I can see that it may add value to a record for a fiction item. I found some of the tags on the Technorati site to be odd, eg "Dumbasses". Can't see myself using such a tag.
Monday, October 22, 2007
#7 Finding Feeds
Used Feedster and subscribed to one of the wikis. Feedster was quite comprehensive and easy to use. News stories were good, but I've already subscribed the 'The Age' top stories. Good help page on search tips.
Topix seemed a bit more limited than Feedster, although phrase searching is a good facility.
I searched for a few blogs on Google Blog Search and found some of interest, some opinionated.
Overall, Feedster seemed the best for my purposes.
The good thing is that now I know how to look for RSS Feeds on web sites and have been looking at the sites I requested in Google Reader. An interesting exercise.
I also subscribed to a journal from the Ebsco ANZ Reference Centre.
Topix seemed a bit more limited than Feedster, although phrase searching is a good facility.
I searched for a few blogs on Google Blog Search and found some of interest, some opinionated.
Overall, Feedster seemed the best for my purposes.
The good thing is that now I know how to look for RSS Feeds on web sites and have been looking at the sites I requested in Google Reader. An interesting exercise.
I also subscribed to a journal from the Ebsco ANZ Reference Centre.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
#RSS and Google Reader
Wow, I've made it up to here. Actually, this is all very interesting. I must confess I had subscribed to an RSS feed about 3 years ago from the BBC's Web site. My supervisor was extolling the virtues of RSS feeds, so I thought I'd try it. I think it vanished off my Mozilla bookmarks during an upgrade - not to be replaced.
In this exercise, I subscribed to the following RSS feeds: Youth Literature, Library Bytes, ABC Unleashed (stuff about the upcoming Federal Election), SLV Media Releases and SLV Fellows Talks (because we've had dealings with a lot of the fellows across the desk and have chatted to them about their work) and the Age top stories. A lot of information, if only I had time to keep up with it all. I think the concept of RSS feeds is good. In a time poor, information rich society, it looks like the way to go. Slices of information on your chosen topic/s, which you can then choose to read at your leisure (or so the theory goes).
The SLV has a number of options for RSS feeds, so members of the public can keep informed on subjects that interest them. Not sure if there's any way to count how many people subscribe - suppose there is, as most things are now electronically counted. Other RSS feeds might work for new books received, learning sessions, tours, events at the Library, etc, etc.
In this exercise, I subscribed to the following RSS feeds: Youth Literature, Library Bytes, ABC Unleashed (stuff about the upcoming Federal Election), SLV Media Releases and SLV Fellows Talks (because we've had dealings with a lot of the fellows across the desk and have chatted to them about their work) and the Age top stories. A lot of information, if only I had time to keep up with it all. I think the concept of RSS feeds is good. In a time poor, information rich society, it looks like the way to go. Slices of information on your chosen topic/s, which you can then choose to read at your leisure (or so the theory goes).
The SLV has a number of options for RSS feeds, so members of the public can keep informed on subjects that interest them. Not sure if there's any way to count how many people subscribe - suppose there is, as most things are now electronically counted. Other RSS feeds might work for new books received, learning sessions, tours, events at the Library, etc, etc.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
#4 Wiki thoughts
Back again! Remembered my password this time.
Thoughts on Wikis - I liked looking at the 'Book Lovers Wiki' and thought that was a terrific use of a Wiki. I got some ideas myself for books to read. 'Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki' was really interesting and again, I thought this was a good use of a Wiki - very helpful and wide-ranging information for libraries and easy to negotiate.
I think the SLV Intranet would work well as a Wiki. Also, a Desk Wiki would be good. Have to be much better than the system we have now. Of course, editorial control would be an issue.
Meredith Farkas, in her article on the 'Library Success' Wiki, entitled 'ALA Wiki: What I learned and what I'm doing with it', written in July, 2005, contains a number of observations on how to produce a succesful Wiki - all of which sound sensible.
#5 Wikis
May as well add this to the above.
I managed to add an entry to the SLV Desk Wiki and was surprised how easy this was. It reinforces how useful a Wiki would be for desk-related information.
Thoughts on Wikis - I liked looking at the 'Book Lovers Wiki' and thought that was a terrific use of a Wiki. I got some ideas myself for books to read. 'Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki' was really interesting and again, I thought this was a good use of a Wiki - very helpful and wide-ranging information for libraries and easy to negotiate.
I think the SLV Intranet would work well as a Wiki. Also, a Desk Wiki would be good. Have to be much better than the system we have now. Of course, editorial control would be an issue.
Meredith Farkas, in her article on the 'Library Success' Wiki, entitled 'ALA Wiki: What I learned and what I'm doing with it', written in July, 2005, contains a number of observations on how to produce a succesful Wiki - all of which sound sensible.
#5 Wikis
May as well add this to the above.
I managed to add an entry to the SLV Desk Wiki and was surprised how easy this was. It reinforces how useful a Wiki would be for desk-related information.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Thoughts on blogging
I found it quite challenging to set up the blog, as I had made an incorrect assumption on the blog address - silly me! I think blogs could be useful for specific purposes or if one was house-bound. It's probably good to know how these things work, but for my purposes, not so sure. I've had a look at some other blogs and found one blog with some semi-naked photos, one blog with family photos and one with the paranoid musings of an angst-ridden 16 year old (not from anyAID bloggers, I might add). A bit off-putting! I find this public sharing of one's thoughts with strangers somewhat distasteful. Could be an age thing.
Above, experimenting with importing an image from 'Google Images' of one of my favourite things in life - a good cup of coffee! I placed the above image on my desktop and then tried to save it into my Blog. But, I actually made it into a giant cup of coffee on my desktop, which might have put me off coffee instead - like aversion therapy. To rectify this situation I had to ask our youngest colleague for some advice. This was readily given and now I know the steps to take without creating gigantic cups of coffee (or anything for that matter).
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