Hellzbellz

Crossing the Finish line again.

2010-07-12T03:54:00.000-07:00

Another Web2.0 done. On the whole I have enjoyed it and I have certainly learnt heaps. My favourites would have to be Goodreads, Zamzar and Facebook and these are the ones that I will probably use and promote the most. It was good to explore Twitter and the MP3 downloads, and I will at least know what I am talking about if I have to help anyone with them but I doubt that I will use them personally. All in all I thought it was a good range of topics covered.

Week 6 : Facebook - playing nicely with others

2010-07-12T02:44:00.000-07:00

Okay it's time for me to fess up - I'm a fan of Facebook, I visit it everyday. In fact when I was away recently, and had no internet access, I think I suffered FB withdrawal. Yeah sure it's not perfect and I know lots of people are concerned about it's security. However if you take precautions like making your page only available to friends, and then only accepting friend requests from people you actually know, as in you've actually met them, then you should be okay. I find it a great way to keep up with all my friends and family who are scattered around the world.

I went and looked at The New York Public Library page and found it to be very similar to ours, with lots of what's happening, reading suggestions etc. One thing that I thought was a great idea that we may be able to use was their 'AskNYPL: Chat with a Librarian' feature. Another thing that caught my eye was one particular post thanking the people of NY for writing in to get some of the proposed $37 million budget cut restored so that they can open 5 days a week instead of only 3. Unbelievable, makes us realise how lucky we are. I think that FB is a great tool to use in keeping our patrons up-to-date with whats happening at Manukau libraries and they are also able to interact with us if they wish to.

Week 5 : Music files and mp3s

2010-07-12T00:41:00.000-07:00

I went to Amazon.com. On the plus side:
1. I like the idea of samplers that showcase several artists of a similar music genre. I thought this a great promotional tool for new and upcoming artists. As I'm usually opposed to free downloads and artists losing out, this did help ease the guilt. As a customer it's also a good way to trial new tracks.
2. Also the site was very easy to navigate.
3. Another great feature was that there were customer reviews for most offerings.
On the minus side:
1. There was very little popular music available, chances are the track you are after is not part of the free downloads.
2. Also when I tried to download one of the samplers I found it appeared the free downloads are available only to people living in the US.
So not really useful to recommend to patrons. Personally I think I will stick to downloading the old fashioned way, from the CDs. Will probably pass these sorts of queries on to the younger members of the team, although I have made a list of the sites that I can refer to if I have to.

Week 4 : Books and social networking

2010-06-13T21:32:00.000-07:00

Love it, love it, love it. Only problem is I keep going there for a quick peek and the next thing I know it's an hour later. Just too addictive! I would definitely recommend this site to book lovers. Also I can see how this could be a great tool for readers advisory, however one must be careful not to get too distracted. But for those "I think it's called ..." quests this site can be a great help. The reviews appear to actually be helpful, well the ones I looked at definitely were, rather than totally positive fan raves or else totally negative putdowns, IYKWIM. Still need to check out the 'Bookshelves' when I have more time, but it looks like it's easy to do and having a to-read option is great for those books you have recommended to you and then when you can't get it straight away you forget the details. This one's a definite keeper in that I know I will use it regularly from now on.

Week 3 : Twitter - micro-blogging at a glance

2010-06-03T20:47:00.001-07:00

So I joined up on Twitter, very straight forward process to sign up, thank goodness as I was unable to watch the 'How to' clip on my work computer. I managed to leave a tweet,(Well I think I did), but I probably won't ever tweet again. Just not my scene I'm afraid. However for others, (like those that have a life worth twittering about), I can see that it would be a quick way to keep all up to date. Mind you, you wouldn't want to overdo the amount of tweets you are sending people as that would just get irritating and you will lose friends. Still a quick, efficient and painless way to keep patrons up-to-date with what is happening at our libraries.

Week 2 - Zamzar

2010-05-31T16:54:00.000-07:00

What a great site! I found it to be very user friendly and so simple to use. I would recommend this to anyone who needed to convert a file. Also it was great to only need an email address. It's a pain when you have to sign up to use an application, especially one you don't use often, and then try to keep all the usernames and passwords straight. Only downside I can see in patrons using this application is, that with the converted file being sent to your email, they will have to pay to access it in the library. However it would definitely be of use to me at work and home. All in all it gets my vote.

We (b2.0) return. Week 1.

2010-05-20T20:37:00.000-07:00

Hurrah, Web 2.0 returns. Personally I'm glad to see it back, I learnt so much last time and hopefully will this time too. My only real fear/problem is finding the time to complete the exercises, hence my late start at it, however as long as I get it done eh?
As for how a Public Library might use a blog, they could use it to;
1. Keep patrons up to date with events.
2. Book recommendations / reviews.
3. New and upcoming books.
4. Librarian ramblings / sharing their knowledge.
5. Share ideas and discuss issues.
6. Keep patrons informed of any changes or news happening in the library.
I think these are the sorts of things a patron would expect to see on a library blog but best of all, they can add their own comments and have their own say.

Crossing the finish line.

2008-10-30T20:27:00.000-07:00

Hurrah I made it. I must confess to a few moments when I wondered if I ever would, it seems to have taken a very long time getting here. Still better late than never. On the whole I really liked doing this Web 2.0, I just feel that we could have had longer to complete it. I know some people did finish in time but all the ones I know of did a lot of it at home in their own time. However I'm too [insert appropriate word of your choice here] to do that, so did it at work only. Still the main thing is that I learned heaps of things that I probably would not have learned left to my own devices, either through lack of confidence or the fact that I didn't even know they existed. So all in all I would call Web 2.0 a success.

ebooks/Project Gutenberg

2008-10-30T15:29:00.000-07:00

I think the premise of ebooks is great but I'm not really a fan of ebooks, mainly because I find reading blocks of text very difficult to do on a screen. Also I'm rather partial to the feel and smell of 'real' books. However I have a friend who loves her ebook reader, she finds it fantastic as she does a lot of travel for her job and finds an ebook reader loaded with several books a lot more portable also with the screen being backlit she can read in the dark (under the covers)or so she tells me.
I went and checked out Project Gutenberg - not a very pretty site to look at but free books to download so who cares? Also had a look at the top 100 titles and found it interesting that the most popular by far was the 'Manual of Surgery Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. by Miles and Thomson' with 1246 downloads. I have visions of people, ebook reader in one hand and scalpel in the other... DYI surgery anyone?

Podcast

2008-10-15T15:30:00.000-07:00

Hmmm... Had a bit of trouble with this podcast thing. I did manage to click on the "word of the year" link and discover a new favourite word 'squick' (cause immediate and thorough revulsion: eg... "was anyone else squicked by our waiter"s piercings?") but when trying to do the discovery exercise it all turned to custard. I went to podcastalley.com and did a search for 'Book Reviews'and chose Book Snark to listen to... so far so good. However no matter what I did I could not listen to the actual podcast unless I downloaded a player which I was not going to do on a work computer. However I have listened to podcasts before on my home computer with sucess and have found them to be useful.

You Tube/ Mr Bean at the Library

2008-10-14T20:06:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling very clever because I thought this one would be a lot harder than it turned out to be. Maybe I've been learning while doing these thingys. If you had asked me to do this before Web 2.0 I would have said, "Nope can't do that, too hard."
Just goes to show, you can teach a Library Assistant new tricks.

Web 2.0 Tools

2008-10-13T20:23:00.000-07:00

I decided to check out the 'Games and Entertainment' winners of the Web 2.0 Awards and chose 2nd place getter 'Galaxiki' because 1st placegetter 'Zango' was blocked.

In its own words
"Galaxiki is a wiki based science fiction galaxy created, maintained and owned by its Community. As a visitor you may explore the galaxy or read science fiction and fantasy stories written by the community. As a site member you may name and edit edit solar systems and write your own science fiction or fantasy stories, post news and stories in the community blog (anything related to science, space, science fiction and fantasy is allowed) and help to build a fantastic online world.
Membership and editing community owned systems is completely free, but you may also buy your own star that will act as your personal wiki. You can name or dedicate a star, describe your planets, moons, invent alien life forms or even write entire science fiction and fantasy stories. All pages are wiki based and easy to edit."
You can also get a solar system widget of your choice. Mine is WDJ228 a red dwarf star with no planets. If you were into this sort of thing, I could see where this would be a great site to belong to.

Online applications

2008-10-12T15:56:00.000-07:00

This one was interesting. I would have liked to have tried using 'Zoho' but unfortunately was not able to access it from work so will give it a go from home. However I had fun creating this scrapbook in 'Google Docs'.

Thing 17

2008-09-30T17:52:00.001-07:00

I liked this thing as I am a user of Facebook and My Space and felt quite comfortable doing the exercises. I love these social sites even though I'm not a huge user, probably only going on once or twice a week to keep up with family and friends. I thought the Auckland Library and Hennepin County Library pages were great, however apart from a couple of comments from Manukau library staff it does not appear that the Hennepin County has been in use since May 2008. I could see how this would be a great way of keeping patrons/friends up to date with what's happening at Manukau Libraries.

Library 2.0 and Web 2.0

2008-09-24T21:19:00.000-07:00

This would have to have been my least favorite exercise so far. It just seemed like too much hard work. However I did go and read all the different perspectives and I have to say I liked Rick Anderson's perspective, nice easy to read words and three very good points about potential "icebergs" that we really do need to think about. Here is my two cents worth.
1.The “just in case” collection... Yes it is problematic but I don't know that getting rid of a paper based etc collection altogether is really a viable idea, I mean what if technology failed, was held to ransom or something, all would be lost. No best to have the library collection “just in case”.
2.Reliance on user education... Excellent point regarding Librarians trying to teach all patrons how to use our 'technology' when it would be more effective to make our 'technology' so easy to use that no training is required. Of course this is only going to get easier as younger patrons coming through are much more technology savvy.
3.The “come to us” model of library service...Yep we need to move and adapt with the times and I have to disagree with Rick about this disaster looming, I think that Libraries are doing a good job of this with Library cataloges, databases etc, and more each day, available to patrons online. However lets remember that I am looking at this perspective a good two years after he has written it.

Technorati

2008-09-22T16:42:00.000-07:00

I must scroll down, I must scroll down, I must scroll down. This is what I have learned today. After bashing my head on my desk and moaning to all around me because I couldn't find a way to search tags, I scrolled down the advanced search page and found, lo and behold, 'tag search'. So after all that my results for each search were different. I then had a look at Technorati Popular as well but did not actually find anything that I would call interesting. Mind you at first glance I thought the 'Boing Boing' one could be interesting but alas no Tigger in sight.

Tagging

2008-09-21T20:24:00.000-07:00

I went, I saw, I tagged.I even got Del.icio.us. What can I say.. well on the negative side, I can say that it's not a very pretty site and that a few more options in the sorting department would be helpful. However on a positive note I can see where using tags could come in handy when searching for stuff(technical word).Also I like Del.icio.us it was easy to use and I had fun searching for what interests me and getting loads of websites back that I could save as bookmarks for myself. I tended to use the tags already attached though as they were pretty comprehensive.

Learning 2.0 Sandbox Wiki.

2008-08-10T22:00:00.000-07:00

I have been over to to the Learning 2.0 Sandbox Wiki and added my favourite recipe. So if you're looking for a cheap cookie recipe,here is the URL
http://manukaulearn.pbwiki.com/Favourite+Recipes.
I had a wee bit of trouble logging in because I kept trying to log in using 'training' as a password which is what I had read on the blogspot to use. Eventually I did read the frontpage of the wiki and, doh!!! there are the Log in details. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer today... well it is Monday.

Who, What , Where, Why, Wiki ????

2008-07-31T16:36:00.001-07:00

The only Wiki I had heard of was Rueben... hint for those yet to discover Wiki... it's not him. So now we know what it's not, let's try to suss out what it is.
I'm not sure if I actually do understand what it is but I think that it is a website that allows everyone and anyone (no special skills needed) to be a part of developing the site by changing and/or adding information to it. Clear as mud?
I loved the Book Lovers Wiki and thought that was a good application that could be used by our library. Also I suppose a community based wiki could be successful too. But I think that any information taken from a wiki site would need to be checked as anyone could put what they like so a bit of doublehandling.
Verdict: - Undecided

How the Internet & World Wide Web changed my life for the better.

2008-07-31T15:56:00.000-07:00

The biggest thing I like about using the internet is I no longer have to stand in queues. I don't stand in the always incredibly slow line at the bank to get my money... I do all my banking through the Internet including all my bill paying so it's goodbye to the queues at the Post Office too. I no longer stand in the checkout line either cause due to the wonders of the internet I do my grocery shopping online too and better yet it gets delivered to my door and if I time the delivery right (like for when I'm at work) I don't even have to put it away. And let the young ones stand outside day and night for concert tickets... me I order mine online. Fancy something to eat..a book to read..new clothes.. yep you guessed it, order it online.
Are you converted yet???

Trading Card

2008-07-30T21:52:00.001-07:00

This photo was taken yesterday at our team day. One of my big problems with making these cards and things is that I don't do well when I have lots of choices, actually it's not that I don't do well, it's more than I don't do fast because I have to look at everything and I mean everything before I can make up my mind (Dither doesn't cover it). Anyway I think this turned out well in the end.

Flickr

2008-07-28T20:36:00.001-07:00

Dessert Anyone?, originally uploaded by rich66~.

This picture comprises two of my favourite things... Christmas and cake! For those that celebrate...only 149 sleeps to go. Have you started your shopping?

Library Thing

2008-07-20T21:54:00.000-07:00

This was meant to be done last week but someone forgot to scroll down. Anyway I've done it now and if you look to your right you will see books that I have read in the last two weeks. All of them are highly recommended. Also to the right is the Library Thing search widget which doesn't fit very well but can still be used. Now I'm off to discover the joys of Rollyo or something.

Messing about with image generators.

2008-07-14T21:39:00.000-07:00

The image I generated is on the left.
I found it at http://www.signgenerator.org/books/dummies/

Bloglines Part 2

2008-07-09T20:35:00.000-07:00

OOps the URL I posted was not the right one. Here's the correct one... I hope... Fingers crossed.

http://www.bloglines.com/public/hellzbellz

Bloglines

2008-07-09T18:27:00.000-07:00

Ok I had a go and I think I got the hang of it. I probably could have gone mad and added heaps more but they keep telling me I have to do work. Bah Humbug.

Here's the URL http://www.bloglines.com/blog/hellzbellz

Well I got here.

2008-06-30T20:48:00.000-07:00

This was actually fun apart from stressing over which template to use. So now when I have anything of interest to say I will be able to post it here.
Oh I have to post every week?
Ok but they won't be interesting then. That's an annual event.