Google Alerts and Feedburner

After having a play around I quite enjoyed setting up a Feedburner account for my blog, it will be interesting to go back and see how this goes.

The google alert was a bit different and does not instantly provide the results that Feedburner provides. I will stick with it and see what happens and how successful my alert has been.

At this stage I feel I have learnt more about Feesburner than anything about Google alert, but hopefully time will tell.

Web 2.0 evaluaton tools have the potential to be very useful and valuable for library seeking to include Web 2.0 tools on their website.

Delicious

I enjoyed revisiting my delicious account, which I must confess hasn't been updated for quite a while.

Looking through the features I really like the ability to link with Twitter so that you can add to the delicious account while tweeting.
The bundling feature is also great as I prefer things to be well organised and the bundles allow this to occur.

I would suggest using delicious to create links for specific focus groups e.g. an account dedicated to family history research links, or an account of links on children's literacy that could be made available on a library website to share resources with patrons.

Twitter - Success

I have finally joined up with Twitter and I tweet under the name marianb01, not many tweets so far.
Looking through I'm not sure that I like the idea of micro-blogging, it seems to be generating posts that don't have any relevance and appear to have been put up just for the sake of saying something.
Libraries could potentially use twitter to communicate with clients and promote events happening in the library; however I think they need to take care to ensure that each tweet is worthwhile otherwise it may annoy followers.

Twitter - Attempt 1

Opened the twitter site all ready to sign up and enter the world of Twitter and the Sign Up page will not open, keeps displaying an error. Tried to reload the page a few times with no success.

Closed the internet browser and reopened Twitter and now that won't open, also displaying an error message.

I will try again in a day or two and hope that it is working.

Learning 2.1 - Templates

Looking through all the amazing templates available it can be easy to loose track of time.
Applying a new template was fun and easier than I thought it would be.

Learning 2.1 - Week 1

Since finishing Learning 2.0 I haven't been doing much blogging. I like that blogging is a good way to communicate in an easy to read format.

Since Learning 2.0 I have been searching out and reading library/librarian related blogs. There are some really good ideas being communicated via blogging and it is a great way of networking with librarians across the world.

Generally I only comment on other users blogs if I am moved by their posts or if it is someone I know. If I do comment on another users blog I try to make it a post that is either constructive or adds something to the discussion. I am not a fan of commenting without purpose.

Bringing my Blog back to life was fun as it needed an update and refreshing. It was good looking through the new gadgets that have been added and I loved the Fish.

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.