Grand Finale

What have you personally learned from this program?
Well it has been an eye-opener as to the range and volume of emerging technologies out there plus not forgetting the terminology. Some are in concept similar & therefore need close scrutiny to help with understanding and “compartmentalising”. Must admit most try to make the use as intuitive as possible …on screen instructions etc but they tend to be busy screens more so if free and therefore reliant on the advertising etc. It has…helped me organize my personal finds, allowed me to explore without feeling guilty about other work priorities, confirmed that the wide world is so willing to contribute and share and I too can and should participate.

What have you learned about yourself, others and the organisation in which you work?That I need not be concerned about messing up a whole system just by clicking the wrong button….most have a recovery mechanism. Although early in the piece I did lose some content thereon I followed the advice we often give i.e. back up what you do! Discovery approach is appropriate for these new technologies as with so many around, each person needs to be able to work at their own pace and even re-do exercises etc. Certainly a pilot team was a good setting as everyone was starting new and support was just great…on a personal level being the only one on my campus did make me feel a tiny isolated…thankfully the phone helped!

What was the most important skill you have learned and why
Creating and organizing my own space so to say with feeds etc was good as I had earlier on done this and had forgotten so this provided the opportunity to reinforce and put it through its paces. I think for me and perhaps for most blogging is possibly the one I think has the most potential. It seems an extension of our current communication style and just lends itself to keeping communication channels for categories of contacts; topics etc. I’ve noticed that recently students are being asked to maintain reflective journals, and I think blogging certainly could be utilized for this….in fact wasn’t our little blogs for this project our journals?

What action will you now take if any?
Wiki for the guides perhaps and a blog for students to get to the team
Certainly include in information literacy sessions wherever appropriate and relevant the value of RSS feeds.
Investigate & develop a session for academics and maybe higher degree students on RSS as an extension/adjunct to the alerting services available within our subscription databases

Would students use these technologies as part of the library’s online environment?
To remain important and relevant the Library has got to take approaches and employ tools that students are familiar with. It does not mean just complete overhaul but rather the introduction of options that use such technologies…so give our users the option to communicate with us via e-mail, SMS, Blogs, the phone, letter, face to face. If we move into establishing “second life” we may need to consider the issue of “rostered time” being out to the norm as the users may not use set times.

Is there some specific technology that you would like to see the library adopt?
Manager has indicated establishing a blog to disseminate information. Wikis and/or blogs for library projects (the Wikipedia entry on the Library). Publicity and photos perhaps into a “world” setting using maybe Flickr… Podcasts and some with visuals using camtasia maybe!

Web 2.0 Awards

Web2.0 Awards just shows how well some sites have used all the tools available. I could not resist just picking randomly some normal favourites like shopping and travel so when I scanned the awards site and spotted the winner for the Retail group I headed for it. The name Threadless caught by eye as only a few days ago it was mentioned by my niece who was trying to con the dad to buy a t-shirt for her. Must say I thought it was a nice site with the concept of encouraging designers to submit and it does have a community like approach…very much what all this technology is about. Threadless had syndicated content powered by FeedBurner …yet another to check out. Had email , add to del.icio.us, RSS, templates for submitting designs, blogs for comments on designs or send pictures, counter technology etc

The site Wufoo under content aggregation and management could be one to check out perhaps when students need to do their assignments which include the need to conduct a survey…it does cost but there is mention of a “nice free version”. As I have no current need for this I didn’t check it out fully. Checked out a few others and found that it would be handy if maybe Australian versions were created e.g. an Australian Farecast maybe?

Penultimate session...videos and podcasts

Week 8 I guess is helping towards supporting the often quoted estimate that we retain 10% and this increases when visuals are added. So certainly the video clips would add to the value of any attempts towards providing information to our client groups. For my discovery journey I found I could easily spend hours being entertained….checking out the most popular videos today, this week, this month, all time…could get hooked! Checked out the suggested sites but some I didn’t attempt because of software download issues etc. Did not find Yahoo Videos as good …searched and tried to play a selected one… but couldn’t …could be our locked down situation but the ones listed on their first page played OK. One feature missing is the production date to the clips and I tend to use this to help decide if I should check it out etc.
Found YouTube much better in searching and searched “librarians information literacy” picked one but found it already selected…so now back to the drawing board…How about this one…perhaps we could use this in various training sessions for staff or in our selection process the interviewees could be asked their views…. With its indication of when added etc it does help with dating the clip.



Found podcast.net not that current, but may not be for all categories perhaps! The option to listen or download on Yahoo Podcasts site is more upfront which is good and it has dates but surprised to find "duration not available" lots of times and this is not conducive to selection. Some interesting ECU ones but wish they could be more “obvious” and clickable…perhaps it is I the user!!! I think podcasts do have a place and those without visuals could be handy e.g. when driving…perhaps we should look at doing one to help someone find the closest car-park to the Library and identify the Library building…

Oops has LCSH retired?

Social tagging
Without a doubt tagging lends itself to social and collaborative support – this is one tool we in the library world will have no problems in identifying with…just don’t bring LCSH into it! I really like the ability of creating threads and using terms that will help individuals draw personal like things together and hence help the tracing and finding. Note the "links" for the term in the photos from Flickr by Chele in LA nice+smooth ultramedia.
With people trying to be clever with their naming conventions it is handy to look at the tags to have an idea what the site etc is about… As I am not willing to compromise the SOE (…and get into trouble) I have not gone into getting buttons etc so I found the Del.icio.us site useful with its how to information and descriptions. In exploring I discovered this site and am tempted to draw my niece’s attention to it….now a teenager she still loves her lollies…

http://candyaddict.com/blog/top-10-grossest-candies/links/

The audios and clips have helped in developing a better understanding of these tools and I agree the Otter Group tutorial is a good one and certainly drew attention to its use for research and teaching – it did bring to mind perhaps there is a “loose” parallel between tagging and citing! Researchers/Scholars especially advocates of “open access” could find tagging second nature as within scholarly publishing they would have be accustomed to assigning keywords. Monitoring areas of interest is certainly facilitated by tagging. Does add another dimension to our information literacy efforts re formal thesauri/subject keywords and now the informal!

Technorati
Technorati tour was not loading…tried a few times…so just explored and read. Really pleased to have discovered Technorati, searching mechanism opens up possibilities for information…really polite site with messages such as “Sorry, this isn't working right now. Please try again..” Searched this project’s website and found indication of rank which I think is really a numerical listing rather than a ranking against “something”…maybe someone can clarify this!
Interesting finds with the term ecu. Tag has indication of when loaded which is handy for checking currency. Flickr & Youtube feeds into this or other way maybe as it comes up quickly with the videos etc

Second Life ...maybe for some

Watched the ABC 4corners, enjoyed the programme but certainly liked the use of Flexilecture to get to it. Saw Kathryn’s presentation at Murdoch before she went to present at the NLA – she did have some technical problems which reinforced the issue of to participate one needed downloading software and good bandwidth. If this is no longer an issue, then I would think this could be a way especially for our externals and offshore to interact and reduce the isolation and help with the interaction that is missed if one is unable to get to F2F situations. SL could be an extension to those virtual walks with headgears etc… developments from the one dimensional! Once again the visuals help to assist with reinforcement and understanding. Without a doubt there is the opportunity to develop creativity and skills-- IT, social interaction, asking, sharing, networking etc. It would be useful to follow the research discussions such as within Ausslers to track if as RSBLG says is it a fad or to stay...

One could get in and learn a skill or process before perhaps translating it into the real environment e.g. do some stock trading or real estate purchasing. All that is needed is inclination and time..maybe some Linden Dollars! Just picking up from the various existing SL reference models, maybe we could do an information literacy session or just be there at a set time for say our offshore students to interact. Picking up from RSBLG we could develop it as a campus for our offshore and remote students. Of course some givens such as relevant IT infrastructure and time-zone match would be expected!

If we need to adopt this I would look at this as another user option, that is the category that relates to this type of an avenue. The hand-held games and Xbox generation will easily relate to this but I suspect some impatience with the speed etc.

Flickr discoveries

Wind direction takes a new meaning! If you've been to Exmouth you'll relate to this scene I 'm sure! I found it lovely in December but believe it is much better during the winter months! I will attempt to get some digital shots attached to the Flickr account later...for now this is #10 and on to the Flickr fun!

I think we are in agreement that one could spend hours within Flickr- in one spot one could find all sorts of information including doing some shopping for gifts using albumprinter or even a photo album quilt to get a personalised gift going …just fork out the $

I had fun looking at photos …boolean and phrase searching works, the tags are real handy and as suggested by JMCG using a “thread” tag would certainly help!

Not sure if the photo I selected from Flickr is going to be seen or you will need to click this link..

http://www.flickr.com/photos/athenerafie/501998609/

it is a lovely shot of an orchid...I hope as I was intending to include one on a fruit I rather enjoy which has the Asian name Chiku...so not sure!

One could really delve into using one’s creative skills – afraid I did the reading and exploring but not too deeply into the creation as yet. Some comments include: Spell with flickr….black with blue fonts abit hard on the eyes…but nice way to get banners etc.

The article in BusinessWeek with the slide show gives some understanding and visual egs of mashups which I take to be overlaying …would our screen captures on powerpoints be considered in this catergory??? Guess I’m being presumptuous! Issue of copyright?

Perhaps I need to get back to doing some photography…used to…those toys could set one back hours just playing with setting up galleries etc…don’t know about trading cards as probably won’t have any takers…but if we did an online learning package I wonder if we could look into using this in a game like environment! Trip planner ….potential for any planning especially with friends who might be overseas etc. Oh! JMCG the image generators are also something...see this link ...not sure if it works within this!

http://www.cybercones.com/sundae-strawberry-c-ch-2-yf.htm

Conceptualising wikis etc

So from the discovery trips and readings I have put into my thinking compartments the following: Bloggs are online journals/diaries as they are arranged by dates and the postings cannot be edited (unless specified) but comments can be made freely, more a dialogue medium. Wikis however are abit more structured…a web page that invites contribution so input and edit and the idea is to encourage development through collaboration. There is no date order and leads to the development of a knowledge/information resource.

From the exercises one could see a fair number of potential uses and obvious ones for subject teams are guides and instruction sheets. Maybe an assignment topic wiki! No need to reinvent but only trouble is sometimes if the approach is linked to an institution’s holdings then collaboration might not work although certainly on a team level it will . Adding websites or free articles etc would be an avenue to engage student participation otherwise students might be consumers rather than collaborators. Incorporating the personal touch of allowing contact like in Biz Wiki would certainly value add!

Some good suggestions for wikis have come from G8 and I would add perhaps we could have a wiki for all library wide projects so one spot for an update to what has happened or happening. Maybe a centre wide one even! Having just got back from a Conference I think one where the locals can input tips and hints about the place and goings on would be useful. Often the official site is controlled by the appointed organizer and standard “fare” so a wiki could give the easier option for anyone to give practical information for attendees before they arrive so they could maximise their short stay!

I know it is said for wikis no html knowledge etc is necessary and it does appear to have a consistent enough approach but here are several “platforms” or is software the correct term? So to encourage participation make it even easier, as some have done, give “how to” instructions up front for quick and basic input with referral to sections for any “sophisticated” input! One other feature I found that perhaps could be a standard is to offer a printable version for obvious reasons!

Have put some postings into the brochure wiki on Blackboard but I think the creative juices haven’t flowed yet and perhaps this group would be able to tackle it together with the Wikipedia Library entry once we complete this pilot.