Challenge Me

#23 Is this really the end? Or just the beginning ...

2006-12-15T14:42:00.000+11:00

Well, a big thankyou to PLCMC and YPRL for offering this learning "thing". I've met my "Challenge" and learned heaps about what the internet now has to offer and how it's being used - very differently from the days I first started searching and browsing many years ago now. Web 2.0 is a whole world I hardly new existed and I now see the purpose for having "space" and sharing it. Most of what I saw was shared by people a lot younger than me, but I can see how we should be creating a much more interactive website for our own library.

One thing I did keep noticing, was that most of these tools were very American but then so was the World Wide Web originally. I hope to see a lot more Australian content in the future.

Probably my favourite things were Zoho Writer, Image Generators and Library Thing.
They were tools I have never used before and had lots of fun. Again thankyou for offering me the opportunity to participate in life long learning.

#22 Audiobooks (or "The end is in sight ")

2006-12-15T12:17:00.000+11:00

We have a subscription to Netlibrary for ebooks available from the Yarra Plenty catalogue, but unfortunately eAudiobooks aren't included at the moment so I couldn't listen to anything. I hope we get this feature in the future!

I've been to World eBook Fair to look at the eaudiobooks there. The site is very easy to use. There is a choice of human voice and computer voice books to listen to. They open in Media Player. I listened to The Tale of Peter Rabbit and Shakespeare's Sonnet #29 both read by humans with thick American accents - ghastly! I then tried Jungle Tales of Tarzan read by a computer voice - I'm not sure which was scarier!!!

#21 Podcasts, Smodcasts!

2006-12-15T10:26:00.000+11:00

I had a look at podcasts for my Web 2.0 Thing. This time I've looked at Yahoo podcasts. Again, there isn't much Australian content. I did a search on Nancy Pearl - the buzz person at the moment for librarians. I found a public radio program - KUOW 94.9 where she does regular book reviews. I've added this feed to my Bloglines account.

YouTube

2006-12-14T16:41:00.000+11:00

Well, I found a lot of rubbish on YouTube, but it is a sharing space for anyone to add video clips. I did find some fun stuff and had difficulty adding the clip I wanted to display from the BBC series "The IT Crowd". There was an error in the tag for the HTML. I tried several times, and finally settled on the clip in my post below. Hope you find it mildly amusing.

#20 You too can YouTube

2006-12-12T17:05:00.000+11:00

#19 Discovering Web 2.0 tools

2006-12-11T16:33:00.001+11:00

I was amazed to find out there are between 300 and 500 Web2.0 tools so far on the internet. I have realised most of them are in Beta, so I wonder how many will actually stay around. I found this amazing podcast in ODEO from Geek News Central. Just listening to the sound of it made me laugh! It's sponsored by godaddy.com a website building site.

I had a look at some of the tools from the Web 2.0 Awards site. Some of them we have already looked at on our discovery (or My Challenge) so I decided to look at a few different ones. There's lots of music stuff, but I decided to look at podcasts. Podcasts could be added to our libray website if they were of appropriate content. Most of the ones I saw were very American!

#18 Web-based Apps: They're not just for desktops

2006-12-08T14:03:00.000+11:00

Zoho was a bit of fun. Again, another "space" where you can create documents from the web instead of your PC and access them from anywhere. Great idea for those who don't alway use the same PC. Check out my blog under this one.

Zoho

2006-12-08T10:24:00.000+11:00

So this is Christmas
And what have you done
Another year over
And a new one just begun
And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear one
The old and the young

#17 Playing around with PBWiki

2006-12-06T12:16:00.000+11:00

It's interesting to read about fav books, restaurants and music from the other side of the world. I was hesitant to add to this wiki, but I have added my blog to the Fav Blogs page. Under the Aussie blogs, of course!

#16 So what’s in a wiki?

2006-12-05T11:18:00.000+11:00

I came across Wikipedia some years ago while doing a search for a borrower on the information desk. I remember being amazed at the entries I found, because they didn't appear to be serious. I was looking for authoritive information and wasn't really impressed with what I found and haven't really used it ever since. I never thought to look for current information like who the 12 finalists for American Idol were as suggested in The Age article on Saturday 2nd December Know-alls.
After reading more about wikis from the links on the PLMC blog I now understand more about what a Wiki is about and realise their potential for their use in libraries. I think they would work really well as suggested for communicating about a particular topic instead of sending fifty million emails backwards and forwards. I also think the wiki at Princeton Public Library is a great way for us to make a Reader's Advisory space that anyone can contribute to.

#15 On Library 2.0 & Web 2.0 ...

2006-12-01T13:47:00.000+11:00

I remember reading about the notion that libraries of the future have been around for awhile now. Architecturally they have changed in their design and don't have walls lined with books. They have had "spaces" for people and computers, books and magazines have been interspersed throughout the building. Library2.0 is like an extension of those"spaces" being available online.
Wendy Schultz's article To a temporary place in time...
makes an interesting point though " people will still need experienced tour guides" and "People will collect librarians rather than books—the ability not just to organise, but also to annotate and compare books and other information sources, from a variety of useful perspectives".

The Geeks shall inherit the earth

2006-11-21T15:17:00.000+11:00

I've just read this article from a Bulletin magazine and would like to share it!!!

#14 Getting not-so-technical with Technorati

2006-11-21T13:43:00.000+11:00

Technorati is a web space that is used for tracking blogs. It is searchable in a few ways. I did a search for "Learning 2.0" and the results are quite different . The Blog posts search gave a results list that you might expect to see if you did a search using a search engine. The tags search found the posts that use that tag and the Blog directory search listed the bloggers using the tag. I've claimed my blog and added the tag "yprl" to my favourite blogs.
Technorati Profile

#13 Tagging, folksomonies & social bookmarking in Del.icio.us

2006-11-20T14:56:00.000+11:00

Del.icio.us is the obvious "thing" to come after Rollyo. I thought being able to design your own search engine was a pretty clever thing to be able to do, and now you can carry around your bookmarks on any PC with a Delicious account. The idea of tagging is new to me, but I'm starting to understand it a lot better now. I have recently started a gmail account and have found it very different to use from any other email. I couldn't quite understand why I couldn't create folders. Now I realise I don't need to. I found this article a great explanation on the use of tags and the power of flat hierarchy. Delicious could easily be used as a shared information tool for library staff collecting articles on a similar subject. Like a lot of the Library2.0 "things" the uses are endless.

#12 Roll your own search engine

2006-11-10T21:08:00.000+11:00

Rollyo is a great tool. It is a little bit like using bookmarks, but having your own chosen sites in one spot to do a search is such a great idea. Not only can you link from your blog or website, but you can also add Rollyo to your toolbar.

#11 A thing about LibraryThing

2006-11-08T21:23:00.000+11:00

I've finally made it to Library Thing. I've been reading about it on lots of other blogs and it sounds like a really organised easy to use site - funny about that - it was set up by library workers...methodical, organised, practical workers. It's great. I'd like to recommend it to lots of people I know who have vast book collections. I work in a library, so my collection is quite limited. I learnt how to borrow instead of buy some time ago. But I will use it for its sharing ability.

A few of my favourites from my wee collection are here.

#10 Play around with Image Generators

2006-11-06T21:35:00.000+11:00

Check this out!!!
Go to The Generator Blog and have a play

Finding Feeds #9

2006-11-06T14:48:00.000+11:00

I've had a look at various search tools for finding feeds and now understand quite easily how to add them to my Bloglines account. (And how to find them again - I expected to see a magical link from my blog). I liked Bloglines search tool the best, as I found it clean and simple to use. Technorati I found a bit overwhelming as there is so much there to look at. Topix.net is great for newsey stuff. I would like to know how to link my subscriptions to my blog. Can anybody help with this?

http://www.bloglines.com/public/jbits

Photos & Images #6

2006-11-03T21:50:00.000+11:00

Well, there you go...I just couldn't keep away from flickr . It keeps drawing me back. I've looked at heaps of stuff in fd's Flickr Toys and I loved the caption maker, but I couldn't get the caption small enough to fit on the pic, or the pic big enough to fit the caption. I'll go back to it. Anyway, my vicebits buddy worked out how to load the badge I'd been trying to publish for houuuurs! So thanks heaps radnoel. This is such a great networking project.

RSS & Newsreaders #8

2006-11-02T14:50:00.000+11:00

Well apparently I've successfully setup a Bloglines account! I know, because it told me I had and I've logged in and I've subscribed to 2 feeds, but where are they?

Week 3 #7

2006-10-27T13:48:00.000+10:00

I have recently discovered tablets - no, not the ones you swallow -they are really neat little devices that you use a stylus (plastic stick) to write with on the screen in your own handwriting. As quickly as you can write, the writing is converted into text in Microsoft Word (or whatever) on the screen!!!!! Well I thought it was really neat.

Flickred Out

2006-10-27T13:44:00.000+10:00

Ok, the best thing to do when you come across a block in learning is to move on and come back to it later...so I'm moving on and I hope to come back to flickr when I can settle down a bit after trying to load my flickr badge about 11t8 times.

Transformed

2006-10-26T17:00:00.000+10:00

Transformed
Originally uploaded by Jennet Bits.

I have become extreeeeeeeemely frustrated with flickr - I''ve been trying to post stuff for 4 days. In the meantime, you can see how busy I've been with my restoration piece.

Week 3 Thing #5

2006-10-21T10:59:00.000+10:00

This is a pic of another challenge happening to me. I need to paint this dressing table white, so I've decided to use this space to record my progress. I wonder if I'll be able to complete both projects!!!

2006-10-20T20:56:00.000+10:00

Ok, so this is a challenge...one of many now and many more to come, I'm sure. Lets see what happens here.