Week 12 - Wrap Up

What a sense of accomplishment I feel! So many times throughout this course I wanted to throw it in but I'm glad I persevered. It was a steep learning curve for me and I was totally out of my comfort zone. But hey, I learned heaps and that's the idea, isn't it? My favourite blog's have been Lossy Learning (for professionalism) and Atticus Mockingbird (for everything including having a social conscience).

So, how can libraries use social networking? I think we can use it to communciate with our clients and find out what services they want as well as let them know what we provide. We can use social networking to promote upcoming events and activities, and to advertise for volunteers for storytime, home delivery service and Friends of the Library. I think adding a touch of humour to a social network site is a good way to engage people, for example, the British Library Facebook site has a humurous title to a link to another site about the Magna Carta. The title is something like "Who is Magna Carta and did she die in vain?"

Week 11 - Update

I created my google document on a computer at work as mine at home couldn't cope (go figure?)

Week 11 - Online Applications and Tools

First, the good news - there isn't any. Now, the bad news. I haven't been able to create a document in google docs. I click on "New" in the top left hand corner of the screen as Help says to, and I check that I am in "documents", but I can't type on the screen/page. I can get access to all the other features of google docs. I've also gone back to trying to get Library Thing on my blog. As you will see I've got a beautiful heading on my blog, but no list of books showing. Might go back to that later.

In my library I can't think of many ways to use google docs. Library has a small staff and I'm not involved in admin work to know what goes on there. I can only think that agendas for staff meetings could be put in google docs. I also know that our Librarian is writing a procedures manual and it might be an idea for her to put that on goggle docs so that all staff could add their two cents worth before it's printed and put into use.

Success At Last

So here is my mashup at last. Husband advised me
how to upload the picture to make the mashup.
Must go now and make a mashup of another kind
for family's dinner.

Week 10 Mashups

Oh no, another catastrophe! I wanted to make a motivational poster for this exercise. I planned to find a photo of something interesting re libraries via Flickr, put my nifty motivational speil on it, etc, etc. But couldn't get any photos from Flickr - I don't have any on my computer - don't have a digital camera. To solve this problem I downloaded a photo from Microsoft Office Online (little boy looking between two rows of book shelves), but couldn't upload it again for making my mashup. Anyway, I think one of the best uses of mashups in libraries is as advertising posters for upcoming events.

Week 10 Experiment

Ireland

Make yours @ BigHugeLabs.com

Week 9 - Podcasts and Audio

I agree with comments made by Jalen on 29 March, that podcasts could be used for "teen webcasts, storytime, book reviews, poetry readings, author talks, lectures on specific topics, oral interviews and library newscasts." For me, I especially like the idea of hearing poetry rather than reading it as I get more meaning from it when I hear it read with the correct expression. On the ABC website I listened to the podcast of a Lingua Franca show, which I always miss. My library has a large clientel who have difficulty reading and listen to audio books. I see podcasts as being of interest to them.

Week 8 - Answer Boards and Social Searching

Is there a place for "slamming the boards" in my library? It would be worth a try, although I think only a small number of our patrons would become involved. For a bigger library with a high percentage of younger patrons who would be more keen to get involved in online communicating it would be a great thing. I can certainly see the benefit in patrons rating books and reviewing things they've read. As there is only so much reading librarians can do it would benefit us to see what others think of some of our collection. We could then make recommendations on books we might not have read ourselves by telling patrons, "This is a book a couple of other people liked." Also it would be great to have patrons rate library services and especially the personal service they get from staff. That would certainly keep us all on our toes going out of our way to help.

The "exemplary answers" site was interesting - some great questions that I was interested in, and then some very particular questions with limited appeal. It's all friendly and makes you feel welcome, like your questions are important. And of course, the answers that were rated best really covered the topic thoroughly. They went into a lot of detail without getting away from the point, and it showed what extensive knowledge the librarian/author had of the subject. Good public relations for librarians. I put this site on my delicious tags. It worked. I'm having a much better day today.

Week 7

I've found week 7's tasks really difficult and I'm not sure I've managed to successfully do them. Can't view my blog at the moment to see if my delicious account has a link in it or not. Can't work out whether I've been able to register my blog with Technorati either. And as for setting up a catalogue of books in Library Thing, forget it! My computer skills are just not up to scratch, and neither is my knowledge of "computer-speak". I was only able to manage to attach a delicious account to my blog with much assistance from a work colleague, to whom I will be eternally grateful.

I looked at some of the websites recommended in Learning 2.0, like Sutherland Shire Libraries and Cleveland Public Library (but can't remember now what I was supposed to be taking note of!) Week 8 can only be an improvement.

Week 6

What a lot I've accomplished in week 6. Firstly I managed to change the time of my postings to Eastern Australian time. Secondly I did my first Adventure and posted a terrific Mr Bean in the Library video from YouTube to my blog. Anyone reading this MUST watch it. It's hilarious (of course). Also completed the survey in week 6.

Now for the business part of the course. I checked out a video of Kogarah Marist High School's 20 year school reunion. I chose to look at this because the first school dance I ever went to was at this school (more than 20 years ago unfortunately). I tried searching for Mosman Library videos as Learning 2.0 recommended but couldn't find anything. Found Mr Bean instead. I also looked at some book review videos, which I envisage we could download on a computer in our library for customers to watch. Ideally it would be great for library staff to make our own video clips recommending books or upcoming events and download them to a computer for customers to view. In general, I found watching the videos on YouTube great. Previously I had only looked at a few music clips on YouTube and didn't realise its massive content.

YouTube - Mr Bean - Library

YouTube - Mr Bean - Library: "<param name='movie' value='http://"