On http://www.youtube.com/
I particularly enjoyed the Medieval IT help desk, library dominoes & Conan the Librarian (let no one say we have no sense of humour). Could have spent many hours playing on this & also on http://video.google.com.au/
http://video.search.yahoo.com/
I can see video is another immensely powerful tool for interactivity with customers especially the digital generations.
The video I chose says it all 'A Librarian's 2.0 Manifesto' – inspirational & aspirational.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZblrRs3fkSU
In a lighter vein, also so much closer to the bone, I liked the messages in 'Libraries in 2010' (not so far away)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V67QuW0NeXI
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Friday, November 2, 2007
#19 Discovering Web 2.0 tools
My tool from the Web 2.0 awards on http://www.seomoz.org/web2.0/ was http://pipl.com/ - picking up info on people through the invisible or “deep web” often hidden elsewhere, would seem to be a goldmine in a library or personal situation. And indeed there was only an incomplete overlap between pipl & google. Addresses & some other types of info through pipl (not necessarily of course the person you want) so perspective does produce other angles. Better results if country not specified. I think it would be useful for libraries.
In my quest for a site which I could assimilate & make any kind of comment on, I had earlier looked at City maps & guides, Travel, & Visual arts. All wonderful but all needing lots of time to explore.
Then tried Books – http://www.lulu.com/ self publishing for our many aspiring authors. http://www.biblio.com/ for 2nd hand books. Congratulations to our friend, winner www.librarything.com & acquaintance, honourably mentioned http://reader2.com/ . Also http://bluerectangle.com/ especially book review component. No contest that customers would love the interactivity & ability to choose & control their individual forms of involvement with resources & literature, whether their own or in libraries, & with others who share their commitment, wherever they may be in the world. Therefore these sorts of tools are crucial if libraries are create, empower & contribute as essential parts those networks.
There’s another friend in Search http://www.rollyo.com/ .
http://www.eurekster.com/ - way beyond my skills to contemplate any role in creating a swicki or custom social search portal on a particular topic. But extremely relevant to libraries.
http://www.usabilityviews.com/simply_google.htm & http://www.zuula.com/ a super, super search engine, both needing a lot of exploration but will have to defer.
Looked at Web 2.0 tool Directory & was again overwhelmed. Noted Gizmoz (animate yourself), Qunu (help me with …right now), Stikkit (little yellow notes that think), Unpackd (Share the joy of unpacking stuff – not operational yet) & Widgipedia (widgets). It’s a brave new world all right.
In my quest for a site which I could assimilate & make any kind of comment on, I had earlier looked at City maps & guides, Travel, & Visual arts. All wonderful but all needing lots of time to explore.
Then tried Books – http://www.lulu.com/ self publishing for our many aspiring authors. http://www.biblio.com/ for 2nd hand books. Congratulations to our friend, winner www.librarything.com & acquaintance, honourably mentioned http://reader2.com/ . Also http://bluerectangle.com/ especially book review component. No contest that customers would love the interactivity & ability to choose & control their individual forms of involvement with resources & literature, whether their own or in libraries, & with others who share their commitment, wherever they may be in the world. Therefore these sorts of tools are crucial if libraries are create, empower & contribute as essential parts those networks.
There’s another friend in Search http://www.rollyo.com/ .
http://www.eurekster.com/ - way beyond my skills to contemplate any role in creating a swicki or custom social search portal on a particular topic. But extremely relevant to libraries.
http://www.usabilityviews.com/simply_google.htm & http://www.zuula.com/ a super, super search engine, both needing a lot of exploration but will have to defer.
Looked at Web 2.0 tool Directory & was again overwhelmed. Noted Gizmoz (animate yourself), Qunu (help me with …right now), Stikkit (little yellow notes that think), Unpackd (Share the joy of unpacking stuff – not operational yet) & Widgipedia (widgets). It’s a brave new world all right.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
#18 Web-based Apps:They're not just for desktops.
How liberating to farewell attachments! And that we are no longer tied to buying software as was so limiting in the past - had no idea until saw the staff tracking log in Google Docs & started this exercise.
Another empowering revolution in communication, for everyone in both work & personal life, & as providers & customers.
Created my Zoho account & am preparing my blog initially in Write. The screens for Write & Sheet seemed like good friends, who've just revealed some hidden facets - always wanted to do emoticons. Will have to explore other new ones later.
Imported & then deleted a Word file to test.
And an image above (fingers crossed it stays there).
Tried to publish it but didn't succeed (I think due to initial mistake in setting up acount) so will try to transfer it a bad old way.
Another empowering revolution in communication, for everyone in both work & personal life, & as providers & customers.
Created my Zoho account & am preparing my blog initially in Write. The screens for Write & Sheet seemed like good friends, who've just revealed some hidden facets - always wanted to do emoticons. Will have to explore other new ones later.
Imported & then deleted a Word file to test.
And an image above (fingers crossed it stays there).
Tried to publish it but didn't succeed (I think due to initial mistake in setting up acount) so will try to transfer it a bad old way.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
#17 Playing around with PBWiki
I did look at the wiki tips, how to videos etc, but am not at stage of using those yet, so the syntax will need to be mastered.
My blog is now in the sandbox, under my library, after some confusion about whether the square brackets etc are actually required. In the end the blog seems to be visible in what seems to be the right place.
Also added a line to the Music favourites which also seems to be there, after a bad moment in which I tried to add a comment instead.
My blog is now in the sandbox, under my library, after some confusion about whether the square brackets etc are actually required. In the end the blog seems to be visible in what seems to be the right place.
Also added a line to the Music favourites which also seems to be there, after a bad moment in which I tried to add a comment instead.
#15 Blog on Library 2.0 & Web 2.0
The visions in the five articles on Web 2.0 are so mind blowing that I needed some time to formulate any thoughts at all. Especially ‘To a temporary space in time’ showing Library 2.0 is still only product based, at an early stage on the way to a heavenly state in which each person can have the individual & unique experience their heart’s desire, via the intervening stage of virtual reality.
In one way the world has exploded into exponentially increasing power to achieve.
In another way nothing has changed - libraries have always aspired to, but never achieved, relevance to every single community member, whose needs & preferences vary infinitely, i.e. a goal of all things to all people.
And whilst playing on Learning 2.0 is exciting & enlightening, there’s no change either in the need for confronting & challenging work by human beings (the library’s staff especially) to make the hard decisions in allocating finite resources of all sorts. (Current degree of difficulty: highest ever). The potential of technology, though enormous, is less than the increasing complexity & challenge in harnessing it to exactly match & anticipate each & every customer’s needs, whilst resources by contrast, are not infinite. Medical services face the same challenges.
Whereas in the past progress meant discarding an older way in a linear progress, everything ever done or held now needs to be available somehow, because some customers will still want vastly different parts of how it used to be. Sometimes too, customers (as well as staff), may not want to be interactive, wired or wireless, or find endless possibility motivating, for every minute of 24/7.
Libraries still need to do it all – & it’s still a tall order.
To end on a positive note, as sometime library worker Mao Tse-tung (along with Chinese philosophers) noted, the journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step.
In one way the world has exploded into exponentially increasing power to achieve.
In another way nothing has changed - libraries have always aspired to, but never achieved, relevance to every single community member, whose needs & preferences vary infinitely, i.e. a goal of all things to all people.
And whilst playing on Learning 2.0 is exciting & enlightening, there’s no change either in the need for confronting & challenging work by human beings (the library’s staff especially) to make the hard decisions in allocating finite resources of all sorts. (Current degree of difficulty: highest ever). The potential of technology, though enormous, is less than the increasing complexity & challenge in harnessing it to exactly match & anticipate each & every customer’s needs, whilst resources by contrast, are not infinite. Medical services face the same challenges.
Whereas in the past progress meant discarding an older way in a linear progress, everything ever done or held now needs to be available somehow, because some customers will still want vastly different parts of how it used to be. Sometimes too, customers (as well as staff), may not want to be interactive, wired or wireless, or find endless possibility motivating, for every minute of 24/7.
Libraries still need to do it all – & it’s still a tall order.
To end on a positive note, as sometime library worker Mao Tse-tung (along with Chinese philosophers) noted, the journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step.
Friday, October 26, 2007
#16 What's in a Wiki
Looked at http://www.libraryforlife.org/subjectguides/index.php/Travel
http://booklovers.pbwiki.com/Princeton%20Public%20Library
http://libsuccess.org/index.php?title=Main_Page
which looks a goldmine, and opened a few library wikis on
http://www.libsuccess.org/index.php?title=Wikis#Examples_and_Information
A new universe out there. I use Wikipedia a fair bit & find it very informative, as well as covering very recent stuff or things not in a traditional encyclopaedia. Just on things of personal interest, so fortunately I’ve never had to confront the issue of authority where it really does count e.g. in study. I heard on talkback radio ex Gov Gen Peter Hollingworth inquiring of founder Jimmy Wales about the entry on him, which he found inaccurate, & wondering about the need to balance democracy versus accuracy, & also Wikipedia’s view of the risk of libel.
Things like new books, staff picks & potential subject resources would be extremely & immediately accessible in this form & mostly those risks don’t arise. A previously impossible vehicle for customers to access a whole lot of info they'd hopefully love to have.
And great potential for arriving more quickly & with less stress at a better, more complete product, document, project or whatever, whenever & wherever a group of people are contributing to it, & that’s all the time now.
Not to speak of it being so easily accessible to others who are trying to invent or modify a wheel & again that’s everyone at some stage.
http://booklovers.pbwiki.com/Princeton%20Public%20Library
http://libsuccess.org/index.php?title=Main_Page
which looks a goldmine, and opened a few library wikis on
http://www.libsuccess.org/index.php?title=Wikis#Examples_and_Information
A new universe out there. I use Wikipedia a fair bit & find it very informative, as well as covering very recent stuff or things not in a traditional encyclopaedia. Just on things of personal interest, so fortunately I’ve never had to confront the issue of authority where it really does count e.g. in study. I heard on talkback radio ex Gov Gen Peter Hollingworth inquiring of founder Jimmy Wales about the entry on him, which he found inaccurate, & wondering about the need to balance democracy versus accuracy, & also Wikipedia’s view of the risk of libel.
Things like new books, staff picks & potential subject resources would be extremely & immediately accessible in this form & mostly those risks don’t arise. A previously impossible vehicle for customers to access a whole lot of info they'd hopefully love to have.
And great potential for arriving more quickly & with less stress at a better, more complete product, document, project or whatever, whenever & wherever a group of people are contributing to it, & that’s all the time now.
Not to speak of it being so easily accessible to others who are trying to invent or modify a wheel & again that’s everyone at some stage.
The missing #7 Blog about technology
This struck a chord as an image of transformation.In looking at the tools Learning 2.0 has introduced to me to so far I marvel at the infinite ingenuity of human beings who constantly push previous boundaries outward both to prove they can as a challenge & have fun, as well as to solve problems. As a novice though it is also daunting to realize that I am playing very superficially along now well trodden paths, in contrast to the developers who are now light years away in other universes, whereas to actually use these tools in providing better services for customers requires much time & practice to master even minimally, & even more importantly some sorting of wheat from chaff in identifying the best aspect to focus on at any one moment. It is true that many customers would share a slight degree of apprehension about some elements of technology, so a bit of fellow feeling can be helpful. But really this is just the start of the road & the hard work of implementation.
To feel more empowered, I should remember surviving what appeared mountains at the time but just specks now.
And that libraries' role is to target technology which will work for customer needs, not to be the world 1st to develop a new angle (in which case we might be in the IT industry, not working for & with library customers). Technology is the enabler, not the end itself.
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