Week 12 - NSW Public Libraries Learning 2.0

I can see that if properly planned, social networking could be a huge benefit to my library in increasing it's public profile, access from patrons and the networking opportunities for staff.

The main complaint I have heard in relation to social networking and companies entering that "world" is that they do not regularly update the information on the page and it becomes stale. This discourages people from visiting the pages and the value of social networking has been lost.

I think if a library uses the social networking applications to promote events and information about the library then they need to not try and "act cool" as this is a turn off for teenagers, but at the same time the information needs to be presented in a way that attracts visits to the site, attracts friends, which increases your social network.

As a marketing tool there is alot of potential, but I think libraries need to look at what is out there and what is working, or not working. Learn from the mistakes of others, but don't be afraid to have a go. If the social networking page for a library is done correctly then it will have a huge impact on that library. At this stage I feel the library I work at is still in the learning and research stage and it would be a mistake to rush in and make a social networking page just to say we have done it, but I hope that by the end of the year we will have ventured into the world of social networking.

Week 11 - NSW Public Libraries 2.0

After viewing the slideshow it was amazing how many free tools are available for creating and editing documents. This will allow staff to create masterpieces without having to purchase additional software. I think the tools are also a great idea for when people are travelling and accessing the internet at a cafe or similar, these tools will allow you to create and share documents regardless of what is installed on the computers, and as a bonus you will be able to access them again later from any location.

I have created a basic document in Google Docs and shared it. My workplace has used Google Docs quite extensively for a number of different reasons. When planning events that involve people from different geographical areas it is easy to share a Google Docs document that they can all access and have input, without having to worry about email, lost attachments or multiple versions. Everyone is accessing the latest version of the document and their changes are instantly visible to other participants.
I can also see Google Docs being very useful when working on PCs that do not have Office or similar installed, documents can still be created in a number of formats without requiring a software installation.

I created a zoho account to compare it with Google Docs, I think I prefer the zoho options, particularly in the word processing application as it allowed a large amount of document formatting which is not available in Google Docs. Zoho also allowed a larger range of formats to select from, but I have not explored all of them to see how useful they are.
I think that I will continue using both until I am more familiar with them and then determine which one I am going to stick to.

NSW Public Libraries - Week 10

The Star Viewer is an incredible creation that must have taken hours of work and research, but it is a fantastic tool for people to look at.

Mashups are alot of fun but they do require some artistic talent, which some of us have in bucket loads and others only have a thimble full. I enjoyed looking at the mashups that have been created and then I had alot of fun selecting which mashup tool I would use and then creating my mashup, hope people like it. I think this definately fits the play aspect of the life long learning.

I have looked at a number of mashups and I think that mashups made using the mosiac maker tool would be most appropriate at work as it enables you to show case alot of pictures in a without taking up alot of room. It would be important however to ensure that you have gained permission from any people in the photos before using them. I think that from the already created mashups the motivators would be the most use at work as they could be used to raise staff morale and to create positive reading messages.

NSW Public Libraries - Week 9

I had a look at the range of podcasts available from the British Library and listened to the Gaiman-Waugh podcast which was very interesting as it described how the content of the CD included recordings of the author through different stages of their life.
On the ABC I searched through the subjects and listened to The Book Show which is aired on ABC Radio National, I listened to the episode from Thursday April 10th 2008. The preview of There will be blood sounded very dramatic!

When I looked at the Library Success wiki I was a bit surprised by the number of podcasts already there and the range of topics they covered. I listened to the BookTalks Quick and Simple, I selected the Artemis Fowl: the Arctic Incident and listened to the talk. It was very well presented with clear speech and voices for the characters. I thoroughly enjoyed this podcast.

Within our library I can see alot of potential for podcasts, bookgroup meetings could be podcast to give other patrons a review of a book. You could also podcast the reading of a childrens book to provide an online storytime.
Although I can see alot of use for podcasts I would be reluctant to use it with staff as I feel it is important to keep the face to face contact, using the podcast to support this contact would be great but it would need to be kept as a secondary means of communication and not used as the primary means of communication.

I had a look at the Online Education Database and there are podcasts for almost any topic you wish to learn. I listened to a Yale Course - Death (Spring 07) - Nature of Persons. The podcast provided the information for learning and is a great way for students that are studying externally to listen to lectures and material that they may not otherwise get access to.

I also performed a Yahoo Podcast search for library, although I received 1082 results there was very little information with the results and I found that most had no relation to library. More refined searching is probably the key with this search engine.

Lake Matheson

Lake Matheson
Originally uploaded by marianb1

Test post for Regional Training Day Demo

NSW Public Libraries - Week 8

I think that answerboards and social searching are a great idea, it allows public input so they gain some ownership over the information and they can get help from Librarians even though they are not at a library.

Allowing customers to rate and review items in a libraries collection is now being incorporated into many Library Management Software packages.
The software allows library staff to allow or disallow a review if it is not suitable for posting, but any library member that can log into the OPAC will soon be able to place a review on an item.
Our library has not yet upgraded to the next level of our LMS, but by the end of the year we expect to have this functionality.

No doubt there will be some teething problems while staff and library patrons get used to it, but I think that it will be a great tool that library readers may come to depend on. How many times do staff get asked - what's a good book to read?

Maybe soon we will be able to give them a list of the most highly rated book - will that be a good thing or a bad thing? Only time will tell.

I answered a question on Yahoo7 by providing some websites that contained information that would help answer the question.