Week 7 - Video Sites

I totally luuuurrrvvvvve YouTube. I rate it highly as having both entertainment and educational value. I frequently use it to show my kids all kinds of things they are curious about: anything from polar bears to sumo wrestling to Michael Jackson doing the moonwalk. I personally use Youtube a lot to watch music and comedy.

I like it's layout and I will sometimes watch things featured on the homepage. I like the fact that similar clips are suggested as you look at a particular video. I generally avoid reading people's comments as, for some reason, people that comment on YouTube manage to say the dumbest most inane things.

Whangarei Libraries could use embedded video on its website in the following ways:

• Tutorials and guides e.g. tour of the library, how to search the catalogue
  
• Promote upcoming events such as funtimes by showing a video of them
  
• Record events that happen in the library (e.g. school holiday programmes, funtimes, festive days, cultural events) so people can view what happened in the library even if they weren't there.

Now, onto more serious matters. Here is a clip from YouTube that I find particularly worthwhile. I think that if the Library were to take heed of this educational video, then all things (including Library 2.0) would go very smoothly indeed. I look forward to receiving your comments.

An explanation of the previous blog ...

I just wanted to prove to all of you that it is possible for me to write a short blog entry.

What else could one have said but fart?

I am awaiting conformation from the Guinness (book of records) that it is, in fact, the shortest blog entry of all time. I will keep you posted (lame pun intended).

Anyway, pardon me.

We interupt this programme to bring you ...

Fart.

Week 6 - Tagging my fence

Matauri Bay Maori Reserve, originally uploaded by majordomo1976.

Here is a photo I took while we were at Matauri Bay a few years ago. I uploaded it to Flickr and tagged with all kinds of descriptors.

I searched Technorati for "learning 2.0" and got quite different results: when I did a simple search I got 6719 hits; when I looked for an exact phrase I got 270 hits; and when I seached for it as a tag I got 540 hits. What I found interesting was, when I did the tag search, I could see an anlaysis of the use of the tag (i.e. frequency used) over time. I liked that and I also liked the suggested other tags that people had used when they had tagged with "learning 2.0".

I guess searching by tags was the best method - although I can imagine that different search tactics would be useful in different situations.

The other thing I figure is that you might as well tag your work if you want it found ... with as many tags as possible. Also I think now it's a good idea to be aware of what tags other people use if you want to be found too. So I'm going to pay attention to the tag clouds from now on after initially despising their skylarking existence!

I have tagged this with the Teachnorati HTM as Matauri Bay. Hope it works!
matauri bay

Week 5: Revisiting Web 2.0

Prior to this web 2.0 training I have not been in the habit of looking at websites etc and considering whether they are web-2.0-ish. So, I actually found it quite hard to think of any favourite sites that fit the definition of web 2.0. I think the only web 2.0 type site I use on the regular is Youtube.

The first web 2.0 nominee site I looked at was a very cool music site called Last.fm. Last.fm describes itself as working in the following way:

Every track you play will tell your Last.fm profile something about what you like. It can connect you to other people who like what you like - and recommend songs from their music collections and yours too ...
... When you recommend some music to a friend, or you tag it, or you write about it - even just listening to it - you shift the song's importance on the site. It'll be recommended to different people, because you've listened to it. It'll move up our music charts and maybe more people will hear it because you thought it was good.

With a free 30 song trial I explored. Last.fm will stream "radio" for you based on your music tastes. You can also browse genres, watch videos, read bio details about artists, find out about coming music concerts. There are links to buy music too. All in all, a big number of services this site provides which was exciting albeit a bit overwhelming for an impatient-to-see-it-all novice. The layout is nice even though they cram a lot of features in. I got the sense it required a bit of practice to get comfortable with all it has to offer. I will definitely visit again in order to discover more music I've never heard of before. Gotta love that! All I need now is some better speakers for my computer so I can really enjoy it.

I came away thinking Library OPACS could take a few lessons from Last.fm. I think Last.fm aims to be a music-hub giving you personalised "radio" based on your tastes, as well as access to discover different music genres, video etc. Could library OPACS could aim to be such an information hub? Perhaps even when our library users log in they could leave comments, tags etc to rate their favourite books etc as Last.fm users do to music. These are not new ideas for OPACs, I know, but after seeing Last.fm I can see how it might work now.

I treid to check out Pandora - an internet radio site - but couldn't get access to it because it is no longer able to operate outside of the U.S. Bummer!

I also checked out MOG. MOG describes itself as "web's best daily music newspaper". I can't dispute its "daily" tag because I looked at it two days in a row and the content on its homepage was quite different from one day to the next. So, my first impression was that it holds a lot of content and that it is supra-quickly updated. In fact it has so much much information that I found it overwhelming at first (again) and I struggled a bit to figure out what the site was actually trying to be. Like Last.fm you can sign-in an receive a personalised service but I got a lot out of it just by looking around without signing in.

Can any of MOG be applied to a library setting? Yes! Perhaps library websites could be updated daily with links to relevant web-content (blogs, news, music). Perhaps we could personalise our library service so our signed-up users receive messages from us recomending books/blogs/reviews/publishing news/author news etc they would be interested in?

In light of these brief explorations there seems to be so much more library OPACS and websites could do: personalisation is in the front of my mind right now as a future online service libraries could offer as well as giving users the ability to comment and tag.

Week 4 - Social Networking: part two

I don't have a Myspace Page. I started to sign up for it but decided against it. I don't feel I have the space in my life for a Myspace page. I mean, I have my Facebook page and I feel that is enough for me for now.

I have been wanting to set up a Myspace page for a while but I feel a need a good moniker first. I notice that a lot of people have a moniker. I have a DJ friend who uses Myspace under the guise of Bro 90. Sometimes when he DJs he is just simply 90 and other times he is Nyntee.

I get moniker envy just thinking about it.

When I get a good moniker I might join the Myspace community ... but in the back of my mind I just feel like that one thing too many to do in my lfe.

Do other people feel that having a Facebook page and a Myspace page is excessive or is that just me? Does anyone else out there feel they need to rename themselves first before they venture onto Myspace?

I wonder if these questions plague me only because:

• I am a librarian (ok I've admitted it)
• I am currently going through a 1/3rd life crisis.

I am reminded that a guy I used to work with at a Medical Library entered into an epitaph comptetition on National Radio (and subsequently had it published in a book). It was an epitaph for Bill Clinton who was then still the President. The epitaph as I remember it was:

Here lies Bill Clinton. Willy will forever be your moniker.

Week 4 - Social Networking: part one

I have been using Facebook off and on for a couple of years now. This year since I got broadband at home I have been using it more. On average I log on a few times a week.

It could be exciting and very beneficial for Whangarei Libraries to be on Facebook. It could be a useful way of getting Whangarei Libraries in people's faces (excuse the pun ;-)) and of marketing the library.

The way to do it would be by regularly using the "what's on your mind" feature. Many of my friends use this feature every day - sometimes several times a day e.g. "I'm so pleased it's Friday". This then displays on my wall. It is possible for friends to make comments and get a sort of a brief dialogue going. The effect of this is that, whenever I log onto facebook, I can check out my wall and - at a glance - see what my friends have been up to in the last day or so.

Imagine if Whangarei Libraries did this. When we had a busy day we might say: "Whew! 1000 customers today" or after a funtime we might say "Just had 50 kids smiling at funtime!". The effect of these short messages would communicate to our friends that the library is a busy, happening place and also keep them informed about the different services we offer.

More importantly I think, Facebook could be used in this way to promote upcoming events. Short messages like: "getting ready the school holiday programme which starts Monday 13th" could be put up every day.

While I think having a Facebook presence is a good idea I do see a number of issues around setting it up and keeping it going.

• How to attract friends in the first place? This is a key problem I think. Would people want to be friends with a library? I'm not sure. How would we get friends? We could advertise the library's Facebook in the library, on a bookmark etc and get people to seek us or we could actively seek out friends in our area. Are we prepared to push ourselves out there like that?
• Are Facebook users likely to be the library users we are trying to market to and vice versa?
• Who would be responsible for maintaining our Facebook?
• Is it a duplication of resources to do Facebook and maintain a website?

Despite these issues (and probably many more) I think Facebook is worth a go for our library.

I see the end vision being: Whangarei Libraries on Facebook with lots of friends getting regular updates about what we are doing ... and us getting lots of feedback from our friends about the good (and hopefully not bad) expereinces they have here