This is clever

Quirkspiration

#31 plaxo

I think plaxo would be a useful tool for some people, particularly those that are tech savvy and spend a lot of time doing online stuff. I personally prefer to keep everything in my written diary, with all its added bits of paper, etc. However, I think the countdown is a good idea, because I often don’t look ahead in the diary and then realise later that an overseas friend’s birthday is just a week away and it has to be posted now to arrive in time.

For work purposes though, this calendar could be useful. Events at each library branch could be placed on the calendar, such as Storytimes, Booktalks, computer classes, staff meetings, etc. Everything could be seen at a glance in one spot, so staff would be more easily kept informed, instead of remembering individual emails that are sent regarding events, or checking for separate event leaflets. Similarly, each library team could keep a calendar for their own events and the jobs needed to be done. The staff diary could also be transposed onto the calendar. For example, noting when staff members are out at meetings or gone home sick – but this may still be easier to do via the old diary/noticeboard and safer, because of the possibility of computers going down.

I added some events, both home and work stuff. When I logged back on later to look at it I couldn’t find it. I discovered there were two calendar screens. I tried to add events to the blank screen to have a work and home calendar but nothing stayed on the blank screen – it went to the started calendar. So, obviously missed something here. It was difficult to work out also because I couldn’t view the whole calendar on my screen at once. This is what I mean – for me it is easier just to get out the diary. I didn’t look at the other two calendars – they may be simpler for me.

#30 LolCat

I had not heard of this crazy phenomenon. I'm not big on this kind of stuff. Maybe I don't have a sense of humour, although I did find some funny. Below is my LolCat using LolCat Builder

#29 scrapblog

Here is my scrapblog............



Scrapblog is quite nifty but I couldn't work out how to add the stickers.....it seemed like I couldn't view the whole screen.....and yes, after reading the FAQs, there should have been a thingy to click on the bottom right hand corner. After further reading, I learnt how to increase the screen size. After more fiddling, I also discovered how to decrease the size of the images (because my chicken was too big!)and to rotate them on the page. The library could create all sorts of displays with this to publicise events, services, new books and also to create displays of past events - photos of participants in action i.e. school holiday programs.

#28 Magazine cover

I had a lot of fun with this. I used the Wired cover and a photo of my cat, however, it wouldn't let me save the image, so I sent it to myself as an email. Here is my Wired cover. I had a few attempts at the same cover because some of the words in my heading got chopped off in the final image. I used the 'edit' prompt and simply shortened each line of my heading, which worked. Later, I also added a subheading. I think this would be great to use to create library displays that really grab people's attention.

#27 photobucket

It was quite easy to upload photos to photobucket. I thought of some book covers that I like and then found them in LibraryThing. I saved them to the desktop and then uploaded them to photobucket.

#26 YourMinis

I found the YourMinis site really difficult to understand. After realising I needed to go to the Start Page I tried to explore this, with all the tab stuff. I really didn't get it, although I do understand what a widget is. For me, it will require a lot more time to work out.....
OK, I had another quick look. Not sure how the templates work but I clicked on Add Tab to get a blank page. Then I dragged some of the icons from the left side, like Amazon, Box.net and Flickr. I can see that this would have potential for the library website. People could access things that they would normally look at (like their Gmail or YouTube)from our website. This would make our website more appealing and useful/convenient. Even just adding an Amazon widget (which is more library-related) would add some spark.

#25 LetterPop

Here is my small creation from LetterPop

It does require a bit of time fiddling around, but then again so does Publisher.

#24 Zamzar

Zamzar looked like an amazing tool when I was first shown it. For the exercise I tried to convert an internet pdf document from my work pc to a doc format, purely so that I could read the document on my home computer, which doesn't have Adobe Acrobat. I tried a few different documents but the result was an error message each time. I then realised that Zamzar has a limit of 100MB - but not sure if my documents were more or not. Not likely. Or was it becasue they were internet documents? I shall try again. Alternatively, if I wanted to convert a doc format document created on my home pc into pdf format I could also do that.
Library staff and users could really benefit from Zamzar because it's not necessary to have a particular program installed on a pc to have access to a document - Zamzar is all programs.

#23 The end or the beginning??

Wow, I can’t believe I’ve reached the 23rd Thing!!! Although I was a bit rushed for time for most of this program and couldn’t put in as much time as I wanted, I never would have looked at most of these tools if it wasn’t for participating in this program. So, I’m really glad I took part in it and it's a good beginning to using Web 2.0 tools. I really liked LibraryThing and del.icio.us, and Technorati is a fabulous tool for finding information from blogs, which contain some very good information. I think Bloglines is good too, but as yet I’m not sure if I need to use it. I always check a few different sites if I am looking for books, so my Rollyo book search tool will come in handy. I was amazed at how good some of these tools are – the technology behind them is incredible.
This is a great program to definitely explore more at a later date and it also provides a really useful collection of links/resources for future reference (especially when planning for the use of Web 2.0 tools in the library), like the list of Web 2.0 tools on the Web 2.0 awards site.
So, I just want to say THANKS for organising the Learning 2.0 program for Victorian public libraries to participate in.

#22 Audiobooks

I had a brief listen to some of the free Gutenberg audio books but I don't think I could listen to them fully - some of the voices are terrible, especially the computerised one - who would listen to that?? I couldn't get into the Baer eBooks as it required a password - maybe not free, then? Some of the ebooks weren't accessible either without a password.The movies in the Movies section did not look that appealing.....and would they all be on YouTube anyway?

#21 Podcasts

I searched Yahoo for podcasts of interviews with librarians. Nothing too interesting came up, so I thought of a particular librarian instead - Jessamyn West. This led me to the Library Meme blog, which 'aggregates the best library and information technology-related podcasts'. This looks like a really useful blog. I added the feed to my Bloglines account and also added the feed content to my blog. Libraries have millions of uses for podcasts - audio library tours, education on using resources, booktalks, book reviews, library news, new library resources... and podcasts are convenient for very busy people, like all of us.

#20 YouTube

Here is a video from YouTube that I saw a while ago showing Web 2.0 in action called 'The Machine is Us/ing Us'.



I did a search on 'Libray 2.0' and found 'The Librarian's 2.0 Manifesto', with some useful pointers for librarians. The comments were interesting too.



Libraries could use videos for virtual tours of the library and as teaching aids to using resources such as databases. Videos of booktalks and other speakers and childrens' activities could also be made for viewing via the library website.By uploading videos to YouTube the library is also promoting itself and might be found by users of YouTube.

#19 Web 2.0 awards

I really like the idea of 43 Things. It gives a snapshot of what is important to people (to achieve) and how important it is overall via a tag cloud. This would be really great to have on a library website. It would create a real community/social/human feel. A social network created specially for a particular library community using Ning may also be a worthwhile experiment.