#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