A Suitable Blog

Evaluation

2009-12-20T17:34:00.000-08:00

I love knowing how many people read my blog, where they come from and how they found it. I have put Sitemeter on all of my personal and work blogs and wikis. It is fascinating to discover what someone googled in order to land on your site. I created a wiki for local history and it has proven to be a popular site. It seems to me that the more a site is viewed, the more likely it is to be high up on a Google results page. The statistics provided do allow me to justify the existence of my sites and the time I spend creating and maintaining them.

I set up some Google Alerts for the library and I think it is great to be able to find out what others are saying about you online. Admittedly others aren't saying a great deal but I think this is an excellent alert to have in place in order to capture people's opinions about the library that they may not share with us directly.

As for Survey Monkey, I have filled out lots of surveys after attending seminars at the State Library so I know how easy they are to complete. Now that I know how easy they are to set up I will use them in the library. I think, considering that we have many non-computer users at the library, that they would have to be usd in conjunction with other methods of seeking feedback unless we were surveying an online community.

Delicious

2009-12-08T16:48:00.000-08:00

Oh dear, I have fallen a bit behind. This really is a busy time of year but I will try to catch up. I haven't done much with the delicious account I set up last year though I do use the library one. I have just done some of the suggested searching and found some fabulous sites to bookmark. I really like how very oaganised delicious can be. Rather than just making a favourite of every great site you come across, it makes much more sense to tag them and the cloud is such a great, visual tool.

I have added my tag cloud to this blog and it makes my area of interest rather obvious....

Tweet tweet

2009-11-01T19:37:00.000-08:00

Though hardly a Luddite, I have been resisting the lure of Twitter. On a personal level, I suppose I find it a little too....self absorbed to feel the need to share every move with others. I used to feel something similar about blogging, many years ago, but I do that with abandon now. I think the difference is that when I post something on my blog, it is something reasonably substantial and lets friends and family feel as though they are up with what we are doing. So many tweets seem to be rather....well, boring :) But, that is just the personal side. For libraries, or any institution really, I think Twitter can be a very useful tool to keep customers updated. I can see that informing people of what is being planned and then say that it is coming up and then reminding people on the day, could be a very good way of using Twitter.

Twitter is very easy to use, though I haven't tried on my phone yet. I joined for myself but will join for the library so I can let people know about our three summer reading clubs, the book club party and random summer events. I won't start tweeting about what I had for lunch, but I just might get hooked at work.

Learning 2.1

2009-10-26T15:28:00.000-07:00

We're back! I really enjoyed Learning 2.0 so am looking forward to finding lots of new ways to use Web 2.0 technology in the library. There are lots of things that I use regularly at home and at work but as I am not into new technology for its own sake, there are lots of things I either don't know about or simply don't use. I have been blogging at home for around six years and currently use this blog to keep friends and family up to date with photos of the kids and have lately been indulging in a little food blogging. Not only did I cook this, post the recipe and take the photo, I made a lightbox using an online tutorial.

There are lots of blogs that I follow. Many belong to family and friends, some friends that I have made through blogging. Not Quite Nigella is my favourite food blogger. I do comment on others' blogs and love receiving comments on mine but I think, culturally, Australians aren't big commenters.

For work I do still have a functioning blog, though I confess that it is sadly neglected. It is a book review blog and I do have plans to get it moving along again. I also have a few wikis on the go, the main one being Wagga on the Web. This wiki has around 16 different people visit in a day, viewing over 50 pages. The community seem to be taking it on, using it, joining and contributing. I suppose the key is to find something people are really interested in and let them know about it.

I've finished!

2008-04-18T22:17:00.000-07:00

I have really enjoyed this course and have learnt a great deal. Thank-you to all involved at the State Library, you have done a great job.

Mashups

2008-04-18T21:56:00.000-07:00

This is me, Warhol style. What fun! There are so many ways you could use these in a library. To promote events and collections it would be great to alter images and I love the use of Google maps.

Social Networking and Second Life

2008-04-18T19:53:00.000-07:00

Hmmm.... before we installed a management system on our public access computers we used to have people who spent all day every day on the computer at the library. We joked that now they have to get an actual, as opposed to a virtual, life. I think social networking sites have their uses, I play scrabble daily on Facebook and do nothing else with it, but I think there is a danger of major time-wasting and the avoidance of face to face social activity. That said, if that is where people are then I think it could be worthwhile to have a library presence so they are aware of us and what we do.

Online applications and tools

2008-04-17T23:11:00.000-07:00

I really love the idea of online applications. The possibility of creating a document and being able to access it from any computer along with others and to, so easily, collaborate with others is really great. The few times I have used it, however, I have had a little trouble getting things to work. I made a presentation in Google Docs and asked it to upload some slides I have already done on Power Point but it didn't quite manage it. Zamzar has also been unavailable at times. Still, they are free and accessible from any computer with Internet access. For a public library I can see a lot of advantages. People can save documents without needing a thumb drive and can create all manner of documents online....if it works.

Podcasts

2008-04-14T17:16:00.000-07:00

I can see the possible uses for podcasts and vodcasts, but I'm not sure that we will use them very much. Potentially I think it could be a way of making sure all staff can benefit from training, even if they were unable to attend. When we have events at the library we could put them on our website for everyone to enjoy. We recently had a Seniors' Week/National Trust event where a local historian gave a presentation on the Tichborne case and it was suggested that we should have recorded his talk. I can see that for local history purposes I could in fact bring myself to look into podcasting. I suppose I have sort of done it already as we have sound grabs of oral histories on our website. Perhaps I am overcoming my reluctance...

Slamming the boards

2008-04-13T23:09:00.000-07:00

People ask such bizarre questions! I also get the impression that many of them haven't even tried Google before posting the question. I think librarians are, quite obvoiusly, in the best position to answer these questions. We have access to information resources, are skilled in searching for information and, unlike many of the people providing answers, are able to answer seriously and comprehensively. Whether it is really a good thing for us to be doing with our time, I'm not sure. Does my council, and therefore the ratepayers, want to pay me to answer questions from all around the world? Probably not, perhaps only in my own time for the express purpose of building our reputation as information providers. I'll admit I had fun answering the two questions and look forward to finding out if they liked my answers.
Our OPAC has the capabilities for users to add reviews to resources. I haven't seen any statistics on it but there does not seem to be much activity there yet. It has not, in any way, been promoted so maybe people don't know they can add to the catalogue, and I imagine that users will need to change their perceptions of libraries if they are going to use our catalogue like Amazon or any other collaborative site. How do we get people started?

Library Thing

2008-04-10T21:34:00.000-07:00

I'm hooked! Library Thing is great. I can see myself spending ages putting all my books on it. I have only done six so far - you can see my library here. I love that you can see who has the same books you do. It will be great for readers advisory because I will be able to look at the libraries of people who love books that I love, and find out what other books they have loved. I have put the widget on the blog, but don't bother searching my library yet as I only have six titles!

Mmm, del.icio.us

2008-04-07T21:54:00.000-07:00

We have had a del.icio.us tag cloud for a year or so at Wagga City Library and it replaced a list of useful links. I taught a seniors' Internet class this morning and told them that one way of getting reliable information and cutting down on information overload, is to go to the library's tag cloud because those links have been chosen by librarians as good sources of information. Of course, our library website is down so we couldn't actually see the tag cloud!
My tag cloud is here. It took me a little while to get the buttons onto my toolbar but now they're there it is just so easy to add tags. I see the advantages as being that del.icio.us contains much more information than a traditional favourites list. There are some great options for manipulating the tags, like bundling them. When you are not on your own computer, which happens often at work and if you travel, it is excellent to be able to access your favourites online. A bit like RSS feeds, I didn't really see the point of this for myself until I set it up. As local studies librarian I get a lot of family history enquiries and I would love to send people to a bundle of all my favourite genealogy sites. We all like to simplify things and it is especially important for older people when it comes to computers so I am going to get busy tagging and bundling.

Video

2008-04-07T20:49:00.000-07:00

This is a very frustrating subject to do at work because our network is so slow that watching videos is an exercise in patience, if it works at all. I have enjoyed people's personal videos on blogs for a long time - children being cute, weddings, memorial services etc. My husband is often watching funny videos on YouTube, or music videos. I think there are lots of ways video could be used on library websites. A quick tutorial on how you use the databases, news or new resources and lots of ways to showcase local studies material that is not able to be borrowed.

I havn't actually seen the video I am embedding - I'll have to do that at home. I do hope it isn't inappropriate!

Wikis

2008-03-27T19:30:00.000-07:00

Unlike most people, I don't have much experience with Wikipedia. Our council network used to block Wikipedia for offensive material so I never got in the habit of using it, preferring to use our databases. Recently I have been using the Readers Advisory wiki , especially after attending the State Library seminar where they ran through how you use it. I really came to see the advantages of a wiki and have since made a couple of contributions to it.
Today I had a look at The Mint Museum Library wiki, the library best practices wiki and the book lovers' wiki. I think the BookLovers wiki looks fabulous and while it is very plain, the best practices wiki could be very useful. It has taken me a while to warm to wikis but now I really think they could be very beneficial in libraries. We currently have a reference blog where we post interesting information needs and how we filled them, school assignments and tricky questions etc and we can search it but it is possible that a wiki could be much easier to navigate. Wikis have a more complicated structure that would make it easier to classify the information and make it easier to find. The main problem I foresee is getting people to use it - just a matter of getting used to it I suppose.

RSS feeds

2008-03-16T20:25:00.000-07:00

I have, thus far, ignored RSS feeds. Partly because 'real simple' is 'real bad' grammar, and partly because I didn't think it was too much hassle to quickly check all the blogs or sites you like, using your links or favourites. I would have to say, though, that I am now a convert. It is annoying when you keep checking a particular blog and it hasn't been updated and I think that, particularly in a work situation, Bloglines can really save you time by just letting you know when there is something to see.
So far I have subscribed to all the suggested blogs, some personal ones and a few other library ones I found. I particularly like Mosman Library's blogs. I also added Wagga's Reference Updates blog which we use to keep all reference desk staff sharing the knowledge they gain during their shifts. Whenever we get a tricky question, one that is likely to come up often (like school assignments) or just one where we are pretty pleased with the information we found, we post about it on the blog and it can be searched when we get an inquiry to ensure we're not doing work that has already been done! It can be hard to remember to check the blog, especially when you are busy, so having an RSS reader can be helpful because you set it all up beforehand and it just alerts you when there are things you need to read.

Opera house ceiling

2008-03-07T18:43:00.001-08:00

Opera house ceiling, originally uploaded by tfabas.

This photo was taken by my brother when he was in Budapest a few years ago. I found it today by searching for 'opera house ceiling Budapest' and found it along with many others. He went to see the Nutcracker Suite and decided to take his neices when they were old enough. Last November he took my eldest daughter to see it at the Sydney Opera House.
It is great to be able to use Flickr a bit like Google Images. I have found pictures of potential hotels this way. It highlights the importance of tagging, so I just joined the Libraries and Librarians - Please tag the images you add! group.

Wagga City Library on Flickr

2008-03-06T21:23:00.001-08:00

Wagga City Library, originally uploaded by waggacitylibrary.

I have just created two new Flickr accounts. One for me and one for the library. The photo above has gone to the library account. It took me a while to find a decent photo without people in it, but I finally did it. I have found Flickr very easy to use and am looking forward to putting more library photos up. I haven't done much tagging before, I have not used tags on my blog until now, but I will do it from now on because I think they make your posts easy to find and also, I love indexing!

Welcome to my new blog

2008-03-06T18:36:00.000-08:00

This isn't my first blog. I've had a personal blog for years and it isn't even my first library blog. Even so I am really looking forward to the Learning 2.0 journey because I want to be able to use Web 2.0 effectively. I started a local history blog but found that the main audience for such a topic is not made up of those most comfortable with the technology. I have started weekly Internet classes in an attempt to build people's confidence and increase their awareness. We'll just have to see how that goes.

I think the potential of Library 2.0 is enormous, particularly in my own area of local studies. Local studies collections are made much richer by the inclusion of personal memory. In a project undertaken last year, we digitised a collection of material relating to a women's radio club that existed from the 1930s to the 1960s. We put webpages up on the library's website. In an attempt to capture the personal memories of women who had been in the club, and their families, we created two blogs and asked them to share their memories.

We did get a couple of comments but realised that the people old enough to have been in the women's club probably felt they were too old for blogs!