Thursday, May 28, 2009

Week 12 - Wrap up

I agree with RRRiverina Ruby

I don't believe that the common courtesies of face to face communication will ever be replaced by online social networking. However, I can see the applications for the workplace.

Week 11 - On line applications and tools

I created a document and shared it with three collaborators.

I also collaborated on two other documents, editing slide shows and I downloaded an image.

I could use Google Docs widely in my workplace with my colleagues in the branch libraries and look forward to exploring more free tools online.

Monday, May 25, 2009

Week 10 - Mashups

I made this picture using bead art. The possibilities are endless!!!!

The sites I looked at in this module were amazing.

Mashups would be useful for making promotional material eg. book marks.

Week 8 - Answer board and social searching

Answer Boards are a great idea, particulary for students who can't find answers to difficult questions.
I enjoyed looking at the Taste website. My husband does all the cooking in our family - so he knows about this site now!

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Week 9 - Podcasts and Audio

I was unable to download the podcasts for this module.
I think the library would find it useful for staff training/inservice and conducting library tours. Meetings could also be recorded for staff in other branches to access.

Week 7 - Tagging, folksonomies, del.icio.us and LibraryThing

Unable to attempt LibraryThing, it was blocked by the council website.
Del.iou.us is a social bookmarking service, which means you can save all your bookmarks online, share them with other people and see what other people are bookmarking.
Libraries save bookmarks to a central location and classify them all with tags. I viewed Sutherland Shire Library tag cloud and Clevland Public library tags. Also searched the Riverina Regional Library site.
I did get a different number of hits inTechnorati when I searched for "bookmobile" in the standard and advanced searchs.

Week 6 - Videos online

It was really interesting to explore all the sites in this activity - it opened a whole new world for me!!!
Video could be used throughout our library for showing exhibitions, recording oral histories, book reviews and guides to using library services.

Week 4 - RSS

Through Google Reader I subcribed to The Powerhouse Museum, The Daily Puppy, Quotes of the day, My recipes: dinner tonight, Joke of the day and ABC News: top stories - all personal interests, that don't have anything to do with my job. Google Reader lets you subcribe to your favourite websites so new content comes to you when it's posted.
I could use this technology to view publishers websites to look at all new book titles being published. This would help me when I'm checking purchase requests from library borrowers.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Week 5 - Explore Wikipedia and Wikis

I have learnt that Wikis are "an exercise in collaboration and trust." They are built by their contributors who add, remove and edit content.
I enjoyed the Book Lovers Wiki which reviewed book titles. It was interesting to read their comments.
Types of applications where Wikis would work well in within libraries include: Book Clubs, Local history, Family history and Book reviews.

Week 3 - Explore Flickr

I love succulents!!!!
This website shows some beauiful photos from all around the world - simply amazing. I did a search on Succulents and found some truly beautiful images and now have a link to it on my blog.

Week 2 - Introduction to blogs

I didn't think this day would happen!!!!!!!
I have worked in my local library for over 31 years and hasn't technology changed. I had never heard of blogs until recently - I feel like an old dinosaur.
So far, the training session has been relaxed and I'm going along at my own slow pace. I realise there is so much I don't know yet, but I feel with the help of the friendly trainer I will get there and feel confident to use this in the future. I need to keep up with emerging technologies to be able to access new information.
Some uses for blogs inside the library are to highlight collections and exhibitions that are happening, publish upcoming events in your library and local history.