Mash-Up

What a neat idea! This could be great for teen or younger kid's activities promotion, or if you had a TAG they could make their own zines or calenders for the library patrons.

Podcasts

What a great idea podcasts are. I can see them being utilised in a public library for poetry readings and author talks. It would be great to use them to deliver online books to library patrons. Personally, I appreciate being able to go to a radio program to listen and download a radio show that I missed, such as the Morris Gleitzman interview.

Fun in the Library

We had a PJ's and Stories session at work last night. We only had a few kids there, but we felt it was a good practice run. I want to do it again in October when we have 'Fairytale Month' (one of my brilliant ideas, lol). Last night we did a feltboard story (Mrs Honey's Hat), a stick puppet story (Lost at the Zoo), and a book (What's the Time, Mr Wolf?). We sang sleepytime songs like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Rock-a-bye your Bear. I will do more promotion for the next one, and maybe have it in the morning instead of at night so that we can invite a couple of kindy's to come along as well. I have photo's at work (thanks to my DS1 who was our camera man), I will post them in the next day or so. I wore Elmo pj's and had my hair in pigtails, my colleague wore Eeyore pj's and the most hilarious monkey slippers, lol, it was good fun.

Drying your washing

For those of us who wash our clothes and are then struck with the dilemma of how to dry said clothes without using a tumble drier, there is an interesting wiki called Air dry washing.

It was written/created by a person who wanted to know what the options were for line drying inside or out, but could not find an easy reference anywhere! Check it out. Did you know there was so many options?

Review Books for HarperCollins

Interested? Check out HarperCollins First Look
and register to become a reviewer today!

Slamming the Boards

This sounded like fun even before I knew what it meant. It kind of sounded like a cross between an actor and someone on a skateboard, yeehaa! But of course it is nothing like my overactive imagination! It is we, as knowledge masters of the world, uniting and answering questions on the WWW. Go Librarians!

I particularly like the idea of setting aside some time on a particular day of the month and 'slamming the boards' then. This idea was suggested on the 'Answer Board Librarians' wiki. I am yet to participate, but will do so in the near future.

I have claimed my blog

Still don't fully understand Technorati, but give me time and it will become clear. Anyway I, LibraryLover, do hereby claim my blog! My link to Technorati is LibraryLover

Technorati & LibraryThing

I checked out Technorati tonight. At first I looked at it and thought 'What the...?', so I went back to the learning 2.0 thingy and had a bit more of a read about what Technorati was, then went and looked at it a little more closely. I was interested to note that the 'rising' tags are dominated by American issues, so I guess they are the dominant posters at the moment. There is also a large amount of blogging about tecnology and gadgets, totally out of my realm of understanding, but probably very handy for those that are in the know.

I am having issues with my computer and so I couldn't join up, but I will do so soon.

LibraryThing - WOW! This would be so great for advertising our events! I took the tour - lovely and simple and very clear about how it is run and what you can do on it. I joined up and found it remarkably quick and easy to add some books to my library list.

I have fallen in love with del.icio.us. How great is it to be able to take your links with you. I had to laugh at myself, I had signed up to it a fair while ago and had put a link on there, but not in my favourites. So when I went to go to this website that I couldn't remember the name of, but knew i had bookmarked, I couldn't find it because I had forgotten all about putting it in del.icio.us! And there it was, three months later, waiting to be rediscovered by me (lol). If you are interested, my del.icio.us site is here - My Favourites

So my falling in love thing happened when I rediscovered del.icio.us through this web 2.0 learning thingy I am doing. I have now found so many more sites to add to it, and favourite blogs too, so that when I go away on holiday I can still get my fix of other peoples lives while enjoying my own! Yay! Blogs are such a great way of killing time.

Youtube, lol! The Librarian Song

Wikis

I delved into the world of wikis tonight (by the way, did you notice my RSS feed to the left of the screen? Yay, I did it!). I think the idea behind Wikis is good - everyone going to one page to place and edit information. You could use this to create library newsletters, say for a teen group, they can work on it from home and collaborate. It would also be useful for distance uni students to use when they have to collaborate on an assignment, no more of the toing and froing of emails.

One concern I have is noted in the 'Library success: A best practices wiki'. People can put in false information or use it to satisfy a personal vendetta, thereby making it necessary for someone to be responsible for monitoring the content and cleaning up where necessary. If there are ways of securing a wiki so that only certain people could access it to edit it then it could be used in the ways I mentioned above. I did think the 'Library success' was a great wiki, full of information of value to librarians everywhere. I noticed that they now require email confirmation, this is a good security measure and hopefully will limit any damage that can be done by mischief makers.

The 'Book lovers wiki ' is good value and could be used as a readers advisory (in a limited sense). Borrowers or prolific readers would be able to post their views on books, almost like a mini bookclub! There are blogs out there that provide a similar concept, but are limited to one persons opinion, whereas this wiki is open to many opinions.

'Wookiepedia', hmmm, what can I say....well, it is certainly a Star Wars lovers dream and entertaining reading. I do have to wonder why the people who post here haven't got something better to do, but each to their own I suppose. The info is out there in a galaxy far far way (LOL). Actually, it's rather close - the WWW galaxy, where all newcomers can find something to waste their time on, or expand their knowledge in ways they never expected. Ahh, now, that is the Jedi way.....

RSS

Well, I braved the world of RSS! I think I have the hang of it, but time will tell. Haven't quite worked out how to add an RSS feed to this blog, but I know someone I can ask.

Using RSS in the work place would be very time-saving. I love the way updates are automatically sent to you as they happen. Libraries that use this technology can keep more in touch with updated information which will certainly benefit library patrons.

Dropping By

It is very busy in the library at the moment, now that school holidays have descended upon us. It seems to be prime time for new memberships and parents looking for something to do with their children.

I am planning a trip to New Zealand later in the year and have been working out my itinerary and my budget. I have located little gems like http://www.standbycars.com.au/ which offers campervans and cars from as little as $1 per day. Wow! It simply asks that you deliver the car/van to another destination within a certain time frame. You can use this in Australia or NZ, so if there is any of you looking for a budget option for a little travel in Oz, this could be your answer.

I may decide to go with the Flexipass system instead. You buy a certain number of hours to access coach travel around New Zealand and if you prefer to sit back and let someone else do the driving then this is a good way to go. You can hop on and off as you please.

For information about New Zealand you can't really go past www.newzealand.com

What I am reading right now

Well, my blog post obviously! I am making the most of the long weekend and have done some major reading. So far I have read and enjoyed:

- 'Wild Lavender' by Belinda Alexandra. Ms Alexandra is visiting our library very soon and so I was keen to read her books. She has written three books, 'White Gardenia' (published 2003, I haven't yet read this one), 'Wild Lavender' (published 2005 and a great read), and 'Silver Wattle' (published 2007). This last book was the first one I read and it kept me reading, I started and finished it the same night to the amazement of my work colleagues (and my poor eyeballs). Go here to learn more about Ms Alexandra - http://www.harpercollins.com.au/global_scripts/product_catalog/author_xml.asp?authorid=AUS_0018805

- 'Seventh Son', 'Red Prophet' and 'Prentice Alvin' by Orson Scott Card. I feel like I have been revisiting an old friend as I have been a fan of Mr Card's for a number of years. These three books are part of The Tales of Alvin Maker series and the only ones I own. I will be requesting the other three when I get back to work. Check out Mr Card's official website - http://www.hatrack.com/index.shtml

- 'Uglies' by Scott Westerfeld. I really enjoyed this book and will checking out the sequel, 'Pretties' when I get back to work. Check out Mr Westerfeld's home page - http://www.scottwesterfeld.com/ and his blog - http://scottwesterfeld.com/blog/

And I am sure you are now asking how I have managed to get so much read and it is only Sunday night - well, I don't sleep much, because that would interrupt my reading! I have also managed to fit in some sewing and some cleaning and some playtime! A good day is a busy day.

well, you can see below that I had another go, but there is no photo, just a link. Is that what I am supposed to have? Lol, my ignorance is rearing it's head again.

Farm visit to the library on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Farm visit to the library on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

attempting to upload Flickr

well, today I tried Flickr for the first time. I use Photobucket regularly and was happy with it, so hadn't tried Flickr before. It went well until I tried to add a blog link to my photo, Google denied access because something was missing from Flickr's info! I think I will try again later, at home.

Some of the comments I have read on the NSW Learning 2.0 page discussed the issue of personal photos and allowing others to see them. Thankfully both Photobucket and Flickr allow you to set your Privacy settings so that photos you upload can be either Private or Public. I consider this to be sufficient protection.

One of the main benefits of these online photo albums is the opportunity to share your photos with family and friends who do not live close by. Another benefit is storage. I have lost a number of photos over the years, either because my computer has crashed and deleted everything; or I have upgraded my software and my 'burnt to cd' photos no longer open because the program is incompatible. Being able to put your photos into WWW storage that can be accessed anywhere, anytime, is perfect.

Ok, this picture isn't working, it is supposed to show a picture of the front cover of the Ender's Game book. If you click on it anyway, it will take you there and you can browse other titles.

Online reading for teens

I was sent a link to a website today and thought I would share it
http://www.incwell.com/ipulp/libraryINDEX.html

It is called iPulp Fiction and is a free online fiction magazine for readers 10 to adult.
I was excited to find that they had a book by Orson Scott Card, who I thoroughly enjoy and would recommend to anyone with a taste for science fiction.

I acknowledge my ignorance

I have a couple of different blogs, on a couple of different websites, that address work and other areas of my life. I don't think they are particularly interesting, but I use them as a way of communicating with friends who live far away, or as a way to get something off my chest. I read a book recently that talked about diffrent ways of making your blog more interesting, one of those was carrying around a notebook and noting things down that might be interesting to elaborate on or include in your blog.

I have come across a number of different blogs - personal, informative, well or poorly written, in foreign languages, they are as diverse as the human race!

I am hoping to gain some new skills in blogging from the Library 2.0 sessions, I know a bit but can appreciate my ignorance.

I think blogs can play a great part in getting information to the public about what services a library provides. It is a potentially viable marketing tool, particularly to the more tech savvy people.