Rollyo

Librarywise I think this site could have great application and could ally itself nicely next to The Fitch. So far I have regarded the Web as a vast and getting vaster of uncorralled information. I am now beginning to see that this need not be so, and that it is possible to organise things in quite a succinct way. To create editable lists and groupings of information that can be shared or used for oneself. Here is my Rollyo collection of sites om last minute travel, a cheat because I simply gathered a few together from a Google search, but I can see myself working this into a useful list, a good place to keep well researched and useful sites. Much better than a paper list: http://www.rollyo.com/rainyday.day6/
The Rollyo site was interesting, I found the 4 lists mentioned in the instructions full of repititions and adverts for computer skills, very odd. However, deeper in there are some great lists EG Mr Fixit. I was startled to see some less mundane, shall we say, topics listed in the recent additions. Still it taks all sorts and it does demonstrate the breadth of people's interests.

LibraryThing

I actually did this some months ago when I first heard of LibraryThing and was talking to Hamish about the possibility of eLGAR joining. So if you look under geoffali (possibly - we may have not gone public yet. This exercise will make me much more receptive to the sharing idea) you will find about 8 of our books listed. A good start, but nothing since. We see it as a way of weeding out about another 300 volumes from our overstuffed bookshelves. I can say it looks to a really addictive pasttime, and there is heaps of ways of looking at the info once it is in. We chose a selection of books to begin with that nobody seemed to have.
As far as eLGAR goes we are almost there, it is a matter of negotiating an acceptable library price. Membership will give us, except for Auckland who have Aquabrowser which has greater functionality, the ability, or at least give the public the ability to add tags to book titles, it will also allow ratings and add jacket pictures. We have some of this already via Syndetics, an expensive service we are not using fully. LibraryThing may allow us to drop this. LibraryThing is probably a temporary subscription that we will abandon when all libraries settle on and install a federated search engine.

Image Generators

When I was on the Flickr exercise I came across a photo of a jar full of Smarties, ideal for the world's most difficult jigsaw. Can I find it again. No!! So I have learned how to grab a photo and here it is. Not sure if it is really anything to do with #13, but for me it is progress - using the image button I guess, and it would make a good jigsaw. OK got it, have added a world map of where I have been, see smudgy thing to the left of the jar. Kind of correct in a gross way, visited 2 cities in the US and half the map is coloured in, visit to Pitcairn Island doesn't seem to register. Anyway, I have got the save to hard drive and hit the image key on the blog and hey bingo. I have also put my name into the "what would I be called if I was Sarah Palin's child" name generator _Pistol Tanker - should I be telling the world this.

Into the Sandbox Wiki

Added my blog address to the list, but it remains in black and has not yet become a click on link, why is this I wonder. Added a new thread to favorite TV shows about old programmes, I can see why there is a growth in general ranting, all this lovely safe anonymity. Also added a comment to someone's piece about what TV they are watching, no differentiation between what was written and my piece, just a few more words on a line. That of course raises all sorts of interesting questions about purity and veracity of original comment, but I guess that is not where social web is coming from, or at least not as strongly as those who grew up in the days of the imovable, inflexible printed word. It is a big thing to understand and a big thing to translate into library terms.

Wikis

I learned far more from this exercise than I expected, a case of the more you read the less you know, damn. The video was great, I had always thought of a wiki and the wikipedia as one and the same - wrong. First the Wikipedia, I have been reading with interest the raging debate about it's use and its condemnation by many academics. It seems lately the democratic opportunities for contribution as offered by the Wikipedia will win through, even the Britannica is opening up its site for selected addition by a wider range of contributers. The Wikipedia does have issues, not the least of which is article vandalism, but perhaps this is just teething problems. I am beginning to understand how a wiki could be used in a different way, say for documenting library policy and practice, more immediate than the G drive and able to be added to by all, with moderation of course. I guess in many ways the Fitch is a modified wiki. I am still interested in how recent things are, much of what I could find in my online browsing was either undated, or had been started in a burst of enthusiasm a few years ago and now lies abandoned. It is obviously, to me at any rate, important to date enteries clearly so the reader knows where they are in time. Also it is so easy to wander down side path after side path, so it is really important to ensure that the reader can always identify whrere they are in space too. A very worthwhile topic.

Library 2.0

I was interested that most of the literature exercise 10 points to is dated 2005/06. This either reflects when this programme was originally devised, or shows that most of the academic discussion has already taken place. The Wikipedia articles are of this era too, so I suspect it is the latter. The 5 articles listed contain ideas that I suspect would have been really interesting in their day, now they read to me like a template of where NSL is going/may end up. Talk of collaborative cataloguing and sharing - that is re-evaluating the "just in case" model of stock purchase - are part of the eLGAR ethos, and are topics under investigation. The ability to communicate interactively with users is well to the fore as we plan a new website. I would say that the benefits of articulating Library 2.0 is the gathering together thoughts and ideas about the future direction of library service, and conveniently bringing to our attention trends that, while obvious in hindsight, may have been missed by the profession for a long time.

Technorati

I had a deeper explore than in exercise 7 and i can see why I could not find my RSS blog in a search. Another thing to do tomorrow is add the capture the blog with the HTML thing. Anyways I searched for "Learning 2.0" in the 3 ways. In the general bit under searches there are 433 entries, in the blog 348 (well as of now) but with the same selection of You Tube clips appearing in the same place - high up on the 1st screen. In the tag cloud there are/were 176 entries, but strangely enough in all the clouds I could see - 2 different versions there was no mention of Learning 2.0. I can see that familiarity would increase use, on first opening up the site there is just so much stuff, and all seemingly frivilous, so why did I spend 1 minute 54 seconds watching a cat stalking the camera? Who has the time to watch all, any of this. However a search on Apron Strings, a film I want to see, brought up a short trailer. I guess I could have got the same result off Google, so Technorati's place is not a casual saercing tool but something I must learn to manage so that it will feed me what I want to know. As an aside, apart from all the frivilous stuff there is also a lot of dead and abandoned stuff, my tidy librarians mind screams for a good weed, but I suppose this in years to come will become a snapshot of this decade. God help us - or is that too cynical?

del.icio.us

I have explored, faltered and overcome, I think. Kind of like doing a Rubics cube, all that 3D thinking. I need to go back and look again just to consolidate. I got caught up reading the blog of a library manager I know who told me she was going to blog on a regular basis to her staff or was it the wide world/ As far as I can tell she stalled last year. I guess this is a specialist collection of material but I sure read about a lot of people from 2006 onwards getting to the end of 23 things. I am at home doing this on a laptop, when I get back to work I will add the del.icio.us button to my desktop. I can see getting a lot of use from this tool.

More RSS Feeding

An interesting exercise that may call me back at a later date - possibly. Bloglines search tool appeared to be a wonderfully, vaguely organised mish mash of info. Try searching uder antique silver or book reviews and the whole world opens at your feet, obviously one needs to be more specific, but there sure is a lot of rubbish out here. Do I feel tagging is going to be helpful here. SYNDIC8 says it is a community driven service. searching it leaves one dispearing of the community. It is like being lost in a wateland. 2002 - 2005 enteries are mainly syndicated, although some are awaiting repair. After that a rapid deterioration sets in, from 2006 onwards most sites are awaiting syndication or are polling. Presumably waiting for the community to get is collective vote sorted. The Internet is about Now! Syndicate proudly displays its 5 latest successes, one is about donkeys. depressing. Topix.net I found confusing and busy, and left it alone. Technorati looked promising and I played around with my RSS Feeds entry adding in "big daddy" to see if I could bring it up in a search, I found 35 entries, but mine, presumably no. 36 was not there. All in all informative, but for a while at least I will be feeding from single seleted sources I think.

RSS Feeds

I'm doing 2 posts for exercise 7. This is the RSS feeds themselves. I understood what they were so the philosophy of the exercise was not a mystery, but I did once again struggle with the practice. I have learnt 2 things. The first is not to rush, just because the computer goes at the speed of light doesn't mean I have to. Secondly - READ THE SCREEN - how often have I heard that. I have managed to set up 10 feeds, but I will go back later and delete most of them. Who has the time. Also having to remember to go to another place to read them is a bit daunting memorywise. i know why people want all their elife in 1 place. It's all about big daddy

Exercise 6 ebooks and similar

I remember talking about ebooks in the mid 1990s. They seemed to hold such promise, sure there were problems, battery life was short, the screen flickered, there were few titles available, but this could all be overcome surely. Well ebooks flared briefly and then appeared to disappear for a decade. Now they are back, last year's Sony ebook reader, this year's Kindle. Old problems have been sorted, new ones introduced - mainly around the ergonomics of use, the ability to riffle throgh the text, to jump backwards and forwards, however, these are minor matters. The single main advantage as I see it is the ability to be able to increase the size of the font. In one swoop opening up the entire world of literature to those condemned to use large print.Those who say "I will never read off a computer screen" miss the point and confuse the medium with the message, reading is reading. Look at the rows of books marching endlessly into the distance in the library. What will the view be like in 5 years time, probably not much different, but who would be brave enough to forecast that look in 10 years time. Tomorrow, Monday 15th Sept the firm Plastic Logic will release its E-Newspaper, a light weight plastic screen. We are living through the beginning of yet another revolution, one that will utterly change the way we provide our service, but will enhance the way we work with our customers.

See I can do this a second time!!

Another mission, I must go back and see if I can repeat this. Easy to do with Sarah sitting beside me, but quite difficult to work through I found. My problem was getting a photo from Fickr to somewhere I could then lad on to the mashup site for jigsaws

I thought I had if cracked, I followed the adive to flag this photo, which I did to a number I thought would make excellently challenging jigsaws. After flagging 6 or so photos I then went to look for this grouping I had created - nothing anywhere. After several deep breaths I read the help screen associated with flagging. turns out this function alerts the operators of Flickr of objectionable photos. Ah well at least I leaned something!!