But wait... there's more!

Now that I've finished the course, I've had a bit of time to have a look at some other learning 2.0 blogs. You've really got to check out:

1. Atticus Mockingbird - thanks for the 'free use' Flickr group and 12 Free Online Collaboration Tools tips

2. Bambino's Bloggerama - thanks for "Get A First Life" parody site and NetLingo

Both of these blogs have well considered thoughts about their experiences of the web 2.0 stuff we've been doing. Hope you guys keep on blogging.

I'm embracing the new adventure, too. Been participating in an MBTI forum on LibraryThing. It's mostly US members so far and the odd UK one. If you're interested in psychological type and personality styles by all means join me and double the oz contingent there. If you've signed up for LibraryThing then you will have noticed that there are a lot of interesting groups to join there. Not many based on my library for some reason. I wonder what that says about my reading tastes?

Anyway, I'll start going through some more learning 2.0 blogs and see what other goodies I can find.

PS - I couldn't resist the Tim Shaw graphic. Google images has a lot to answer for. Sorry, no free steak knives with this blog, yet. This, of course, is a dead give away that I'm a member of Gen D - the Demtel generation.

PPS - the Demtel page is just waiting to be written on wikipedia - any takers?

Finished! What's for dessert?

Well, finished the course. Had a great time exploring this stuff. Now participating in some LibraryThing discussions, setting up another blog, fiddling with code in blog templates, and other neat things.

Got this weeks email newsletter from download.com which keeps me up to date with new and interesting software developments and what should the lead story be but........web 2.0 software. And not just that, but a site devoted to keeping you up to date on it, Webware. And what is their latest thing...... Webware Top 100, the 100 top Web 2.0 apps, 10 each in 10 categories, according to Webware users and the fans. I've already subscribed to the feed for the site. Check it out. It also has a range of newbie guides to web 2.0 stuff which i will explore later.

While there, I also found an article on Dilbert meets Web 2.0, how Scott Adams is adapting his Dilbert comic strip to include web 2.0 elements, hence the graphic above. How good is that?

So, thanks to the State Library team for getting all this going. Well done guys.

And now........roll on Web 3.0, whatever that may be!

Get a life, will ya!

Social networking sites can certainly be useful for promotion and any sort of communication, feedback, interaction, engagement with customers. As long as, like any other strategy, you're sure about the objective that you want to achieve by using it and you commit enough resources to do it well rather than doing it half arsed. Certainly myspace has been used by libraries, especially US ones, to reach youth segments. The Library Success Wiki has a page on successful Public Library MySpace sites for teens which seems to be the market that uses it. My 18 year old used to spend a lot of time on it but he seems to be over it now. Phone and IM seems to be more the go.

Online polling options on some of these sites also give you the ability to do some basic market research as well.

Second life? Puhlease.....get a real life not a second hand one. I think I'd rather watch paint dry or watch grass grow.

I am obviously not the demographic for second life. Do we have to serve the people who are? They look happy enough there without us interrupting them. I'm sure if we tiptoe away.....ever so quietly...... they won't even notice us. Run for your lives!!!!!

I'm free!

Free productivity tools are fine, but I still like 'em on my desktop. For free, I can get OpenOffice and have it on my PC. The project management software on Zoho is limited to one project. Anyway, I got a great little project manager on a computer magazine disc for the price of the magazine. The next month I also got a mind mapping program that integrates with it. It seems like there is a free photo editor or video editor on almost every computer magazine disc that I see these days. When I'm looking for free software or shareware, I also go to download.com and usually find something, including pdf converters.

Slideshare is OK. Now that I have a Google account, though, in the interests of simplicity I'll stick with Google docs. Zoho's wiki interface has the best range of toolbar functions of all the free wikis that I've looked at but the lack of responses on their help page is a worry, especially as they have left them there for all to see for months. Not a good sign. Have a look at Nexo. It combines blog, wiki, docs storage (including photos and video), chat/forums etc in one site. Privacy settings are a bit complicated , though, but worth a look.

Overall, I'm experimenting with these free productivity tools, but they still have some way to go before they are really compelling to use. Having said that, they certainly have some potential to become compelling. In the workplace, I think the security factor may work against them. Setting up similar file sharing on an intranet using something like MS Sharepoint may appeal more to the Council IT dept. For sharing non sensitive and non confidential stuff, especially over many sites using virtual teams, these tools will be fine. I've even put up one of my favourite marketing planning documents on Google docs. It was published in 1996 but I think it still has a lot to offer today.

Mash me up, Scotty.

Checked out the big huge labs stuff. It's OK. Reminds me a bit of Publisher style stuff. Created the billboard there. Got the photo from Flickr. Has possibilities for promotional stuff and fooling around with staff photos on the intranet. Free is free, I suppose, but I still prefer some good software on my desktop rather than the web based stuff. And I don't mind paying for it if its good and it does what I want, especially if I can get it cheap on a computer magazine disc.

Mashups article in wikipedia says

"Mashups currently come in three general flavors: consumer mashups, data mashups, and business mashups.

The best known type is the consumer mashup, best exemplified by the many Google Maps applications. Consumer mashups combine data elements from multiple sources, hiding this behind a simple unified graphical interface.

Other common types are "data mashups" and "enterprise mashups".

A data mashup mixes data of similar types from different sources (see Yahoo Pipes), as for example combining the data from multiple RSS feeds into a single feed with a graphical front end. An enterprise mashup (see Denodo Technologies & JackBe), usually integrates data from internal and external sources - for example, it could create a market share report by combining an external list of all houses sold in the last week with internal data about which houses one agency sold.

A business mashup is a combination of all the above, focusing on both data aggregation and presentation, and additionally adding collaborative functionality, making the end result suitable for use as a business application."

There's a lot of other info there including links to other mashup sites. The data and business mashups sound like they are worth investigating but I'm not sure that they will do anything for me that some good desktop software won't do anyway.

Invasion of the "pod people"

I realise now that all the people with wires hanging out of their heads are part of the advance force of the pod people. The ABC and Library Success Wiki are merely instruments of their grand design....... What? Oh. Sorry, I've been listening to too many sci fi podcasts, I think.

Podcasts on the ABC are great. Love going back to them for stuff that I've missed or just to find something interesting to listen to. Check out Trainspotter Tim Fischer's "Great Train Show" on the ABC site for a rollicking good time.

Obvious application for podcasts and vodcasts is local studies oral history projects and library events generally, e.g. author visits etc.

I think we will need to get some training on using the video and audio equipment for them to look and sound professional. Unless we get a grant to do it....... Hoping that there will still be grants

Slammin' the boards?

Gee, I don't know about "slammin the boards". Sounds a bit too try hard to me. A touch of the "let's sound like cool and groovy librarians". Is it just me or do librarians trying to sound cool always sound lame? I think I'd rather watch paint dry.

Could be OK for training I suppose, or if you haven't got a life. Could be good if set up locally, or cooperatively. Ask a Librarian type thing. I can't see my Council wanting me to spend work time on Yahoo answers, as rivetting as that may be. Providing Bruce McAvaney with my most romantic getaway destination may not impress them as a great use of my professional time.

A great use of my time however is reading "Annoyed Librarian" Check out the article on "Library stress reduction" and others. A delightful style and sense of humour. Libraries....it's not a tough gig. We're not solving world peace and world poverty here. Relax and enjoy it.

By the way, did you like the cartoon? Check out "Unshelved - the library comic strip" for more library humour.

Widget wonderland

Found a widget to enable recent comments to be added at the bottom of each post. Now that the widget is installed, if you click on the title of any post, the comments on that post will appear underneath it. Neat.

I did a google search on "show comments" and eventually settled on this one. There may be more out there but this one seems to work fine.

The site looks pretty good, too. It's called "Tips for new bloggers". It's got a huuuuuge amount of customizable stuff for your blog. Got the code for the three column layout and other stuff from there. Check it out. Also, have a look at Blogger templates. Lots of stuff there, too.

It's not you, it's your LibraryThing!

Checked out the Kingston Library site (Thanks Bambino for the tip). Integrated LibraryThing into the catalogue. Neat. Tag clouds, lists of similar works from LibraryThing, etc. can't wait to get it into our catalogue.

Even created my own LibraryThing account. I'm getting a bit attached to it, adding a few items each day. It's strange looking at the things that I read grouped on a computer screen. On the bookshelves at home they are part of the furniture and I tend to take them for granted. Now that I'm adding them to my LibraryThing account, I'm going over them and starting to reread some.

I'm also asking myself, who is this person reading this stuff? Is that really me? Waxing a bit metaphysical here....... quick, back to reality. Well....sort of.....

I was reading an article in the Herald on the weekend about reading and relationships ( I know, I know... but it was a dull footy weekend, I'd had a couple of beers and I'd been watching grass grow for a while). It was called " It's not you, it's your books!" Literary taste can be seen as a guide to compatibility, but don't read too much into it, writes Rachel Donadio. So, I'm thinking LibraryThing could be a bit of a two edged sword for those out there looking for their one true love.

Fortunately the conclusion of the writer was "For most people, love conquers literary taste. " Just as well! I don't think my one true love reads anything that I read and vice versa. We just read different stuff and tell each other about . If we both had LibraryThings, I think the only common books on them would be the ones that we read to the kids when they were young. We've been married for 34 years and it works for us.

Mmmmm! del.icio.us.

I love del.icio.us.

All the bookmarks that I want to use everywhere are now in one place categorized in the way that I think. Simple and easy to use.

So far, I'm just using it for my strategic marketing planning links, but I'll eventually add other stuff to.

Mmmmmm.......wouldn't it be nice to have all our Homework help and FAQs on delicious, too.

YouTube me

I must admit, I do love YouTube. My youngest son (18 yo) and I often trawl throught the comedy videos, especially Bill Bailey who is a very talented and funny man.

Check out his theory that all classical music is derived from a few themes in cockney music.



I also found some interesting one minute marketing videos from Harris County Public Library in the US.



And check out this great clip from Pete Denahy called "Sort of dunno nothing". Me and my boys love it...although my wife is sick of us playing it and laughing so much, not to mention tapping out the riff on every solid surface we can find..