Week 9: Podcasts, Video & ebooks

"> YOUtube was horribly fascinating. There is so much to look at which I actually enjoyed. I liked that when I chose a video, related video clips would be shown. So Conan the librarian linked to other librarian themes like the superpower librarian. I can see why Conan is so popular tho. He is our alterego?

Cats tho rule, and I hoped to find a great one used in europe during the World Cup 2 yrs ago. Ran out of time but came across this one of the mouse singing 'you sexy thing' to a cheese - in a mouse trap. Sad ending! Can't resist them!

I loved being able to rate a video and to be able to send one to a mate. I don't think tho I'd put one of myself on YouTube tho - I feel I get enuf public exposure already!


http://audio.search.yahoo.com/audio


Having had a look around the podcasts, I see that the above video clip could be referred to as a vodcast as it incorps both sound and image.

I have iTune at home, so looked at the sites I didn't have to download. I like Yahoo. Mega easy to use. Always interested in music as I rarely get to the radio.

e-books

Netlibrary was pretty easy to navigate. I liked the first page from AkCity being about books I can get in the library. It was helpful to get covers, pub details, and some info on content. I'm going to order '
'100 Fastest-growing Careers: Your Complete Guidebook to Major Jobs With the Most Growth and Openings' can see that this would be a wonderful tool for housebound computer savvies who can't handle a book or who can't get into the library. The audiobook resource is great!I have a friend who is blind who can never get enough to read. So here I am doing what librarians do best. Finding things that help others access the world. Whew!

Week 8 Online productivity tools

What a blast Zoho is. You can choose font, colour, backgrounds. You can customize with pictures , such as a logo at the head of your stationary (balloons in this case). Documents can be web linked or sent to email pals. Not just letters or simple docs, spreadsheets and presentations.


Documents created elsewhere can be imported to my account regardless of format which has to be a great tool in itself.As with other tools, there are tags, wh are very helpful - like now if I can't rememer what pics I've used, I can just tag the word pics. I've also put a comment buble on the pic. Others can add to the doc with comments. So its a sharing thing really. Here I have pretended to be an other, and have dogged the cat!


I didn't get time to look at the web creator tools, but this did intrigue me. There is a wiki, a planner , oh lotsa stuff.So that's a treat for another day.


I didn't send my doc to this Blog as I'm currently operating in draft and wasn't sure if it would get accepted.



But I did look at the Awards page. Interesting to see sites I've already met, like Rollyo, and learn why it was considered to be so good by the 'professionals'. As I like to travel I went to Farecast wh allowed searches from Auckland but wans't able to offer me anything like the deals I'd get here. Kayak seemed to be easier to use and I could do a search for accom at the same time.I've used sites like this for accom rather than travel. For instance Agoda can offer great deals for some destinations in NZ, less than half rack rate and once got me in when the hotel was otherwise fully booked.

Week 7 Wikis

As you already know, I love the beach, so the sand box was a happy moment. I left a little fur on favourite blogs; movies and holiday places. But tearing out my whiskers trying to get into the recom Wiki. Ok. Time.
Some use wiki's for public info like an encyclopaedia - wikipaedia. Some , like Princton offer a book lover's wiki, where info and opinions can be published. Some wiki actually offer help to establish standards for creating great wiki and are hosted by other libraries. Then there are people like me who create little wki for specific info like fav holidays. Now that I have had a look around wiki, I keep getting notice when someone's wki is changed.Hmm

Week 6: Tagging, Folksonomies & Technorati

I think I'm finally understanding tagging. I thought it was that clever thing you can do with pics - adding hidden messages - notes - to part of a pic. Like the nostrils - is there life up there?? Sort of thing. Well now I know better, tags and clouds of tags, amazing. So have added more tags to my blog and some hidden notes. So go see Hairy M. Can you add a note?
Went to the delicious site. Followed some of the libarary links. Do people really want to watch videos of teens talking about a book? Or is it that teens would love to make a video of themselves doing anything which can be posted and poss watched by someone else?

I'm also feeling pretty overwhelmed by the amount of info. Do people really have this much time on their hands?
Something sad just happened in my family and I want a real person to talk to. See you guys later.

Ok, back to the virtual world, where I am learning a lot of people live, learn and compose. Research still supports that healthy emotional and intellectual growth demands human contact and books still rule. Its all about touch. Yet...I see people communicating furiously across the internet daily in my library. People group around screens and laugh out loud about a posting or blog.Someone I work with rarely communicates with us directly but has a rich and communicative blog.Our website offers a great digital resources and places where people can add book reviews, rate reads, suggest purchases and contact us by email if they wish.
I want to go back to that word 'compose' because ordinary people who come to the library to use a computer are not just getting entertainment but are composing. Not just reading but writing. Not just watching but responding.
The articles I read recognize this very basic event and what it could mean for libraries in the future.
I believe we will always need books because touch is an important grounder, but in the realm of info and culture there are many paths now and libraries do have to consider how to be relevant and how to best help us all into the virtual possibilities.

Week 5: images

While everyone else is thinking about Christmas, we are moving fast on our Summer reading programme which just happens to have a beach theme: footprints in the sand. You won't see any footprints in this pic, cos I'm most definitely going to sit here and enjoy the view! I can't believe how much I'm enjoying this. Yes, the BEACH! What else could I possibly mean?

But even at the beach, I have to have a book. Yes, cats CAN read! What do you think we do after working in the fish and chip shop all day?

If you go to this link, you can see which books YOU should've been reading!

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/katyunravelling

And where best to be found reading..?

Go Rollyo and find out. Clue...Palm Cove, Qld...

http://www.rollyo.com/katyunravelling/

Week 4 RSS

Its quite cool going to a site and you are immediately recognised! You are a natural born native, no passports and border checks! And now I have Dilbert to keep me company. I tried to add our library website but it doesn't appear to have rss?? Now I have 3 sites to play on. I must find out how I can get them all into one place.

http://www.bloglines.com/myblogs

As you can see by going to this link, I have some library links but had to have one to Dilbert for sanity's sake.
http://www.dilbert.com/
Technorati Profile

Moreover, I now have a new page element, 'Newsfeeds' so I can have immed access to the news wihout wondering which post the link is in.I am going to add to this.
I found it easiest getting feeds info thru bloglines, as feedster is temporarily down. Other sites offered help locating blogs - like technorati - to wh I now belong - and others like topix have a tighter focus like news.Using these, I found lots of library links, like the shifted librarian and NYT book reviews.