Monday, December 3, 2007

#18 Concluding summary

As a final exercise
Favorites:
Most of the things I liked I probably already knew, but may not have taken the next step of taking out an account and adding my comments to the great sea of unconnected words and stray thoughts on the web. Now I quite happily signup with another password and throw some words on a page to see what happens, further clutter up the Internet.

Lifelong learning goals:
Having started late, I am stunned that I have finished within striking distance of the finishing line. I certainly have tried everything, whether I remember how to do 90% of what I have done or find a deep and meaningful reason to maintain a blog is doubtful but I do have a better understanding of what is possible and will more willingly signup for passwords to try new things. (Desperately trying to maintain the balance of refusing all telemarketing offers on principle).

Reservations about the value of the program:
Program in itself was sound and while I didn't take up the offer, it was good to know that I could have attended one of the weekly sessions and been helped through those nagging items where I would try 3 and 4 times before I cracked the code of how to do something.
I would also like to see new items added to the list, as some of this technology is now becoming mainstream and some newer elements should be starting to creep into the program.

Future:
The hard part starts now - how to continue investigating new and emerging technologies and whether I continue to use any of these technologies or whether, as I suspect this blog will die with this entry never to be given a proper burial but to lapse into disuse as so many before it have.

The other hard part is if we do get fired up that we can use blogs and it might be worth creating a 2nd life avatar - how can this be made use of in the library context - as by the nature of this technology it is an individual lonely world divorced from the rest of the library not a community activity in most instances. Further there is the fact that we have not yet embraced the concept of most staff having the right to post items to wikis or anywhere else that has not been vetted by the library. So it needs to go on the planning board to discuss at service forums and staff meetings how this early learning skill can be made a mainstream skill set. Staff to be actively encouraged to add to blog discussions and to create content for wiki entries for the wider world.

Sunday, December 2, 2007

#17 On Library 2.0 & Web 2.0

Source David Lee King Library 2.0 ripples post(24/8/2007)http://www.davidleeking.com/2007/08/24/library-20-ripples-another-go-at-the-graph/

Culture change
Interesting as we must ask the question where is SLV placed on this wheel > We are probably balanced on the brink of "customer participation" with the project for federated searching and investigating what aspects of web2.0 should be added to our website. The hard part is "Trust staff to interact digitally" and as we continue with a strongly controlled website and levels of control regarding communicating to the outside world except at the reference question level. This then challenges staff and library as staff need the support and encouragement to put themselves out there and to be encouraged that it is what the library wants to happen and no one will be checking and correcting their actions. I don't know how we achieve this but the culture shift to staff being "experts" and "having a voice of their own", not to be a sanctioned clone of their colleagues giving the same statement in the same way is the next step.

This is the view expressed in all the web readings listed from:
Kelly's notes on Web2.0 through OCLC's web2.0 presentation and Kings Library ripples and is backed up by SLV21 statements and NSLA's Big bang at http://www.nsla.org.au/publications/papers/2007/pdf/NSLA.Discussion-Paper-20070629-The.Big.Bang..creating.the.new.library.universe.pdf

Web2.0 OCLC newsletter
The highligts from these items, included
Icebergs by Anderson
* Just in case collections >are not needed as all on web > well this not quite the case and there is a lack of trust that the googles and microsofts will share freely even if it happens. It is a sobering thought that libraries need to take note of growing digital born (and only alive on a virtual platform - blog, podcast etc, as more information will never be reassembled in printed format
* User ed> new ways to communicate with those who use and don't use libraries> the most sobering element is that web2.0 offerings do not spend a lot of time explaining how you use them, most energy goes into how you create an account. So library services that are so complicated that users need to be train to use them are flawed and should be rebuilt to user-centric service
* Come to us service model> the library is not the gatekeeper of information now, if it ever was> we need to promote library as a place users want to be (both the virtual and physical place)

Librarian2.0 Skills set by Stephens
* plan for users > focus on the user and his needs not library systems and their needs
*embrace tools > focus on collaboration> meet users in their space
*control technolust > technology is a tool not the idol
*make good/fast decisions > change happens fast and constantly> decisions should be base on user need
*trendspotter> always be looking for new ways to engage with users and what the new "thing" will be
*get content> content is conversation> you cannot wait for the world to find you

Future place by Shultz
*Libraries are?> collections, conversations andconvocations of people, ideas & artifacts > Libraries are communities
*Library1.0> are Books> as commodities to be collected, inventoried, organized & warehoused
*Library2.0> are products packaging books and becoming redundant as more becomes digital and globally accessible unless the library moves to
*Library3.0> is Service> embracing Web3D> and tailoring information to user needs by developing relationships with users and personalising our libraries to be where the user is, even in 2nd life
*Library4.0> is Experience> libraries as idea labs embracing the social attributes of the web where library1.0-4.0 attributescoexist> to create a knowledge spa as a space, a retreat and a safe social world

Web2.0 Catalogues
Catalogue changes are already flagged with
>Federated Search, picking up FRBR,BrowseFacets, clustering and relevance rankng
>Website and catalogue tools to embrace>RSS, tagging & social sharing and commenting

SLV21 and SLV@Swanston looking at>choice where the user wants to be, how the user wants to work & socialize in a single space both virtual and physical
For us this meansus is to do work once and use it many ways

World cat, a master work
Librarylabs, a good way to test some of the new features coming from the federated search project
Washington state, I love the 'Seattle Post-Intelligencer' example and would like to see similar work done as a regular pattern for journals and newspapers

# 16 Podcasts

My standard search of libraries +technology did better on podcastalley and yes I have now cluttered up the RSS feed with another couple of sites. - Sirsidynix looks most promising.

Uses:
Personal use: allows you to do 2 things at once.
Library use - tours and how to use specific resources and as SLV is currently doing keeping any lecture program available beyond the original performance, assuming the recording quality is good.

Podcast directories:
Podcast.net: didn't do much for me a bit limited
Podcastalley.com: better choice, better results for industry searching
Yahoo Podcasts: useful for the more lightweight, social type of searching

Learning2.0 podcast
podcast by Helene Blowers (creator of this Learning 2.0 program
Learning 2.0 : Make "play" your New Year's resolution : detailed account of proceedings, obviously exported to many libraries, a search of google blogs raises the spectra of baby steps blogging and #23 things - what I learned from all quarters, however blowers presentation is quite inspiring and it obviously had effect. Only issue is there does not seem to be a sequel, the program is in repeat mode in libraries, with no new content being added, does Web 2.0 end here.

Downloadable eAudiobooks: interesting, what is often more interesting is the size of some of these files and the repeative nature of the samples on offer. But it does fit in with the whole ebook delivery and we will eventually get our ebooks page loaded on to the website and can edit some of this material into the options.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

#15 Video

Here is the most upfront Web2.0 summary for all

Librarian 2.0 manifesto
http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=5ff637e7984152a3531d

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

#14 Web 2.0 Awards

The sites above from the Web 2.0 Awards winners. have appeal and use or are just interesting. The only thing we haven't followed up on are the Socializing sites of - facebook, myspace & secondlife - maybe next time.

#Searchengines - zuulu is a nice alternative when you feel like rebelling against google - compare results from a number of searches.


#Searchengines - video searching tool - certainly the way to keep tabs on news, television programs and much more



#Maps - google maps - known and used but who can go past it

#Wiki - wetpaint - looks colourful and bright as an alternative to the more traditional wikis - with a text based presentation - worth a try as an alternative



#Lists & polls - statsaholic is fun to compare website traffic - who is more popular - nicely graphed

#Upcoming - more social about town - worth looking at to promote own SLV events to a new user audience as it leads with the local stuff

#Events - confabb is worth considering as a replacement for conference directories in the reference collection - needs further evaluation.

#Not new but a great one stop search site for out-of-print books, rare or otherwise. Good for reference questions. Nice to see it included in the list.

#13 Anything techy

Too much to focus on already from Federated Searching for SLV sites to the next version of ebook readers "Kindle" from Amazon, to a demo by Autonomy on searching video and providing on the fly transcription and face recognition to allow pinpointing the context of speeches. All scary stuff.

The trick is to see ways of using the things you see and to have the time to explore and apply.

Nothing earthshattering or profound.

#12 Wordprocessing: Google docs vs Zoho Writer

Test in Zoho Writer

I am being lazy about this one, but do enough word processing not to want to compose prose for the hell of it. But on the positive side I can see major advantages in this for public and self.

Not sure why but works better in Firefox, and extraordinarily slow to load document in Internet Explorer, so slow in fact that had to abandon on 3 occasions (not sure why).

Discovery Resources:
Web-based productivity applications: I like the idea of having access to word processing on the internet, especially as able to connect when on desk and outside the firewall and have now wordprocessing or spreadsheets available.


Discovery Exercise:
I have a free account in Zoho for Wiki, now also in Zoho Writer and spreadsheets.

Feature

Google Docs

Zoho

MS word

fonts & editing

easy - what I am use to, has the feel of an email page & set up

all the features I want - clear and simple

Home base

saving

versions saved as well and discard versions when ready - has the advantage of saving to the internet rather than to pc/usb

all options: word, text, html,pdf - saving to pc or usb

know filing system, normally only current version saved

Ability to move content

can email, use anywhere, export to pdf or alternate version, can post to blog & web

can post to blog

Must use on staff pcs not available on desk, need to copy and paste to move to email or bl


Optional:
This posted to blog from Zoho’s "publish" options (and send via google docs as well to compare formating)

Same document in Google Docs

Spreadsheets are excellent and will test further and will test Google at a later stage, but Zoho spreadsheets work well and both should be tested to see if we can put a staff version of the roster on the internet for desk access outside the firewall.