Well here I am at the end of the course and finding that I need to live much longer just to squeeze in all these new things I have learnt.....so that's why the retirement age has just got longer!
Social networking! This seems to be one the biggest thing to people since stamps were invented!
Community is now a word not just for the group of locals getting together around a fire drum on cracker night but for just about anybody who wants to join in on anything with anybody else from anywhere in the world!
It does have advantages and can be used to stay in touch, meet new people, join forces for a common goal and a heap of other things BUT it does need to be kept in perspective and used sensibly as we don't want to turn around in another 10-50 years and find our society has become unable to function properly because our social skills have fallen to a level so low that all we need is an internet connection and a facebook, msn, twitter, bebo, etc account and we don't have time to actually go outside and talk face to face with your neighbour!
This is Cindy signing off and thanking everyone for a wonderful experience!
Monday, May 18, 2009
Mashup A Storm!
I was unsure what mashups were after seeing many jigsaw puzzles on other blogs and guessing it was quite a simple little thing when actually it is many wonderful integrations and conglomerations of many different applications. For instance who would have thought you could use Google maps to do so many different things - everything from plain old telling you how to get somewhere to a directory service to a history lesson!
I now realise that people used the jigsaw or the Hockeyniser as an example of a mash up as they are very simple to do. However the vast uses and there differences could have real use in a library for your family history section, or a very in depth local history collection (I might even try this map solution for our library) or any number of other interesting ways to deliver services such as your catalog - check out http://www.cambridgelibraries.ca/hot/carousel.cfm - How well does this deliver you new titles! (now we just need an extra 8 hour day a week to maintain and deliver!)
Podcasts - Get A Voice On The Web!
With podcasts available on just about any subject you can think of, now everyone, even vision impaired or people with no time to read, have access to enormous amounts of information at the push of a button - and make sure you have your sound turned on!
Podcasts (audio feeds of just about anything - books, lectures, news, shows, music) have been around for sometime now but with the amount of wireless personal devices now able to connect to the internet (such as iphones etc) it is becoming a much more commonly used source of information and entertainment.
I can definitley see ways that we can utilise podcasts in the library, such as lessons and book readings, but to truly make it beneficial it would need to be something that you could possibly only get in the library and have a high interest/entertainment appeal to your potential library users.
Denver library have a fantastic selection of childrens book podcasts that could be a lot of fun to broadcast as you present the book! check them out below:
http://podcast.denverlibrary.org/
Podcasts (audio feeds of just about anything - books, lectures, news, shows, music) have been around for sometime now but with the amount of wireless personal devices now able to connect to the internet (such as iphones etc) it is becoming a much more commonly used source of information and entertainment.
I can definitley see ways that we can utilise podcasts in the library, such as lessons and book readings, but to truly make it beneficial it would need to be something that you could possibly only get in the library and have a high interest/entertainment appeal to your potential library users.
Denver library have a fantastic selection of childrens book podcasts that could be a lot of fun to broadcast as you present the book! check them out below:
http://podcast.denverlibrary.org/
Monday, May 4, 2009
Answering Your Questions!
I found this quite interesting! Libraians going out and looking for rerference questions to answer!! Have we really lost so many researchers that we are now suffering from brain use depletion? Fascinating!!
Online Bookmarking
All the fancy names picked for new things on the web these days just confus people!
So it is my pleasure to inform you that Tagging, folksonomies, delicious and LibraryThings are all just names and sites for putting what we normally call favourites (or bookmarks) online.
It does make them easy to access when you are not at home and it does have extra bells and whistles (like everything does these days) but it is still just basically and simply bookmarks!
Here are my favourites on Delicious
.
So it is my pleasure to inform you that Tagging, folksonomies, delicious and LibraryThings are all just names and sites for putting what we normally call favourites (or bookmarks) online.
It does make them easy to access when you are not at home and it does have extra bells and whistles (like everything does these days) but it is still just basically and simply bookmarks!
Here are my favourites on Delicious
.
World Of Online Videos
Youtube! (oh and google video) Its a lot of fun and can be very informative (as you can see by the prime TV news feature on the state of the Gundagai bridge)
RSS Feeds
Well, this has been a little harder to get into as at first you think that you won't have much need for it!
I think that Google reader is best for RSS feeds as it is in a more familiar format and I was able to hook up with feeds a little easier, ABC News and Disney Channel are a few of my feeds that I subscribed to.
I think that Google reader is best for RSS feeds as it is in a more familiar format and I was able to hook up with feeds a little easier, ABC News and Disney Channel are a few of my feeds that I subscribed to.
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