All aboard

I visited the Answer board Librarians wiki a couple of days a go and looked at the exemplary answers section. It seems a good idea to slam the answer boards and to have a wiki. looked at the questions typically asked on these boards. Many are folk type queries. It also makes one think how information in authoritative sources like dictionaries is gathered where the meanings of words is based on usage. However librarians job is about providing access to organised knowledge and organising knowledge.

I went back again and looked at the exemplary answers and noticed the websites that were listed to find pictures of marine life. I found some sites I did not know and I added them to my delicious account - the first I had added. Great sense of achievement and satisfaction followed!
How can we get IT to let library staff add a widget to our reference and personal work computers!

Then I looked at another answer to a question on finding interesting facts about countries of the world and as I did not know these sources also added them to my delicious account. Wow! I'm having fun. Asker's rating for this answer was five stars and a comment like mine:

"Wow, Wow! Thanks so much! This site is amazing! It has everything! This is much better than CIA! Everyone should check this out. This is exactly what I was looking for thank you!"

Obviously this librarian knows his stuff and we can all benefit.

A little back tracking

Asked a colleague to help with adding widgets and did a little back tracking today to add a widget for delicious to my blog so others can view my recommended websites. I edited my entry Food for thought to reflect this.

Technorati again

Feel better today. Went to Technorati again and searched bookmobile in advanced search - tags and found item on digital bookmobile which will host a handson interactive training event at public libraries in cities around US in August 2008. This is an interesting find. It maybe a cost effective way of giving the public training in using technology which specialist staff. Maybe an idea for country services as long as internet wireless services are available. The advanced s

When I searched my blog address I got no result but I have not put any labels on my posts - surprise, surprise! I will label this one and try again. I have not labelled my Flickr images - is this why I don't get a result when searching nswpln2008?

Technorati

A quick post - checked out Technorati and searched bookmobile by regular search and using advance search which gave me the option to search tags. More accurate searching results.

Food for thought

I have managed to add a widget to my blog with the help of a colleague - I guess the tortoise gets there in the end.

Doing the LibraryThing

And there's still more exciting stuff to come. My problem now is not that I can't find the time to do Web 2.0 but that I don't want to do anything else. The possibilities are becoming clearer to me and I want to spend more and more time doing them. del.ici.us is a great tool for storing all those easily forgotten or unorganised websites we all collect. The problem of course will be people tagging dross as well as gold and this where the library comes in I guess. It will be good for specialists e.g. children's librarians to share their findings this way instead of my email. Then you can just need to search when you need to and can add those websites as they appear in your emails. I like Sutherland Libraries list and cloud and look forward to exploring the idea further at my next session. I came across The LibraryThing when assessing Amblib library websites and now see how easy it would be for my library to add it to the new library catalogue for others to create their own library catalogues.

Mytube?

Wow I'm up to Week 6. I looked around Youtube and set up an account and looked at the video embedded in the lesson, without sound because I am working on a library public access computer without sound enabled. Have got the picture so to speak but will go back and try sound on another pc later. I searched Youtube for Mosman Library and drew a blank but found The Chaser's war on everything - Mosman Mosque which I remembered seeing on TV. I will try Mosman library website later.

I am excited about the possibilities of using video in the library for example videoing elderly people for oral histories for local studies and giving people access via our new catalogue. As a children's librarian, the uses of videoing kids doing book reviews for Children's Book Week are not lost on me - great stuff. The possibilities are endless.

However as far the adventure of embedding any video from Youtube is concerned I am a little at sea about copyright - there is so much to read and so little time. I will have to go back and read more in depth things I have just skimmed so far.

Lighting the wiki!

At last I have got the idea of skimming around the tutorial and picking out the key bits. I looked at the SJCPL subject guides wiki the Wisconsin Heritage wiki and the Mint Museums, North Carolina wiki.

The the first one seems to be the webpage for the library but as a wiki is amendable. Patrons would not realise that it can be altered I think. (Am I skimming too fast?)
The Wisconsin Heritage Wiki needs a password for members to go into and amend so the general public cannot change it.
More at my next session I think I have had enough for today.

RSS Feeds

This is my second go at blogging about my RSS experiences. I thought that by clicking on save that I could go back to the draft later and so I have to begin again today.
I can see how to save as draft now but not how to view next time.

Anyway....What do I like about and newsfeeds - obviously getting latest posts on favourite blogs and latest news in selected subjects is a good thing. My problem is the wealth of information out there is mind boggling and perhaps less is more sometimes. I initially created RSS feeds which are probably not the most important blogs time wise. Next session I searched for Children's Literature blogs which will be professionally useful and found Jacketflap which itself lists 700 blogs on the topic but the musings of this many Americans may not serve me best and so I searched for the SL of Victoria's Children's Literature Blog but failed to add it to my feeds. I was successful in adding Judith Ridge's blog and as this is an Australian blog I think I will keep it.
Libraries can keep informed on topics relevant to their field through rss.

Caterpillar book bins

Caterpillar book bins, originally uploaded by judy_drayton.

Hurrah I blogged my photograph from Flickr. I feel chuffed. Using photographs for Children's work in public libraries is essential. As they say one picture's worth a thousand words in getting a message across to those who do not yet know they need the message.

I know that I have really benefitted from Week 3 which has definitely been an adventure which has lasted more than a week, despite some frustrations with the obsolence of my camera's standard XD card. I will use the new found creative commons to search for photographs which I can safely use for our new children's services flier.