Can't like em all

Well 2 outa 3 aint bad odds I cant expect to like all the things that are in the course. Del.ic.ious is not something I would ever use. It got to the point were I went and did an hours shelving to get away from it. I guess it's because unlike a lot of the other sites it doesn't spark my imagination where you look at a thing and think "If I just tweek it this way then you know that'd be great for...." and I can see me intergrating it into the system but Delicious just left a bad taste in my mouth. I get how it could be great for tagging sites but I find it more helpful to just tag the items like the SLQ catalogue site allows.

Enough on the bad now for the fun. It's always fun to pick up useless information and technorati let me jump from one blog to another grazing on the thoughts of a vast herd of blogs like a contented old milker lol. What a laugh regardless of how random a search I still come up with something whether it's dagging, orchids in Australia, or even "Double Dog Dares" I love this site for the entertainment value alone.

LibraryThing is another one I like. I've browsed this site on and off for a few years now (wouldn't create a bookshelf of my own because I've got way to many books in my home library lol). It's the sharing aspect that is something I'll be looking into more closely. With the local studies collection it'd be good to be able to compare what we have in our collection and what other people have collected that we might want to think about adding to our collection.

All in all a good bit of fun.

Feeding my habits

Have been using RSS/Bloglines for a couple of years now and I love it. One stop shop for all the sites I like to keep up with (most importantly Unshelved lol) you gotta love that sort of tech.
I luv the simplicity of the whole process and that at a glance I can see the changes in a site that may not update regularly but can have some pearls when it does.

Some of my sites (apart from the OPAL one) are ALIA, Unshelved and a tech blog called "Self plagerism is style". I've a variety of different types of sites and once every now and then I'll see what's new and what I might be able to use or modify if my work (professional development made easy lol).

We already offer the option of RSS in our library for our New item lists so customers can keep up to date with some of the top new items that come in and who knows, when we finally get a library blog happening we'll be able to offer it to keep our customers upto date in everything library instead of the e-newsletter once every so often.

Yeah I say when (and not if) cause I'm an optimist lol.

Looking in the social pages

I'll be the first to admit that I can't stand Facebook or Myspace. I've friends that live their entire lives on the sites but I'm flat out looking at it once a month. When I first joined Facebook 3 years ago I was amazed at how many people (not the use of people and not friends) that were all of a sudden wanting to be my friend. I'm not just talking about the random people that ask to be your friend but the people that I haven't seen (or thought of) for 10, 15 and in one case 25 years have put my name in the finder and out I come. I always laugh at the invites from high school classmates that I didn't even know and they're asking for a friendship.

I know, I know, very anti-social of me.

That rant said One of the ideas the girls and I had here was to use the site as an online bookclub so we can capture a wider group than is possible to make it to our branch library (and are interested in the sci-fi/fantasy genre). we're still trying to figure out how to run the site (or just let it run itself) and how we can then intergrate it into our library webpages (that being the harder part of the task).

Another way we're looking at using the social networks is for the young adults having a page for them that they can keep up with what is happening in the library for them and a direct line of communication to the YA librarian.

I'd be mad to dismiss the tech just because it bores me. I can see how it can be of use and am all for helping set it up but until I need I'm not gonna use it just for the sake of using it.

Burning the Wiki at both ends

I will confess to have been singing the praises of Wikis for a couple of years now. With all the hype you get about the errors and false information I've been using Wikipedia as a readers advisory tool for a long time now and have yet to be lead wrong.

I've no problems in pointing people to Wikipedia if they've got some research to do I tell them what I tell everyone who is gathering information off the Internet, evaluate the information before you believe it. Try for entries that have references and yes I know that references can be bogus but at some point we have to assume that not everyone out there is trying to twist you around and lead you down the garden path.

As for the other Wiki's I've looked at:
Wookieepedia - what a laugh as bad as some of the puns I throw out sometimes, a nice little fanatical site full of star wars "fluff" (and I know exactly who I'll pass this site onto lol)
BookLoversWiki - What a great idea to have an adults summer reading program may have to acquire the idea for our service.
Public Libraries Marketing Group - In all honesty I didn't look all that closely at this blog. I tried flicking pages to get a feel for it but all that really stuck out at me was the thought "is this a blog or a rainbow?" red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple writing was a bit much for me I'm afraid.

One thing that me and the IT girls have been bandying around is the possibility of getting a Logan Wiki together (in my spare time lol). We've got all this local knowledge here and what better way to disseminate it than to throw it to the world in a Wiki (well that's the theory anyway). I'm fortunate to be working with some IT gals that are proactive and supportive of bringing the library into the 2.0 age of technology.

That's all my pearls of wisdom for now so might as well amble off and pull up a pew at the pub.

Giving life the Flickr

I've been using Flickr for years now and always enjoy throwing random words in to see what comes out. Something I'm surprised that I never did previously is putting in my own name to see what comes out. While the image isn't very exciting you can still get the same kick as Google-ing yourself (assuming we're all as narcissistic as me lol).

Professionally I'm hoping that we'll be able to adopt a Flickr account for the Local Studies Collection for our contemporary shots of Logan and also aid in the identification of some of the images as well. My personal goal is to drag the library kicking and screaming into the 2.0 era and at least I've got the IT girls on my side.

Starting on a roll

The art of blogging,

To tell a story and have people read it

To think that everyone is entitled to you opinion

And should read it.

Heck yeah sign me up for this!

I don't claim I'll come up with anything deep and meaningful but being raised outside and now working inside I'm not what you'd call "typical" (if one was to use the shockingly old fashioned stereotype that I see perpetuated by some people in this profession lol).

It never ceases to amaze me how many of the people I have worked with over the years would rather bury their heads in the sand when it comes to new technologies instead of trying to keep up with the Joneses and staying one step ahead of our general public. I'm not one to call it life long learning I think a more appropriate term would be professional survival, if you stop learning you'll eventually get voted off the island. I'm hoping to see some new sites by doing this course and maybe even pick up some tips I didn't know.

And speaking of keeping up with the Joneses (just a bit of shameless self promotion here) We began our own 2.0 journey at Logan 6 weeks back with the staff participating (which is to say being the Guinea pigs) in our Web 2.0 program "The Joneses 2.0" which we hope to roll out for public mid year-ish.