#23 Made it!

Well this little Moomintroll is happy to sit back and contemplate for a while.
I can't honestly say it has all been "play" but I have enjoyed learning new things and looking at my fellow participants' blogs. And I do feel a sense of achievement in completing all the tasks.

I am certainly more comfortable around things like flickr, mash-ups, wikis, podcasts and the like. Some things I'll probably use, others I suspect will fall by the wayside because they just don't match my needs and time at the moment. I'm likely to be a continuing dabbler in bloglines, del.icio.us and (maybe) rollyo because they are quick and easy to use and present me with new and interesting discoveries.

Professionally, Learning 2.0 has brought me up to speed (well nearly) with things we librarians will need to know to be able to keep pace with our patrons' needs and interests. I don't have the technical knowledge or authority to make things happen but at least I now have some of the broad concepts and jargon required to converse with those who do have them.
A few practical observations:

• Time and access are issues. I completed most of this course at home in my own time using my own computer. My family got grumpy about it sometimes and so did I. It takes a lot of time (and concentration late at night) to learn and use new things.
• I think it would be preferable for a group of us to do it together at work at a set time each week (it would take much longer though).
• Having 2 or 3 distinct "things" to complete in a week got a bit daunting sometimes.
• I couldn't get several of the podcasts to work (my computer no doubt). And I had some other technical difficulties which added to the workload (I spent ages trying to get my whole heading picture back with no success).
• A number of my colleagues were fed up with having to blog about what they discovered and felt quite rightly that it went against the ethos of blogging. Is there some other way of showing that you are completing the course? (Being a goody-goody I ended up doing everything and dutifully blogging about it).
• Would it be possible to have a compulsory overview of the "things" and then a set of topics and tasks from which to choose to go into at more depth (then you're not spending time on things which don't really interest you)?
• Maybe people from each library service could nominate someone from their group for a prize: we might be more able to identify the heroes who have kept on going against the odds (for some people getting a blog going at all has been a huge achievement).

Finally, THANK YOU (and I mean this) to the organisers - a huge undertaking tackled with expertise, enthusiasm and good will.

#22 Audiobooks

I've always been a bit skeptical about the value of e-books - particularly e-fiction - because I just don't think reading a book from "cover to cover" on-line is the kind of experience most people would embrace.
However, e-audiobooks is another thing entirely and surely the best way to go for public libraries once MP3 technology (or whatever its future equivalent is) is universally embraced (in the car, on the phone, for housebound patrons etc.).
The idea of downloading an audiobook and having it automatically "return" itself at the right time is brilliant. I had a look at the Caboolture Shire Libraries http://library.caboolture.qld.gov.au/ which offer an excellent e-library service; not only audiobooks but music and DVDs too. I found this more enticing than the resources on the World E-Book Fair site but naturally things that a library would pay for are likely to be more recent and varied than the freebies.

#21 Podcasts

So somehow following a search thread from site to site I found Nancy Keane's kids and YA booktalk daily podcasts and added her site to my Bloglines account (yay I remebered the password!) http://www.nancykeane.com/booktalks/mp3. Nancy has a pleasant, civilised, enthusiastic American librarian's voice: she reminds me a bit of Helene Blowers (yes the big HB of Learning 2.0).
I'd like to be able to podcast our library storytimes sometime down the track (once again Council willing).

In my travels I found another blogging fan of Tove Jansson and a reference to her illustrations for the Finnish edition of the Hobbit which I must follow-up. And some more lovely, evocative moomin pictures. Here's one:

Where oh where has my Blog Header picture gone?

Or at least most of the picture? I like that picture and I want it back but I have no idea how to fix it. I had a look at the Help section but I just don't have the expertise to fiddle around with HTML. So I'll have to rely on magic, positive thinking or something.

#20 You Tube

In You Tube we find another example of technology that can be used for "niceness" or evil. There are some incredibly talented people out there and its a good thing if You Tube can give them a chance to share their work with the world. Council willing, it would be easy to include content made by our patrons on our website - the usual privacy/quality control issues would apply though.
In the post below this one I've included a clip that I came across while on the Oxam site. It was so easy to get the HTML and paste it into my blog. That makes it easy to get messages out to the world but so much to compete with.
Being a bit of an old fogey I get frustrated with the size and picture quality of videos on sites like You Tube: doesn't seem to worry the young 'uns though.I had a look at the clip of hand shadow puppetry accompanying Louis Armstrong's "Wonderful World" that was shown recently on Spicks N Specks. Brilliant, but a little hard to see to its full effect on the tiny screen.
Here's a clip of Ross Noble doing what he does best that my kids showed me the other day.

Sing!

#19 Web 2.0 Tools

I had a look at Lulu http://www.lulu.com/. There's a lot of content that may be of limited interest except to the person who posted it. This site could be useful for using with specific groups e.g. Young adult book Group to publish/share original material cheaply. I quite liked browsing some of the calendars.
I also looked at yourminis http://www.yourminis.com/. I have long admired the LMS Go live widget on my colleague's blog. We could use widgets such as these on our website to promote events such as the Summer Reading Club or Children's Book Awards.
I decided to give "The Golden Compass" a free plug on my blog. It was extremely easy to add, although I have no idea whether the countdown is accurate for Australia (I suspect not, but I did see my first trailer on TV tonight so it must be getting close). I am very much hoping the film is not a dud!

#18 Web-based apps

Zoho Blog trial
Today I took part in the Melbourne Walk Against Warming. Police estimates put the crowd at around 30,000 which isn't too bad, although I've been in much larger peace rallies and anti-Work "Choices" rallies in the past.

Ironically, it was so hot we had to use our placards as umbrellas to keep the sun off.

The above was written using the Zoho site which I think is a brilliantly useful web application. I'll tell my Dad about it: he doesn't have any word processing program installed on his computer.

Unfortunately the cute little picture I inserted didn't come across and the emoticon ended up with a border! I'll assume I did something wrong. I can live without smileys anyway.

#17 PB Wiki

To bracket or not to bracket that is the question. Whatever. I added my blog and had a look around.

The "favourite" pages were a bit too haphazard for me - a lot of scrolling required, but I guess that's the nature of a "sandbox".

There's a lot of stuff on the web that has novelty value for me at the moment. For example, I followed a "favourite website" link to bookcrossing http://www.bookcrossing.com/home

I've heard about this before but hadn't gotten around to checking it out. It's a great idea and I've signed up (yet another screen name and password to keep track of) but I'm not sure how often I'll log in in practice.

#16 So what's in a wiki?

A few of my favourite things about wikis:

• When done well they can really help the newcomer around an issue, a topic, a site. For example the wiki at the K12online conference (see post #13) http://k12online07.wikispaces.com/ really does assist a first-timer like myself to navigate the array of links without making me feel like an idiot (wikis often seem to have an enthusiastic, empowering tone to them: I guess because they are driven by enthusiasts).
• Wikis are great for reader-to-reader recommendations and reader community-building. I can see lots of potential for C&YS applications.
• What a great tool for collaboration and knowledge-sharing! I had a look at things like "unattended children policies" on the best-practice wiki and found some food for thought.

Now we have something else to talk to our council web boffins about!

#15 Library 2.0 and Web 2.0

I looked at the Discovery Resources a while ago and found them quite interesting but I've been putting off this blog post. I don't feel like I have much to add to discussions that hasn't already been said.
Here's a random thought that may or may not be relevant: one of the few amusing moments in the recent "The Librarians" premiere was the shot of the front door with the sign with all the modern jargon for what the place was and a blu-tacked notice underneath saying "Library". It seems like a bit of a metaphor for not getting so carried away with the latest and greatest that we forget to deliver what real people need and want to know.
Web 2.0 is a brilliant tool. It is changing the library world as we know it. But it is going to take some effort to sort out what's going to be of the most long term benefit. And it's going to need some top-level commitment and cooperation to get the best results for our users. We can introduce elements of what we learn at all sorts of basic levels but it still takes staff time and technology that we may not have.
It is impossible for me to keep my moral/political views out of this and I probably don't have to seeing it's my blog (and very few people will read it anyway!). Perhaps its just the election, global warming etc. etc. but I'm feeling very anxious about the huge divisions in our society and if Web 2.0 can't help deliver equity of access, empowerment to those most in need, global co-operation and understanding, then it ain't much use to us.

#14 Technorati

I had a look around Technorati but don't have much to say about it except phew!!! that's a lot of blogs to search. I'm certainly not ready to take the "claiming" step.
I've added a couple of green blogs to my deli. bookmarks (couldn't see the point of setting up Technorati favourites at this stage - just one more place to remember to go).
In my blog travels I discovered 24th November is "Buy Nothing Day". http://www.buynothingday.co.uk/I will try to observe this day and combine it with "Kick Howard Out Day". The two are not inherently incompatible: unless they have a fund-raising sausage sizzle at my local polling booth.

Are we lemmings?

Beware: rant follows

I'm getting a bit sick of humankind's obession with knowing what is the coolest, latest, most popular thing on the internet. Ok so tag clouds and "saved by x number of people x number of hours ago" and "most popular" listings may have a legitimate role to play but they also feed our inherent competiveness and/or conformity.

So what if millions of people have clicked on the You Tube video ad of the i-pod blender? Does that make it important? profound? vital? Am I a lesser being for not having gone there - or worse, gone there too late, when it's old news?

Jeez, get a life people! So what if you miss something? Or, heaven forbid, visit a site that only 2 other people have tagged. Popular doesn't necessarily = good.

Excuse me now while I go change out of my hair-shirt.

(Actually the i-pod blender could be kind of funny)

#13 del.icio.us

This time it all came together in a fairly textbook fashion. After creating my own del.icio.us account I explored some sites tagged as "storytelling", followed the thread to someone elses's bookmarks and stumbled across the "K12 Online Conference 2007: playing with boundaries" which is running right now. http://www.k12onlineconference.org/

It is "a conference by educators for educators around the world interested in integrating emerging technologies into classroom practice. A goal of the conference is to help educators make sense of and meet the needs of a continually changing learning landscape." I found it interesting to look at teachers' perspectives on Web 2.0: they have a lot in common with us librarians (particularly the C&YS brand). I found the "Attendr" mash-up tool they use to map conference participants and their knowledge of one another interesting.
I'm wondering if there is or could be a library equivalent of the on-line conference?
I think I probably will use del.icio.us as a research tool and as a convenient other place to park my bookmarks. However, looking at the "Favorites" on my home computer (one which admittedly is used by 6 people) I can see that del.i (i'm getting sick of typing out the whole damn thing with all the dots) will only be as useful as the time I'm prepared to put in to keeping it neat and tidy. Otherwise I'll still have the clutter of sites like "that B&B we stayed at in New Zealand two years ago", "Sound effects search results", "footy tips", "bell flowers by Yurii Shumakov" etc. etc.

#12 Rollyo

Has the cyber world been waiting for a search roll on all things Moomin? I doubt it, but now we've got one anyway.
I added some other people's search rolls on YA things and green technology. I found it quite hard to find search rolls on the topics I was after: several times nothing was returned for my search terms or I had to go too broad and got a lot of dross.
I kind of get Rollyo but to be honest I think I'll find myself opening Google in the time it takes me to remember to hop on over to Rollyo. I just don't have the passion to pursue particular topics that other people seem to have; I guess I'm more of an intermittent eclectic grazer really.

#11 All about LibraryThing

I like LibraryThing! It has a warm and fuzzy community feel to it. And it will be good for finding new things to read. What more can I say? PS That's Tove Jannson with some of her characters above.

Just About Blogging with Blogger

So I've spent a little time trying to make my blog look a little more bloggish (ok it was a lot of time but you wouldn't know from looking at it). Is it just me or is the template really rather rigid and not so user-friendly?
I tried to make a pictorial blog header using a blog-header generator but it looked awful when I uploaded it. And I'm having real trouble getting images to go where I want them to - why can't I just drag and drop?
One thing I do like is the colour choices for fonts that are shown in Settings.
I'm going to change some colours and fonts when I get around to it.
And I might ask some of my colleagues how they manage to get the thing to do what they want....

#10 Image Generators cont'd

First of all I tried to use the Bob Dylan Message Generator http://generatorblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/bob-dylan-message-generator.html. It replaces the words on the cue cards that Bob flips in the Subterranean Homesick Blues film clip with words of your choice. I put in some favourite acerbic quotes about books and movies and was quite pleased with the finished result. But then I realised I could email the clip to my friends but not save it onto my computer - so you can't check it out.
Then I had some fun with the Conspiracy Theory Generator http://www.cjnetworks.com/~cubsfan/conspiracy.html and came up with a highly implausible theory about library fines and Family First. It was ok but the prompts weren't very clear so it would've needed a bit of reworking to make it read properly but I was just too tired.
Later I tried using the Motivator Generator http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/motivator.php, taking one of my family snaps and adding a slightly witty motivational caption. I saved it to my computer where it still languishes as Blogger just couldn't upload it despite several tries.
As you can see, I did have some success with Captioner http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/captioner.php. So although I haven't got as much to show for my time spent, I can assure you I had some fun and know where to go if I want to while away more happy hours on my sometimes temperamental computer.

#10 Play Around with Image Generators

Not so very succesful with all my image generating this time but I did try! I had some fun putting things into neon signs. Why Thesaurus? Well it's not a word you see up in lights very often, but why not?
The horse image is in honour of the forthcoming and possibly horseless Melbourne Cup. The other two are in honour of the election campaign we're all over already.
The link to the neon sign generator is http://www.neonsign.com/bizsign.html

#9 Finding Feeds

Here I am leaping boldly from one Feed to another!

I've added a few more feeds to my account. The tools mentioned were useful but you have to be pretty spot on with your search terms to avoid lots of dross.

I was looking for feeds on early literacy programs in public libraries, Philip Reeve's books (and upcoming film I believe) and the situation in Burma.

I had a go at adding RSS feeds from Ebsco searches but not sure if they worked! I've now got a news feed on Burma and have also subscribed to the Avaaz Foundation blog - information on this came to me via email.

Time will tell whether I access these feeds regularly or not!

#8 RSS

Really Simple Syndication or Redundant Subscription Service?
Yes it really is pretty simple and I can see how time-saving it could be if you had sites that you regularly access and topics you want to keep updated on it's just that I don't tend to use the internet that way at the moment. The honest truth is that I don't have time at work or at home to keep my finger on the pulse of whatever's going on in cyberspace. I know, I know there's heaps of relevant interesting, important, clever and amusing stuff being posted all the time and I'M MISSING OUT but then I'm also missing out on getting enough exercise, reading all the good books that come across the circ. desk, writing my novel, visiting art galleries, seeing Prague etc. etc. etc.
If I feel the need to know something about a topic then I'll go searching on the net and sometimes I'll stumble across something fabulous that leads to something else fascinating - that's how it works for me at the moment. Who knows, now that I've got some RSS feeds I might become a convert and devote regular time to reading blogs and looking out for new news, but something else will have to go to make room in my day and I'm just not prepared to give up coffee or chocolate yet (Randomly Silly Suggestion: I could check my feeds while drinking coffee and eating chocolate if I'm really careful)
This exercise has been useful to me in that I now know what RSS feeds are: I did wonder what the little buttons and symbols meant and had even tried in the past to get onto the SLV's Read Alert without understanding what I was trying to do and (consequently) with no success.
I can also see how RSS could be relevant and of use to our library patrons. I'm sure there are many who would like to be updated on our events and new titles, for example.
For the record, this is my public bloglines account:
http://www.bloglines.com/public/TIPtoes7
And now I'm going out to enjoy the Really Super Sunshine!

#7 Technology - lifelogging, mobile phones etc.

We went to the Melbourne Show the other night and after a fair bit of inner turmoil I decided to go on the giant Ferris Wheel (the one that is fearsomely high with fully-enclosed glass-sided gondalas that sway gently in the breeze). This was the first Ferris Wheel ride I'd had since I was about four I reckon. You see I suffer from claustrophobia and a fear of heights so this was a biggy for me. The first few minutes were the worst: I now know that the cliche "to have one's heart in one's mouth" is not a cliche at all but an accurate description of what happens when you are wrestling with a full-on panic attack. My heart must have been in my mouth because I could hear it pounding in my ears and at a rate way faster than is healthy and something was stopping me from breathing properly and no matter how much I swallowed I couldn't dislodge it.
Meanwhile, the rest of the family were finding the view AWESOME and the lights AMAZING. My daughter grabbed the mobile phone and started taking pictures of the city lights and the pullsating neon rainbow of the other rides and sideshows below. Then she shot some video footage - on the phone - panning around the gondola and momentarily catching me on camera. I'm sure I had the look on my face of some small creature about to become road-kill. I remember thinking "if I have a heart attack now, she's going to get it on film: DON'T HAVE A HEART ATTACK!!!"
Anyway, I survived the first few minutes and with lots of encouraging self-talk and white-knuckled gripping of the seat I even managed to look around a bit (around, not down) and affirm that yes, the view was AWESOME and the lights AMAZING.
It was wonderful to reach the ground again and I was really quite proud of myself. I looked at the photos on the phone and although they are interesting and (some) quite beautiful, I really don't need them: I'll save the experience to my mind's hard drive and retrieve it next time I have to negotiate a plane trip or a lift to the 30th floor of a building. I would post a shot of me looking feral on the Ferris Wheel for the world's enjoyment but we don't appear to have the technology or the knowhow to get the photos OFF the phone!
Which segues nicely to...an article I was reading on "lifelogging", which is recording and storing, as much as possible, all the information of your life: "everything you did for every minute of every day". It just seems crazy, self-indulgent and insufferably boring to me. But I do love the delicious irony that "lifeblogs begun at any given time may not be readable in the future if programs and formats continue to be superseded. Imagine having your entire life only on tape, and no VCR to play it back on" (The Age Good Weekend 6/10/2007)
It seems to me that just being able to do something is not justification enough for doing it. Having said that, the possibilities that mobile phone and information sharing technology offer to us now are truly amazing and have great potential for doing good in the world.
Which brings me to a thought-provoking article I found called "How Mobiles and Blogs Don't -- and Do -- Help Human Rights" on a great site http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007350.html.
It talks about the images coming out of Burma right now that let people around the world see what is happening to the anti-government protesters. It seems vital that these things are recorded and disseminated but the question is posed as to whether it makes any difference to what is happening: the government is still engaged in brutal repression regardless of whether cameras are rolling or not.
It makes me think back to Tiannamen Square and the days before mobile phone technology could be used by ordinary people to bear witness to human rights abuses. I still hold in my mind's eye the image of the man who stood in front of the tanks - one image that went all around the world before an awful visual silence descended and who outside China really knows the full extent of what followed?
I missed "International Bloggers' Day for Burma" on the 4th of October when bloggers were asked to hold off blogging and instead put up one banner underlined with the words „Free Burma!“. How effective was it? I don't know. How can you measure such a thing? I think you do what you can in hope.

#6 More Flickr Fun

Today I had a look at Flickr Color Pickr and became quite mesmerised by the palette - so many choices and great photos out there. I still feel a bit spooked by the amount of time and energy people obviously spend on these things - all that uploading and commenting and mashing going on with me totally oblivious to it. It is heartening to see that so many people are using their cybertalents for good, not evil, or at least for niceness...
Then I had a go at Montagr and after some fairly lame attempts and wondering what to montage I stumbled on some Moomin postcard images. I decided to put my mosaic up near my Blog title because the images make me feel happy. I didn't mean it to be quite so big but I'll leave it like that for now.
Looking at other people's blogs I can see that mine could be much improved if I spent more time on it; but I guess that applies to lots of things in life. Anyway I think I'm doing enough to learn enough for now. So much so that I'll give the Librarian Trading Card a miss and not feel guilty!

This hasn't got much to do with Learning 2.0 but...

...I'm getting into this whole blogging thing.
I went with my mother to see Miriam Margoyles "Dickens' Women" at the weekend. There seemed to be quite a few other mother-daughter combinations in the audience but very few people under 40. Is that because it was a matinee or are younger people not interested in shelling out for Dickens these days?
Anyway it was great: Margoyles brought the characters to life in a way that Dickens himself would have approved. (He may not have been so pleased with her warts'n'all portrayal of his domestic life). Hearing some familiar and some not-so-familiar passages from his books read with such feeling and delight was a real treat.
I'm reading Daniel Pennac's "The Rights of the Reader" at the moment (the edition with the wonderful Quentin Blake illustrations). It's a funny, thoughtful, radical, inspiring kind of book: the ten "rights" should be posted in libraries and schools and homes across the country.
I am convinced that our public libraries can and should not only be places where books are borrowed and returned but places where books are read (out loud and in quiet), debated and extolled. Thanks to Dickens (via Margoyles), Pennac and Blake I feel re-energised to make this happen.
Phew, that's getting a bit passionate and idealistic isn't it? (One thing I'm just getting used to with a blog is the fact that although it is like a personal diary it is nothing like a personal diary in the sense that I would never ever willingly let anyone read my private ramblings and musings).

#5 flickr: fotos, fun and frustration

I spent way more time exploring flickr than I should have (still clicking when everyone else at my place had taken themselves off to bed - even the dog). I'm beginning to see how on-line"social networking" tools can become really addictive and physically isolating.
I was blown away by the quality of photos posted on flickr - I expected a swag of amateurish happy snaps much like my own recording people, places and incidents of interest only to the person uploading them. Instead I found a whole galaxy of unusual, beautiful, thought-provoking, artisitc, life-affirming images that people all around the world were prepared to share with me.
Although flickr is fairly user-friendly for the first-timer, I found finding out how to do some fings frustrating e.g. how to change the order in which my photos appear (never did really resolve this one), how to rotate an image and make sure it stayed rotated (sorted, I think).
For the record here are some of the things I did:

• Uploaded several photos from different sources on my computer
• Organised them using tags and sets
• Marked on a map where some of them were taken
• Searched for other people's photos that shared some of my tags (very interesting)
• Looked at some groups
• Looked at some forum posts
• Set up and used the "blog this" function to add one of my photos to this blog
• Worked out the URL of an image on flickr and used it to add the image to my blog
• Haven't got into the whole contacts/friends/family thing yet

Prom Sunset

P1010621
Originally uploaded by tiptoes in moominland

This photo was taken at one of my favourite places: Wilson's Prom. We camp there every year. A hike up Mount Oberon at dusk was rewarded by a sunset unfolding in spectacular fashion.

#4 What's in a name?

There I was trying to think up a name for my blog and everything I came up with was seemingly unoriginal (how many Tove Jansson fanatics are there out there in bloggerland??) so I just threw together a couple of unrelated pseudonyms. I figured a meaningless blog title would be okay.
On reflection I realise it isn't meaningless at all; it's actually really really deep! "Tiptoes" is me - I'm tall but I always want to see a little bit further in case there's something amazing out there on the horizon. "Moominland" is Libraries 2.0: an imagined place full of unusual characters, surprising adventures and happy endings.
Okay, it's only a little bit deep.
It's just that things seem deep at this time of night.
Still, it has given me something to say in my first post. Yay!
By the way, Moomin Book One: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip was published last year and I think we should get it for our Library.