BloggingniggolB

Malware

2010-02-17T16:49:00.000+11:00

Have you ever been the target of a phishing scam? Did you recognize it as a scam right away? What tipped you off?

Yes indeed, but my phishing experience was over the phone and I related it here on my personal blog.

A more recent phishing experience comes from my workmate and all the details are to be found here.

A fews things to look for:

* Does the site have the usual security features you'd expect? For example the small yellow lock at the bottom right corner of your Internet Explorer screen

* Check the address you are sent to, does it look like what you'd expect to see if it was a genuine site?

* How about the overall appearance of the site, does it sit right (check the second link above for an example of what I mean). Do all the elements in the site sit nicely without overlapping each other?

* If in doubt ring or get in contact with the company directly. You may be surprised to know that they already know about that individual fraud.

Mashups 'r' us

2010-02-04T16:29:00.000+11:00

You weren't kidding there were a lot of mashups out there! My attention has been drawn by one for promoting Southern African tourism called Africa Bespoke.

Both Google Maps and Flickr are used to present images of tourist destinations all over the eight countries that make up the lower half of Africa. Very neat presentation.

We use mashup everywhere. The white pages (dependant on country) uses Google Maps, Where is or Bing to show where address were located, even sites linked to shops use Google Maps to help potential customers find their nearest stores.

One of the more impressive ones I've found so far is Conflict History which uses several 'doorways' to get access to wars from all over the world stretching more than 5000 years. It uses information and images for Wikipedia connected to an unfortunately modern Google Map. An interactive timeline allows you to change the date even show a range of dates.

One that makes any library map collection look boring is David Rumsey's Geo Garage where old maps from David's collection are overlayed over a Google Map world. Though not extensive the site works really well and is very beautiful.

4. Make a Mashup-These sites let you find and combine info to make a "custom" mashup. Embed it in your blog.

IM game

2010-01-29T14:00:00.002+11:00

Try some of the instant messaging tools.

I Google chat from either iGoogle or Googlemail as well as the instant messaging service attached to Facebook fairly often depending on who I find online.

What did you like about them?

You can see who from your 'friends' or chat list is online instantly and can chat while online doing other things. I have chatted to a friend while email her or writing her a letter....maybe all three at the same time.

How would they be useful in a library?

I've already seen libraries use something like this as a way of conducting a reference enquiry online. On Facebook or from a library blog I can see it useful if a 'friend' or reader what's to clarify information they've read on your site. An example of this would be enquirying about an event happening at the library or even making a booking.

Ner... wot up Google docs?

2010-01-27T16:50:00.000+11:00

Another favourite of mine. I've used Googledocs for: story ideas with access wherever there is a computer, writing letters to friends that can be shared or just send as an attachment straight from Googledocs, a handy place for storing large files when I want to share them with others and just a handy dandy notebook that is there in front of me whenever I open to my homepage.

I know the Google people making constant improvements to the programs but some of these tips and tricks were new on me. Here are one ones

What google doc tips did you find the most useful?

I think I like the below tip from techradar. I say 'think' as I can't download the program required at work and I'm not sure if the program will work on my mac at home. Without going through the process of downloading I can't seem to find out from the website. I do find I want access to Googledoc files offline, but have the hassle of cutting and pasting once I'm back online again. This would be a great way of syncing both the copy in my laptop with the copy stored online.

Synchronise documents
The free personal edition of back-up tool Syncplicity enables you to connect your Google Docs account with a designated folder, which in turn can be synchronised with a folders on your computer. So, to add new files to Google Docs, you just drag them to the synchronised folder. Sign up and select "Apps" in "My Syncplicity", then "Google Docs" to configure the tool.

What google doc tips would you like to share?

I do like the sorting option where you create 'folders' but your documents aren't so much in a folder as attached to it. This way the document can be attached to several different folders, and search for items through the 'folders' like subject headings. For example I have several folders: quotes, letters and stories. If I write to my friend about a story I'm planning to write and also add a few cool quotes that I'd picked up, that document, My friends letter can be linked to all three folders and will come up if I click on any one of those folders.

Adding a Googledocs widget to your iGoogle page is probably mynumber one favourite thing about Googledocs. You can leave the Googledocs widget open so you can gain direct access to document from your iGoogle page, or you can minimise Googledocs so none of the titles are visible

Google a-long, Google a-long at the bottom of the World Wide Web.

2010-01-12T19:54:00.021+11:00

Am I familiar with iGoogle? Ask any of the staff here that go to do a good search on one of my logins. It is the first page I go to everyday and is my homepage at home. I'd love to show you a screen shot but don't seem to have the option, sorry fellas.

Was i-Google easy to customise?

iGoogle is very easy to customise, much more than many sites. Each widget came be moved by dragging the mouse around the page, expanded out to full screen, mini screen or minimised so just it's title is showing. For example, my google reader takes up a big chunk of space at the bottom of the page expanded to see the first few entries. In contrast my email minimised at the top right my screen so my emails are not out for all the world to see. I have very few widgets as I found if I can't see them I don't tend to use them but one I have kept are Googledocs, Translator and Dictionary....and my hamster pet...every library should have a pet.

Do you find it helpful?

I like that everything I want to check throughout the day is in out place. I've just added a Twitter link as well so I have no excuse for not Twittering. I wonder how long that will last. I've also added Facebook, but as I can view that at work I've just minised it to a title to remind to check it.

Did you try any of the other tools as well? How did you find them?

I must admit I looked at them but just found them too messy, fussy and too much trouble. My igoogle has it all: one of the most popular search engines out there, calendar, googledocs, googlereader, access to googlemaps and images search and if I choose to not to use gmail I can always add a widget for Hotmail or Yahoo mail. I'm not sure why I'd go somewhere else.

Use for RSS in council productions

2009-12-18T13:23:00.000+11:00

I saw a clever use of RSS recently at work. Council produces all sorts of pamplets, brochures, media releases, fact sheets etc. Many of these are one off items that will either stay in their current format for years, but there are some that need updating on a regular basis. An example of this would the the libraries "What's On" pamplet that comes out once a month.

These sort of serialised pamplets have starting coming out with RSS links so staff or interested customers can add them to a reader and keep up to date with the information they contain. I love this idea and wondered if it could be extended to out productions like the council's agendas and minutes?

Just a thought.

Managing Management

2009-12-16T16:21:00.000+11:00

More and more my work is being dominate by events. Unlike a regular activity on a weekly or fortnightly basis, management and customers are demanding bigger spectacles where large number of can participate. I can see a place for application like the ones below to help co-ordinate these events in the future.

Doodle was really just a scheduling application much like in Outlook. Outlook is used extensively at work so though Doodle is a cute program I can't see us moving to it in the future. Here is my scheduled meeting, Christmas Day.

Google Calendar suffers the same problem as Doodle where many of the things it can do are already done within the Outlook program. I actually see more potential for myself co-ordinating meetings outside of work. I will keep both Doodle and Google Calendar in mind next time I have to try and get a group of people together.

Eventbrite was a more unique program that allowed you to create tickets and even take payments for events. Though I didn't play with the payment option, I did create an event, for which the website is here. It was easy to use and as you can see, modify for a more corporate look. Again, I don't know if we could use it at work with security issues always the main priority, but it is good to know it's there.

Oh boy! RSS again!

2009-12-15T15:32:00.000+11:00

From last year I had this post, and this post and finally this post on RSS. I just didn't get them for a long time, they didn't seem to speak my language and early on we didn't seem to want to be at the same places. But I've lived companionably with GoogleReader for 21 months now and we're still going strong. I don't see a separation looming anytime soon.

So not love at first sight unlike many of the applications, but I now read it everyday and add and take out links as I need. If I haven't seen anything I'm interested in reading on a blog for a while I unsubscribe and clear the clutter. If I wish to search for a specific topic through all my feeds, GoogleReader has a search option at the top of the screen. Though not as convenient as a rinse like Feed Rinse I don't usually look for any one thing and like the scan the news and library blogs for things of interest.

I can't say I organise my feeds, I don't have that many: a news feed, a few funny blogs, friends blogs, blogs relating library learning and a few other work related ones. There would be less than 20 feeds and they don't all post everyday. For the blogs that do post more than once a day, I scan the headings for something that interests me and mark the rest as read hiding them from my screen.

I set up a Feed Rinse for ABC new: Just In blog asking for any posts on cats and dogs. And did get a post on Pandas being genetically similar to dogs, I also receive a post on a helicopter crash that I couldn't see my search terms in. Not a great success, I could have done that with a scan of the headlines.

FiltermyRSS had no more success in finding articles with dogs in them, and didn't have the convenience of being delivered to my reader.

Tabloid was cute. Creating a pdf of the current posts from whatever blog you stick in. Not sure how I can share it besides just sending it as an attachment to an email. Mind you it does make a very presentable version of the post which could be handing for making a printout for someone. Cute, but really useful?
Google alerts, did that and talked about it here. I've had to remove them already as the one on my suburb was just too depressing.

I can see a need for such filters to find quality information on subjects and don't want to be wading through posts. In saying that many posts are already on a particular subject and these filters are not very refined searches. I'd be pretty disapppointed with any searchengine I was using that came back with the results I've seen here. In the end, I'm glad people are thinking about these sorts of things and making them available, but me and my RSS are doing just fine thank, just the way we are.

Let me Present to you...

2009-12-11T12:07:00.000+11:00

I remember the SlideShare week of last years course with happiness as it was one of the few audio-visual components of the course that would run on the work computers. I have since used different slideshows from SlideShare for all sort of uses including Sunday School.

I notice SlideShare have the option of uploading documents as well, a very handy tool when you find yourself travelling from computer to computer. As part of my life and work I already use Googledoc for this as I have it as a widget on iGoogle that pops up as my homepage. Googledocs will also hold Powerpoint presentations as well as Excel spreadsheets but SlideShare is great when you just don't know where to start. Often it's better not to reinvent the wheel.

I was looking forward to the Cultureshock set of stories, however the computers have let me down and won't play them.

I didn't have any Presentations I could share with the world so I quickly whipped up one that will hopefully get you singing to yourself for the rest of the day. You will find it eventually, here.

Ning a ding-ding

2009-12-04T11:19:00.005+11:00

Recently I was asked to participate in a workshop for the redesign on the Council Intranet, specifically the access to information about different departments and individuals. If I had seen a Ning previously I would have just suggested forming one for the Council.

I like that each person has their own page for a photo and contact information... maybe a link for photos or other important sites. I like that they can be affiliated with groups or departments within the network so others can search for you either by your name or department. In council I know we wanted an interactive business structure that can show the relationship between departments Clicking on them would bring up the department page and links to staff in that department. I could see Nings being very suitable for thall these applications.

Outside of work I suggested to a co-worker that setting up a Ning network for her large family. Everyone, even the youngest can have a page and add blogs, comments, events, send birthday greetings...etc. An awesome application.

Still waiting for the Administrator for Library 2.0 to approve my application, but I'll add a link here as soon as it is.

Evaluating evaluations.

2009-12-02T15:19:00.001+11:00

It thrills me to see my personal blog's statistics. I average around 40 hits a day mostly for one or two posts that people have found through searches on search engines such as google. How do I know all this? Wordpress tells me so. Every month is laid out in a line graph showing number of hit with highest hitting posts for the month being listed in summary below. You can even look at the statistics for each day, seeing how people found your site, what they used and searched under to discover you.

Now if I, an individual, can get excited about statistics, I can only imagine how wonderful an institution would think such a service.

Google Alerts is a very handy tool that I can see being very handy for study in the coming year. The main feature is that you gather the information you want in one place where you already go to review articles, be it either your email, or RSS feed. Unfortunately you can't do an advanced search and make the search ignore anything that is coming from inside the organisation. I got alot of miss-hits from my searches that I would have with a more refined search terms option.

I must say, the excercise of creating a Google Alert for the place where I live was demoralising. Honestly I don't live in such a violent suburb. I wish I had created a Google Alert for work now.

Feed Burner was confusing but I can see the advantage for the organisation. Having one location that provides all the statistical information about several blogs in one location. I was interested to see the Publicize tab that give tips and help to make your blog more accessible. I personally like the ability from this one site to change all my blogs access all subscription services. I can not speak ofr Feed Burner's statistics as they weren't available.

Zoomerang was good fun, though I do find writing a good survey is harder than it sounds, the software with it's template surveys did help considerably. Here is my survey for a Christmas Party. This could have been very handy recently while organising our own Christmas Party plans.

So on the whole. I can't say I learnt anything new about my topic through Google Alerts but I can see that it is a great tool for getting a broad look at a topic from day to day. Feed Burner has it's uses in managing multiple blogs and helping promote them online. Zoomerang was great fun but doesn't replace a well trained staff member in survey writing. In the hands of such a staff member, programs like Survey Monkey and Zoomerang are wonderful. If staff aren't trained in survey writing, they can annoy and alienate customer with ill-conceived surveys that provide little in the way of useful information.

As usual no matter how good the application, it comes down to the skill and knowledge of staff to make the most of them.

Hmmm...that's del.icio.us!

2009-11-30T17:24:00.000+11:00

Last year I was impressed with Delicious. I thought it was a great place to pool all our collected websites and more importantly sort them by topics via tags so they become searchable. Very nice.

But what about now?

The Twitter connection is a great idea, particularly within a workplace. It would be easy in inform staff of a new site if they were all connected to the libraries Twitter site. I notice that though the link says its delicious it actually takes you to the bookmarks site. Very clean and very simple.

For customers, I'm not so sure I how this would be much different from just adding the link to your Twitter site.

I can't say I use any feature beyond bookmarking in Delicious. As everything is tagged when added I find it simple to search and have no problem finding my old links. As mentioned above the new Twitter option is cute and for me give more value to Twitter in the workplace.

As for recommendations, I always like clicking on the numbers to the right of each link showing how many times that site as been bookmarked. It's interested to see what other people tag sites, it can help give inspiration to reference equiries when the site you have is sort of what you want, but not quite there.

Twittering about Twitter

2009-11-03T11:06:00.000+11:00

I must remember #nswlearning2.1...I must remember #nswlearning2.1...I must remember #nswlearning2.1...

I've tried...I really have. I've had the account for a few months and besides the creative mind puzzle of trying to fit what I want to say elloquently into 140 characters I haven't had use for it personally.

And I suspect that lots of people feel the same.

Having looked at a few tweets I'm seeing a general pattern of simple tweeted and added value tweets. Let me explain

Simple tweets are just a statement just thrown out into space to be accepted by the cosmos as it sees fit, for example:

stephenfry: A warm and sunny day. Highly cheering.

Ground breaking stuff. In the library world this would be equilivant example:

BCLIS: Summer Reading Club starts Monday 16 November.

Useful and dull. It doesn't tell you what Summer Reading Club is or contain a link to where to find the branches participating.

On the whole, most organisational tweets I read are more your value added than those above. The tweet you have when the 140 character just aren't enough:

TheBritishLibrary: Points of View on C4 News tonight http://bit.ly/pointsofview Free - come and see it

This tweet includes a link to another site which provides more information. Which means that this group have found the can not communicate as they would have liked in Twitter so they need to put what they want to say somewhere else and link to Twitter. Twitter ceases to be communication itself, but a link from your readers to your communication.

It's just not enough

And that's the problem for me with Twitter, it's just not enough. I can only express myself in a tiny space (all of which I can do on my macro-blog site if I so wish) and requires me to be fluent in game-speak to make any real sense of others' communications. I can't just write a simple tag into a Labels box to help find my post, I have to add # marks after my statement and make it look...messy.

I'd love to think that people will follow their library Twitter and find the tweets interesting and useful. I'd love to think I can catch people in the nick of time to let them know about an event that's starting, or closing or that I think could be really popular. Prove me wrong.

And just as I'm about to publish this post I read this tweet:

wilw: One of my neighbors is having a pine tree cut down. The whole street smells like Christmas.

Maybe it's not so bad.

Refreshing you and your blog

2009-10-26T23:23:00.002+11:00

It's amazing how much blogger has changed in a year. There are some rather nifty new widgets...er...gadgets which have made it onto my blog and I find I like the minimalist style as long as I can find a good image to spice it up. So here are the answers to the prompts given in the course:

1. How much have you blogged since you finished the original course?

I blog every week (almost) sometime more often...just not here. Actually, here. It's all nonsense stuff, but I'm hoping to get into blogging for the library in a few months. I think once we get into the swing management will be impressed with what we can do.

2. What do you like about blogging?

I use it as a open letter to friends. Thoughts and issues that I've found compelling enough to put word to screen about. Sometimes it's just life's funny stories and they're the posts I like the best. If others read it and...dare I say comment...all the better. I've had a few spammers but the site software usually culls those out for me to review and on the whole my blogging career has been very positive. I average 40 hits a day and am always surprise at what people find interesting.

3. Have you found other blogs to read?

YES! And thanks to RSS feeds into my iGoogle page I keep up to date on all the gem of blogs I've discovered in my wanderings. I'm a regular reader of more than a dozen different blog and the Google Reader allows me to keep them all under control. I think it could be very hard to keep up with everthing you're interest in without being about to centralise it somehow.

4. Do you comment on others' blogs?

I do. Not to everything I read. I won't flame, but try to find a contructive comment that I believe in and want to stand behind. I know how cool it is to get a thoughtful comment and so when I comment I like to make it worthwhile.

I now have two blog (besides this one) and as I said above am looking forward to contributing to a work blog for children and youth service. I can show with detailed statistics that it is a great way to get in touch with people. My blog site will show how people have found my blog, what they search to find my post and who links to my posts. Isn't that important information for any organisation?

Blogging does not require your organisation to have powerful computers, you don't need to host your blog on your own servers. It's free, simple and with with some sites you gain access to amazing stats that can only justify the staff time, which is minimial. To keep a blog running it needs a post a week, I think we can all achieve that no matter how small the library.

Library learning 2.1: here we go again!

2009-10-26T18:43:00.005+11:00

This was such a great course last year that when I saw it was on again I jumped on this old blog and revamped the look.

Minimalist I know, but it does mean I have twice as much room for commenting on all the new apps that have found there way onto the Internet.

I do like how much you can now edit to suit your own tastes including the look of your Nav bar...like, only you'll be looking at it, but there's an option to change it to suit your current layout.

I didn't try one of the after market templates as I didn't think I could do that on the work machines, but I can see that having the ability to use templates made elsewhere, out choice of looks explodes into almost infinite possiblities. Surely there would be one to suit any organisation's corporate image.

So Library learning 2.1...here we go!

Unshelved strikes again.

2008-11-24T10:41:00.001+11:00

Unshelved: do it again.

2008-05-29T10:23:00.001+10:00

Unshelved...keeping up to with Australian Youth Fiction

2008-05-29T10:22:00.003+10:00

http://www.unshelved.com/2008-4-20

Social Networking update

2008-05-02T18:23:00.002+10:00

And here's an example of what I was all excited about. Yarra Plenty Regional Library Service are on Facebook. Only 37 friends at the moment (one of them being your truly) but it's a start. Now if they want to tell their friends about what's going on in the library all they need to do is send out an event and it will go to everyone of those 37 friends.

Good work Yarra Plenty!

tb

Wiki Revisited

2008-04-21T17:51:00.003+10:00

Though I still think concept of a wiki, how a community can add and edit all material forming a giant knowledge bank is a wonderful think, I do have an example to add shows the flaws in the current system.

My sister works in a large multinational company providing customers with information on weilding and safety products. She's currently on a project creating a knowledge centre, an intelligent database that provides production information based on how staff answer a set of questions. When justifying the expense of this program with the people with the money one of the questions she faced was "Why should we go to the expense of this program when staff can just look up wikipedia for the information?"

Her explanation was as follows:

She took the example of bottled gas. She noted that bottle sizes and standard colouration for the bottles differed greatly in Australia from the examples given in the article. So a customer refered to this site by staff or staff using this information would then be in error when it came to ordering. They would ask for the wrong sized bottle and when it reached them assume they had the wrong gas.

Wiki's are often seen my many of our customers as their 'one stop shop', but it's just not so. It's good to know that good judgement and research skills are still needed in the age of the computer.

Week 12: Social Networking

2008-04-18T18:08:00.002+10:00

I've been a member of Facebook for a while and thought it just a silly nonsense that I filled my tea break with. Sure great for having fun with a few friends but not so useful for seriously keeping in touch.

Then I had a thought. I work mainly in Children and Youth Services. If the kids have been able to dodge the homework or there's nothing good in TV you know where they'll be. Who am I kidding! Their probably doing all three things at the same time! Kids are on there, somewhere waiting to link one more friend to boost their friends list, someone that might have something interesting to say. And don't we have something interesting to say!

You could promote "Your Library" Facebook site on bookmarks, a Internet classes, to schools and anyone who gives you eye contact in the library. They link as a friend, maybe scribble a message on "Your Library" Superwall, feed (or even add to) the fish tank and generally fool around. Through "Your Library" page they will find links to others kids who have become "Your Library" friends. You can create a "Your Library" group, the kids now belong to a community of kids who all go to "Your Library" .

Then! When you want to promote an activity you create an event, add a link to the council website with all the details and send it to everyone of "Your Library" friends. No emails that change every six month, so no updating contact lists and no issues with privacy.

You can run competitions through Facebook. There's already a option to create a Trivia competition, it could be modified for trivia on any subject. You could have a lucky friend competition or invite kids to write something on your Superwall for prizes. You can send them birthday messages and let them know their worth a poke or two. With a little imagination, a little time and almost no money you could have flourishing group of "Your Library" friends, putting you in touch with even more kids exponentially!

Facebooks puts you in touch and keeps you in touch with those people who want to be in contact with you. Sounds super exciting. Can't wait to try it out for myself.

Online applicatins

2008-04-18T17:03:00.002+10:00

I've had some fun with a few of the online applications, particularly picnik. We don't have a strong photo editing program here at work so I found Picnik, in particular, a revelation.

I do love that it links to Flickr so well. I understand that Flickr also has photo editing, but Picnik is very user friendly and just my speed.

RSS rethink

2008-04-12T10:10:00.002+10:00

Okay, after all my ranting a few blogs ago I better confess, I now really appreciate my Google reader.

I've added ABC news as well as the SMH. I have all my workmates Library Learning blogs on there as well as my outside of work blogs (I didn't want to say "friends' bogs"). It's there on my igoogle page which at home is homepage so I don't need to go anywhere else to keep in touch.

So...I can honestly say...without reservation...that I like RSS.

Week 10 Mashups

2008-04-09T15:23:00.005+10:00

And here is my image. I like anything with graphics so Big huge labs was fun. There are certianly lots of wonderful programs out there. I particularly liked the US Public Library finder. Wouldn't that be great on the council website with all the libraries and other council sites of interest?

The London Map reminded me of all that local history primary source stuff that you don't want people playing with the real items but you want accessible. Linked to a map it's easy to see was material is useful to what area instantly, really handy when you have a high schoolers local studies assignments.

The Big Huge Lab stuff would be great for the creation of promotional material and I'll try and keep it in mind for next time I have posters to make. I stuck it into del.icio.us just in case.

And the mashup I found?

Mapsdango with its view of Fairfield.

Week 9: Podcasts and Audio

2008-04-08T15:01:00.002+10:00

Once again, technology fails. As with Youtube and online video, the machines at work do not support the playing of podcasts. I received various error messages from "...unable to support this format..." to nasty messages from WebMarshal.

BUT, from personal experience I really think podcasts would be a great way to get share in-house audio files of all sorts. Two types spring to mind, Local Studies Oral history interviews and recordings of HSC talks.

Decemination of Oral History materials is always painful. Currently I think the sometimes hours long interviews are recorded onto multiple CDs for customers who are interested. It would be wonderful to create a series of podcasts that can be accessed for any machine either in the library or remotely. Being digital they would also be very easy to index making them easily searchable by topics discussed.

Library staff and presenters go to a lot of trouble during HSC talks where only a small percentage of potential customers can be accommodated. It would be great to be able to offer a podcast of the talk either as a refresher or to engage those who couldn't make it. Author talks could be shared the same way.

Being inhouse material, it is unique and therefore could be highly useful. It would be a shame if such a great resource should just sit in digital storage doing nothing.

Week 8 Answer boards

2008-04-07T15:06:00.005+10:00

I've never had much luck with answer board personally. The answers provided are vague and based on personal opinion...hey I can do that! I want something concrete here! I guess that could be a good reason to get involved, providing good quality info. But I already have enough questions here at work, why would I want to go out in my spare time and find more?

Anyway for the sake of the course here is a question I answered. There is certianly a variety of topics out there.

I can see it being another way our customers can get in touch with us. 'Ask a Librarian' service at some libraries are similar to an answerboard service, though the link above is to one that is commited to providing a staff member in real time to chat to. If the library ran an answer board service that would have to be commited to replying within a set amount of time (24 hours) otherwise questions could go unanswered until it was too late.

I is an outreach, a way of contacting potential customers that may not normally think of the library. But do I anwer questions from all over the world in the hope of attracting a local customer? Are local customers relevant if I can show that I am answering questions from library resources? I would think council would appreciate it if I spent their time and resources on their residence.

Consider is there a role for your library in “slamming the boards”? In what ways might your customers like to rate or review items in the collection or services you offer?

I wonder if council would allow me the Internet time to just flit around on the answer boards like this? It does get the libraries name out there, even if it isn't to library customers (one question answered by a librarian in Hawaii). Getting back to a more local service I think it could be very good to have our service directly rated like those on the answer board. It's often hard to determine if your solution has been benefitial to the customer. On an answer board it's annonymous and they can feel free to be more honest.

As for items within our collections I like the ideas shown in the wiki sections of this course. Customers were encouraged to write reviews on the books, a star system could be added to that to score the materials. As an answer board is not linked directly to the item then the ratings would not be useful to other customers...though still useful us. :-)

Week 7: Library Thing

2008-04-04T18:53:00.004+11:00

Here 's my Library thing page, only the five books.

It's cute and I would think that for book clubs or recommending new titles to a patrons it could be useful, but couldn't I do that in other ways without all the effort of becoming a member? I'm going to have to find out what other people have written for this one.

I could certianly spend years putting my personal collection on there, but professionally I wouldn't think of using it.

Week 7: Tagging

2008-04-01T14:29:00.006+11:00

Del.icio.us is a good thing. One place that everyone can get access where all those useful URL's can live.

We often get emails saying "...this site is great, check it out..." or "...we had an assignment, this site was good...". And they are good sites, but even if you do save it into your favourites (and I'm not one to use favourites much) you can never find them when it's required.

A library wide del.icio.us account, a one stop shop for all library staff to add and use. If we wanted to be fancy we could even use dewey or LC subject headings for bundle tags to keep a standard that everyone would understand.

It's very easy to see how del.icio.us would be very useful in the library.

RSS revisited

2008-03-10T11:27:00.005+11:00

I'm thinking I just don't get RSS. I've recently joined Google Reader and it is a easier to look at program compared to Bloglines, but I'm still having issues. I have blogs I'd like to add to my list, they have RSS tags (little orange icons) for both entries and comments yet can do I find the URL for feeds? All I get is code for that page, what's the bit I need to give my reader so it knows where to check?

Any ideas?

*Frustrated and embittered*

Week 6: Video

2008-03-07T13:46:00.009+11:00

Hmmm...

I'm sure that video online is wonderful. I'm sure the 2min clip of 'Laughing Jack' is hilarious and adorable. I'm sure the videos on the library building projects, staff orientations, book reviews or '10 ways how to ride a shopping trolley' are all very informative and add depth to any discussion on the above topics.

But I can't look at them and therefore no matter how wonderful, YouTube or Google video are not useful. Even the embedded video in the the Libraries Learning 2.0 blog didn't come up, I'm sitting here looking at a blank stretch of blog.

There are three reasons why I am unable to view any clips and at least two of them are going to be an issue to my customers.

Webmarshal: Pretty much any YouTube or My Space site is blocked by Webmarshal here at work. Now this would not be an issue for most customers at home but how many of them have nanny programs that would do the same thing as Webmarshal?

Loading speed: Theoretically, broadband Internet is cheap and available to everyone. But in real life Broadband is still a lot of money and not all areas have access. As a dial up user I can tell you you CAN NOT use these sites with any ease. Until the government comes good with cheap broadband for all, loading speeds will always be an issue.

Out of date software: This is a biggie here at work and I'm thinking could be a real issue for people not confident computer users. Certain versions of windows, and video viewing programs will not work on these sites. Though many of the viewing programs are free and can be downloaded, will an unconfident user bother going to the trouble and often frustration of downloading a new version of the viewing program just to look at the library's clip.

So, no matter how wonderful it maybe to be able to communicate with your users by video on these sites I think we need to be prepared that sometimes they're not going to be able to access the video links. So by all means use video hosted on YouTube or Google video, but remember to provide the information in some other form as well.

Hey! I'm on TV ma!

2008-03-06T14:12:00.002+11:00

Well Googlemaps at least.
http://maps.google.com/maps?t=k&q=-33.915258,151.036433&ie=UTF8&ll=-33.915265,151.036434&spn=0.007247,0.013883&z=16&iwloc=addr

This is a satalite picture of Bankstowns CBD. The large sprawling mess near the railway line is Centro Bankstown, affectionately remembered as Bankstown Square by the locals.

The dying grassy coloured patch west of Centro is a dying grassy patch called Paul Keating Park. Originally the council offices were there until June 1996 but a fire in the airconditioning ducts turned the whole building into slag.

Just south of the park is a nondescript fat 'L' shaped building. That would be the Bankstown Branch (Central) of Bankstown City Library and Information Service.

And now you know where I am.

Week 5 : Wikis

2008-03-06T12:33:00.004+11:00

I see salvation! Salvation from hard copy procedures that are out of date an unchangeable. I see salvation from the difficulties of sharing children programs and training packages quickly and easily. I see the salvation to easy updating and disseminating of vital information.

And salvation's name is Wiki. Hallelujah! I have seen the light!

Now here is something I can get behind. For all the reasons above I would love work to use wiki's on our Intranet. Imagine a procedure issue where the solution was only one search away instead of wading though two folders of out of date hardcopies. Imagine using others work in programming or training, pulling out what you need and creating a whole new work simply and without causing injury to the original creator. What's more sharing your ideas instantly! Imagine Premier's Reading lists in one location that everyone can help update.

What's more we can get customer involved! I personally loved the open catalogue where customers were asked for recomendations. SO COOL! I know, instead of scribbling obscene notes in the jacket of the book, they'll add them to the record, but that's what nanny programs are for and if Wikipedia can do it, why couldn't we?

Where do I sign up for the Church of Wiki.

Week 3: RSS

2008-03-06T11:09:00.002+11:00

Hmmm... not quite sure what I think of RSS. Let's go through the questions and see if a definite opinion shakes loose.

What do you like about RSS and newsreaders?
I guess having one place to go to for all the things I want keep up to date with. The ability to not have think "Now what else do I need to check" is nice. I can't say I have an issue with keeping up with the things I personally want to check and don't have an issue unsubscribing to emails I no longer want.

What sites did you select for your RSS reader?
Newspapers mostly, and I think this is where it would be good. Having never played with a digital book I'm not sure of their programs, but I could see a tablet connected to an RSS full of newspapers that is updated constantly through a wireless network would be a really great thing.

How do you think you might be able to use this technology in your work?
Besides the above idea I guess it could be good for keeping all the online subscriptions organised and easy to view. I don't know about in other libraries, but online subscriptions don't seem to get a lot of use because their organisation is clumsy and requires several steps to get to the information. With RSS you'd just click the title and you'd be on the top page for that database.

How can libraries use RSS or take advantage of this new technology?
Well again, other than organising the multiple websites libraries collect on a regular basis I'm not quite sure. I guess I'll have to check other peoples ideas for this one.

I personally am a bit ambivalent about RSS, it just seems to be another techy toy that I have to join. I do think though, with a good reader program, a RSS could be a very useful tool for organising sites that often disappear or move. I will see what others have to say, maybe I just haven't seen RSS's full potential.

It's flickr

2008-02-29T16:10:00.002+11:00

My one and only picture so far in flickr, I'll see if I can find a pool for it to play in for a while

Forget 'The Librarians' Unshelved is the real thing

2008-02-28T13:59:00.000+11:00

Great Photo Week Two flickr

2008-02-28T12:02:00.009+11:00

I've spent faaar too much time trawling through the wonderful images in flickr this week. This was only suppose to take 15 minutes a day, right?

Anyway, after what seems like hours of awestruck bliss here is my shot. This is an image from inside the Old Library of the Muntmuseum in Utrecht (The Netherlands).

You should be able to click on the photo too look at other images by this artist.

After looking for so long I must say I was getting a little desperate. Why I had to have a perfect photos is beyond me but many things, though beautiful, didn't appeal.

I think this one caught my attention because it is what many people consider a library to be. Beautiful, rich, silent and empty. Nothing like real library life at all!!

Short staffed; short healthed

2008-02-26T13:13:00.004+11:00

I have a cold and feel the need to gripe; lucky you!

On a friendly comparrison of the amounts of sick leave each staff at our branch had, I came up on top with 128 days. That's a third of a year I could take off if I found myself that unable to work. The others protested that I never take days off, that I'd rather slump semi-conscious in a corner before giving up said corner for my cozy bed. No true, I love my bed. But I don't often fall sick and I must admit I start feeling guilty knowing that the rest of the staff have to do my shifts as well as their own if I'm off for more than a few days.

So, here I am at work, on a day I could easily be sitting back and watching the cricket and this branch of 7 staff is running on 3. One staff member on annual leave,two on sick leaves, one at training and me wishing that I could actually have one of those days off.

And people wonder why I don't take days?!

Bouncin' through Bankstown

2008-02-22T12:26:00.001+11:00

So why Bankstown? It's the City I work in South West Sydney and like my blogs is diverse, often contradictory and often unintelligible. Take that as you will. Bankstown City council has given me 15 years of employment and on the whole good memories so I considered it my duty to spread the love. Besides, this way I can blog in work time and call it 'Personal Development'.

In the next few weeks I'll be blogging about my experiences in a training package called libraries learning 2.0. Fasinating as that may be for most blog surfers, if you looking for something that won't cure insomnia please check out my actual blog on word press.

See ya 'round.