Last post on this blog

It is a little sad to have reached the end of this program - I have enjoyed it, including the pace. I will have to continue to structure in some continuous learning which is much easier to do thanks to rss feeds.

From the fresh + new(er) is a recent post about "applying a new social media framework from Forrester to the cultural sector" which has a helpful graph showing options for social networking including marketing and client interactions. I think there needs to be some experimentation with the social networks. Read what Michael Geist has to say about the use of Facebook to lobby the Canadian government about proposed changes to copyrigth legislation. This shows a creative use of Facebook. I think there are possibilities about using social networking tools for interaction and communication, we need to experiement to see what works for our exisiting clients, and what may attract people who do not even know we exist.

Online applications and tools

Men ToolBox
Originally uploaded by Cyrille Lefranc (Nano)
Google docs was very easy to use as was Zoho - Zoho was a bit less intuitive but it worked well. I included an image of a toolkit because over the last 11 weeks I have been working on my toolkit - not only do I know what a lot more web based services are I know how to use them as well.

Podcasts

Railways I saw in 2007 ("Trains" series): Sydney
Originally uploaded by scalleja

I have listened to birds of Madagascar, Australian railways, legislative podcasts from Wisconsin, events and stories from OCLS.

It would be great to podcast all the talks held at work - this would allow everyone in the state to have access to these events. Podcasts (including video podcasts) would compliment the online exhibitions - curators could talks about particular items. This would help make the collection more accessible. Video podcasts could be used to provided snippets of information about how to search online databases - or why you would want to search them in the first place. We could (copyright permitting) make extracts of some of the oral histories collected available online. The podcasts could be en exhibition themselves. There is also potential for training and professional development.

Mashups

There are some really good examples of mashups which add value to resources. Both of the heritage map/google maps mashups add value to the maps as it easily places them in a contemporary context. The star viewer is amazing in the way it places the information in context.


I tried a David Hockney mashup which does look better when it is larger.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum have done a mashup with Google Earth to highlight the destruction at Darfur. This helps people see the concentration of the issue. Bishop Museum in Hawaii is using mashups to mark where collection items were found which works well for a natural history museum.

Superpatron suggests using mashups for rss feeds from library catalogues. Mashups can be tools for adding extra value to collection items. Some of the image generators are impressive ways of creating low budget signs.

With collections relating to, for example, explorers, you could link the collection item to a Google map spot where the item was created. The map could also show the complete journey of the explorer and have links to all the institutions where collection items relating to the explorer were held. So one map for Leichhardt would show his travels, and enable people to see digitised items/records no matter where the item were held. This could be a powerful way of linking big and small collections in a collaborative manner.

Answer boards

That was really fun. I like the way there is a community of librarians around answer boards, although I understand not many Australian librarians have 'put their hands up' on that wiki. I think engaging with answer boards - although I had not done it before today - is a good tool for professional development as well as for raising awareness about what libraries can offer. I answered one question - and I chose the one I did because it was not an opinion piece. I now have to wait and see if my answer is voted the best.

Librarything

Librarything is fun. It is an unbelievable concept which really works. It has great potential for library use - with assisting resource discovery. East Brunswick Public Library is providing hints for their community in using the catalogue which is linked to Librarything. Danbury Public Library was the first public library to add Librarything to their catalogue. They provide both their own subject headings as well as having the tag clouds from Librarything visible.

Tag clouds

I like the way some organisations are using del.icio.us to make their weblinks available. I think that there could be some good uses of del.icio.us for teams who are working on a project together as you can put all the sites/information found together and receive alerts (via rss) when someone else in the group adds links. It would be a useful collaborative tool for work across several organisations as well.

It could be a good alerts mechanism as well. You could set up a del.icio.us account where website showing technology or other trends are linked and then have a matching blog to write about how the technology (or other trend) could be considered for use in a workplace - it could be a simple method of encouraging brainstorming or generally thinking through a few new ideas.

From a bit of editing on the test account del.icio.us is easy to use. It is helpful being able to add notes so that it can become clearer why a particular site is of interest. The tag clouds can help with trend spotting as well. It was easy to set up a del.icio.us account but now I will have to move my key sites over to that account.

I really like the Aberdeen built ships site with the way they link information about the ship building, images, videos and audio files.

Videos

Ferntree Gully Library has put up a promotional video about library services - it is well worth listening/watching as it gives a comprehensive coverage of their services. The cat in the hat helps with how not to do a reference interview, there is a fun New Jersey library promotion about a 24/7 live reference service (it looks like a fast food ad and is well worth watching), this shows another style of library promotion, one from Lexington Public Library which promotes active use of your library card, and another good use of a library card.

The Nebraska Library Commission has a vibrant promotion for working in libraries, Denver promotes summer reading, there is a promotion of online reference, and a quirky interview with Yorkshire accents. There is even an Arizona State University Library Channel which features videos of a conference planning for libraries of the 21st century - note this is a longer video.

All of these videos have ideas we could use to promote our services to the community. These are a series of variations on the same theme - all seeking to make people more aware of what libraries can do. If we don't tell them how will they know what great places libraries are? Using online videos is a way of reaching people who may not have thought to come to the library. It can be a very targeted promotion about a specific aspect of a library service or a general "what libraries do" kind of introduction. They do not have to have a big budget to be effective. A video would be a great partner for the online exhibitions - it would be useful to hear a curator talk about an item, and to hear a client respond as well. Imagine if after doing a search on Mathew Flinders I had found someone from work talking about/showing collection items relating to Flinders. It would be a way of helping expose the collection and the staff expertise. Videos could also be used with donors speaking about why they gave collection items or money.

I thought this video would add a touch of class.

Making gmail work harder

Thanks to the blog from iLibrarian there are hints about how to move into the power user category of gmail users. This information is thanks to an rss feed.

wiki world

I liked the Montana history wiki driving people to a range of resources in a range of locations. I liked that some of the links took me to books. This wiki seemed well designed as a comprehensive starting point for research about the history of Montana.

The Princeton Public Library wiki also very interesting as a good way of organising reviews to promote collection items.

From the library success wiki I looked at the Stevens County Rural Library District wiki which aims to be a wiki for the community about the community. It is still early days - but it is an interesting idea.

The workplace entry in wikipedia is very brief. It could still be brief and link to information on the web site. We could edit the entry to drive traffic to our site and to specific digitised items. This could be done selectively to help people do resource disovery. We could also include other 'notes' links (why is it just to Duran Duran) and link to Matthew Reilly and his novel Contest.

I only did a little editing on the visitor information wiki - but it is easy to do.

Jamie with his signed Matthew Reilly book
Originally uploaded by Springwood Colquhouns

Yahoo pipes

I would like to be able to combine more than one feed option through Yahoo pipes. I have set up one pipe to search flickr for images of work, and it has a couple of filters. You can look at it here.

I think I will have to do a bit more 'messing around with pipes" to really see what they can do. They would be option for bringing together information.

RSS

Really, REALLY BIG RSS feed button
Originally uploaded by photopia / HiMY SYeD

I really like RSS

I have been using it for a while. I like that it makes keeping up to date with things easier. I am a scanner rather than a reader of RSS. At first I over subscribed. Since then I have cut back in a few areas and increased in others. I try and spend no more than 15 minutes a day on rss. This means I miss a lot but what I come across is more than I would have read by other means. It has given me some really useful areas to follow up for my work.

I have not really explored many personal interests in rss.

I really like rss for the information I would never have found through other means but which has changed how I do my job.

I like the Sutherland Public Library blog - it compliments their website. There is also an interesting Dutch public library blog - even thougth I don't read Dutch am still getting pointed to some great information.

Libraries can make information available via rss - image if someone could subscribe to an events rss, or a specific subject from the catalogue rss (to keep track of new items or areas of research interest)...

Image from flickr - sea lions on Kangaroo Island

199101 062 Kangaroo Island
Originally uploaded by williewonker

It is so much fun browsing through Flickr and seeing what people have shared. This is just one of many impressive images. I like the ability to blog about the image from within Flickr.

Leaves

Leaves
Originally uploaded by stoneseer

This is one of the images I have uploaded to Flickr. It is taken out the front of the building in the rain Depite using the slnsw2008 tag it is not clustering this with the 'morning light' image. I used the option of uploading this blog post via Flickr.

I have now uploaded another image so that I have five images in my Flickr account as this seems to have been the problem.

Library of Congress and flickr

The Library of Congress has just announced (and they copied my previous blog post name) a project called The commons. This makes some of their images available on Flickr and available for tagging.

My friend Flickr

I like the range of photographs which are on display about the place we work in. It is interesting to see the locations people have taken photographs (and for some I really hope they were not using flash photography), and the events they have been taken at (the poetry slam featured). It shows the community deciding on our public image. Perhaps we could assist in how our image is depicted...

There are some great options for what you can see. I tried looking for "Black Watch" to see if anything about this specific Sydney Festival event was featured (it wasn't) but found that a few people had uploaded images of black watch wool for socks as well as images of the battalion from Scotland, the regiment from Canada, bagpipers and so on. There are some really talented photographers sharing their works (and a few who should have thought a little longer before hitting the upload button).

The 365 days library project is an interesting one to see a range of libraries over lots of days, Utah State Library has their own group, UK libraries seem to be documenting change as well as heritage buildings, and African community libraries shows how crucial libraries are. There are an amazing number of library groups. Our southern neighbours have a group.

Looking at Flickr can be a bit of time sink as images such as beware the book and Mosman Library compete for attention.

I will have to think about the image I will use from Flickr, so that will be a later post.

Technorati and library blogs

I thought I would see what national libraries are blogging about. I found one about the National Library of Belarus, but was held back by my knowledge of Russian. Prague's proposed new national library has been getting coverage in lots of blogs. Here is one example of this. There are many other examples of posts about national libraries, but with a fairly small number of blogs by National Libraries. There is a really interesting library technology blog from the National Library of New Zealand

Hiding in the National Library blogs was one of fan fiction about West Wing.

I also had a look at state library options. Not just our state library, but other state libraries in other places as well. There has been a series of posts about visits to the Bavarian State Library, references to a report commissioned by the Indiana State Library about the value of libraries, and lots more. You can even set up a technorati search as an rss feed, but I will leave that until next week. Blog specifically by state libraries include one by Connecticut, Washington (including a meebo link), South Carolina (for IT matters), Oregon and Iowa.

I was not specifically looking for Australian examples but SLV does have one about their summer reading program.

I liked the way each library was using its blog for its own reasons. I really like the State Library of Washington blog and the National Library of New Zealand blog about technology..

I will do a search later for public library blogs - but that is my 15 minutes for today (and yesterday).

Starting out

I was pleased to find (with some fiddling around) that I could change the font. It is the simple things which make life fun!

I really like the Machine is us/ing us video (with the sound low or off) as it is like an artwork, but it is also a great way of telling a story. I think we can use this kind of creative story telling more in our work. Drawing stories together to have a greater meaning than they do in separate ways. It would allow us different ways of engaging with clients and the collections.

Finding the time for the learning has been challenging - but there are always ways of finding 15 minutes.