#23...and it's all over, now, baby blue.....

Well, this is an occasion to remember! I've done it! Yay is me!

This is a great moment. I was very keen to do this since I heard Helene Blowers and other experts speak at the State Library earlier this year. I felt like a whole world was passing me by, and that I was completely missing out. But I also found it all a bit overwhelming and terrifying!

It has been quite a slog sometimes, most things took much longer than I imagined they would as I nutted out what I'd missed / done wrong / not read properly / not understood. But there was a sense of great achievement (like you get from the perfect sentence!) when the blog post was done and I'd learned something/s new!

When I started, I had just taken an enormous leap into the millenium by buying a laptop and getting the internet on at home. Whacko! This was very fortunate as I would never have got through this if I'd have had to do it at work. I needed time and space and patience that couldn't be squeezed into the working day.

I feel full of ideas for using some of the 23 things at work, both in big ways like a library blog or wiki and in relatively smaller ways like being able to show people some of these things so that they, too, can see the light!

I like to imagine I won't forget the things I have learned and that I will go back to those that didn't quite gel and do a bit more fossicking. I have become a convert of rss feeds, youtube, image generators and flickr and am coming to grips with del.icio.us and rollyo.

Mostly, what Library 2.0 has done for me is increased my confidence on the web - no mean feat! I am much more at home on it - and much braver too! So while I might still find myself on World ebook Fair, scratching my head and staring hopefully, wondering what exactly it is I have to do to get the ebook to play, I'll now have a go and fiddle away until I find the way.

So, thank you Helene Blowers, and thank you Lynette and Leslie for the huge amount of work you've been doing so we can do this, and thank you Tara for setting the benchmark and urging me on! I salute you all.

And, by heck, I salute m'self!!

#22 eAudiobooks - the next best thing

I love talking books! During a long two and a half years of travelling to Melbourne nearly every weekend I found being read to an enjoyable way to pass the travel time. It also took my mind off the stresses of those times. I began listening to them when I was in the kitchen too. (Sometimes it can take a while to finish the story!)

So this is amazing, although downloading them to an MP3 player is a whole new kettle of fish for me! I have to say the human voice makes all the difference - the computer voice sounds like something from an episode of "Lost in Space".

For libraries, these audiobooks would be fantastic. Not only could they be whipped away on the due date, but there'd be no time consuming processing needed. And no need to chase up the disc that's been left in the player or clean splodged and scratched discs with toxic concotions.

Some people would be right into it, others would need some educating - I still find some of the older people beside themselves because they think that if they stop the cd before it's finished they have start right back at track one again. "With a tape," one told me, "you knew where you were. You pushed stop and it stayed stopped."

We all have to move with the times. Maybe I'll grow to love those computer voices!

# 21 podcasts - the penny drops

This did not get off to a good start as I couldn't find the Yahoo : What is a podcast tutorial at all. Hmm. Then I fossicked around the sites a bit until inspired to find the ABC podcasts. The light came on! Now I get it! I can't get good radio reception in my house except on the clock radio by the bed. So I mainly listen when I'm waking up or if I'm driving. in the car.

On the weekend, several people talked about Geraldine Doogue's interviews in Bennelong on Saturday morning. Aha! I found it - it's a long podcast so I haven't listened to it all yet. But I can. So got that one and Romona Koval's Book Show onto my Google Reader. I restrained myself from grabbing anymore, because of course the time to listen is the next thing!

Perhaps it's because I'm an aging baby boomer that I've been so pathetically over cautious about these tools? Or maybe it was a good idea to stop looking at those prizewinning blogs and loose the "Oh I could never do that" foetal position! Podcasts are really very simple - at least to find and listen to! I am not quite up to audacity yet!

Author talks and other library events could become podcasts; a regular library podcast could promote what's new - books, dvds, events, options, technology. It's a different way to reach people, especially people who can't / don't listen to the radio!!

November 24th 2007..........lest we ever forget!!!!

# 20 YouTube you beaudy!

Subtitle for this should be I'm not scared any more...which I was in the lead up to this exercise. For some reason the next three steps were/are extra daunting ones. I seem to receive many YouTube videos one way and the other, but I've always felt the process would be beyond me! Another 2.0. triumph! I have stayed up way past my bedtime looking at YouTube and I can't quite believe all the things I've found there. I feel an addiction coming on! How could I possibly select just one? The only problem for me with these is that every time I've ever played a YouTube video it freezes constantly and is very frustrating. Tonight I've discovered if I replay it, it's fine. I don't know why this happens - any advice out there?

YouTube could be the place for library promotions (look how much election campaigning's gone on there!) but they'd need to be funny and catching!

My test video is a bit heartbreaking really - who would ever have thought Bob would be doing commercials. I am very shocked, really, but, well, it is Bob and I am still a worshipper at his altar!




YES!!! I did it!

# 19 the web 2.0 world

Here's a parallel universe, where you rely totally on the kindness of strangers - to tell you where to stay, what to eat, how to travel, how much Amoxicillin to give a nine year old, how to promote the book you've just published yourself, how to make coctails from whatever bottles are in your bar...if you want to know, web 2.0 can tell you!

A lot of the information is American-centric, but I did find some Australian content. For example, I couldn't find any events for my area in upcoming.yahoo.com but did in www.eventful.com . RealTravel was a marvellous source of travel information, photos, blogs, tips, deals, and even provides a (free) online, easily accessible trip planner, but not much about Australia.

My personal favourites among the new discoveries? One Sentence - true stories told in one sentence; answers.yahoo.com where anybody can answer any question about anything; RealTravel.

I was overwhelmed and fascinated by finding more and more 2.0 tools and options. And by knowing there's heaps more I haven't looked at. Some of these tools would be invaluable to our borrowers if presented as part of the meeting of their request, for example, with the books on Europe some information on what's possible with 2.0 travel tools. And library communities could use some of these tools to communicate - or enhance their communications - on the web.

#18 zoho, not so hoho

I wanted to like zoho, truly I did. The idea of accessing it from any computer, writing, editing and sharing anyplace, anytime, anywhere, was brilliant. However I found the site flawed and it took me several attempts to get something published on my blog. I know, with my record, it could have been me at fault, so I did try on two different days - thinking, the night before, that I was too tired and mucking it up.

Calvin was very hard to understand when he zipped and darted through the script builder video and left my head (and my eyes!) spinning. Both the video demonstrations froze at some point and had to be restarted.

I played around with several documents until zoho suddenly refuse to respond to save, and I could no longer add a picture - or save the *%#+?^## thing. Started again the next day and zoho wouldn't let me play around with text colours and styles etc. - as it had the night before! And then, attempting to publish it on my blog, I wasn't sure which username and password it required, the blog one or the zoho one. This was, of course, after I figured out how to enter my blog in the first place!!

I guess I learned to keep plodding until I got it figured, but frankly I don't quite trust zoho at this point in time - I'd hate to get to the end of something lengthy and time consuming and find I couldn't save it; I'd also be in strife if someone else was waiting on it urgently!

george

 

Using Zoho........

 

right now and then I'll plonk it on my blog! Just to break the monotony of all these wordy blogs, a picture of George with his hand on his heart!

 

 

 

#17 playing in the wiki sandbox

I'm now officially entered onto the Favourite Blogs page and it was easy, though I went back and deleted the brackets - didn't think we needed them really. And I was looking around and about at all the wikis and thought I would go that extra mile and so into Favourite Books I went. Clicked on edit and went to the trouble of selecting font and colour. Then busily tapped out a few lines on the fantastic book I'm reading, Anne Enright's The Gathering. Clicked on save. But I can't find what I wrote and now I don't know if I did something wrong or whether this is a read only deal. Either way I'm feeling humiliated and a little less cocky about my 2.0. expertise.

I don't think I'll do anything else tonight!!!

P.S. The Gathering is worth a read!

# 16 wiki wonderland...

Well, this is really something!! Such possibilities, so much information! I must confess my teeth gnashed and my eyes popped in spite of myself when I considered the idea of known or unknown persons editing and generally interfering with my precious words.

But I became totally absorbed in finding out what's in a wiki.I loved the BookLovers Wiki. As a recent convert to amazon.com (this 2.0. program may find it has a lot to answer for!)I have changed my tune a bit. I seek out the customer reviews about titles I'm not familiar with, and the more reviews the better as I try to establish if this is what I'm looking for. So that makes me think more about people's LibraryThings being linked to catalogue entries and then on to the possibilities of reviews and recommendations being made by passionate readers and subject enthusiasts via wikis.

Workshops, author visits, requests, ideas, community news, help, hints, conference and author visit feedback, gripes, groans, suggestions,...so much could be shared on a library wiki - and among so many! And in a wiki wiki way! (I am happy to know where this word comes from and what it means!)

#15 2.0 is for life...not just for Christmas!

It's taken me a bit of time to read through the 2.0 articles, and have my brain cells slowly absorb the information! I especially liked Wendy Schultz's article, which of course bought up the spectres of 3.0. and 4.0!; and her definition : "Libraries are not merely in communities, they are communities ". And Michael Stephens', which began with "the Library is human" and went on to deliver some particularly readable 2.0 information. Chip looked very perky (I can't believe people still have those names!), but I really had a battle to grasp all he had to say.

It seems to me there is a huge task ahead of us here, maintaining the balance between reality and virtual reality : meeting our community's varied needs and expectations face to face and online. The library I work in is in a country town. It is (I hope!) a friendly, inviting, welcoming place where people come to borrow all sorts of resources, to use computers, and to find help and information - for all sort of reasons. It is a meeting place, a relaxing space and, sometimes, a fun place. A community centre in the very old-fashioned sense of the word.

But more people are taking advantage of our online services from home _ and not just the young ones! They might need a bit of help from our staff to get going, but it's amazing how quickly they take off! You can find just about everything you need on the internet and we really do have to be part of this reality, and find a place to meet our community online - a place that is relevant, useful and exciting!

I've been learning a lot of useful tools of the online trade here. I've got to figure how to best use them. To bring people onboard and to meet them out there, in their loungerooms and kitchens and offices and cars and trains, on their laptops and phones! It's quite a challenging task!

a tad more Technorati

Okay, the spiders have done their job and I have filled in the forms and done some more tagging and had a look at some of the blogs and blurbs and learned that WTF stands for Where's the Fire? which means What's Hot, and Why, and put the profile and tag onto my blog...and I have to say Technorati is a very helpful, step-by-step, "and now you can do this" place to be. ButI also have to say (or maybe I should say admit) that this one just overwhelms me tonight. I feel as if there is just an absolutely huge, enormous amount of infomation and people tapping away and that I could spend the rest of my life lost in Technorati. And still not have found what I'm looking for. I will, as always(!), perservere and get together some favourites and a watchlist and see if I can get this sorted. But when all those new blog posts flow in before your eyes......yikes!!!

#14 Technorati takeover

Technorati Profile

This little blog is written with a purpose : so that Technorati can release its spiders. Let the creepy crawlies begin!!! So, as you can see, I am fully embracing the Technorati experience. (aka trying to make sense of it all!!!)

#13 de.light.ful del.icio.us????

I have lost some momentum with 2.0 so it's taken a whack of time today to get back in and walk the walk! I felt as if my brain fogged over and I was staring at del.icio.us without getting what it's all about. Then I had the very brilliant idea of creating an account and putting all the 2.0 tutorials and sites on it as a practice, ventured further and added some blogs I found, and then a couple of other web pages I check out fairly regularly. And after reading The Several Habits of Wildly Succesful del.icio.us Users I tagged that as well! I found myself getting better with tagging and with having a sticky at other people's favourites. (I liked Habit Five - Stalk Other Users!)

This will be another thing to work on. Editing tags, adding and deleting urls, and, hopefully, finding the best and most effective way to make use of del.icio.us. I like that I can access it from any browser anywhere, as opposed to the bookmarks I have at home and at work, and I am pleased that I am grasping the full stop no space principle! Which was, surprise surprise, not all that easy!!

I liked the example of having some del.icio.us favourites as a reference tool at the library, so people could find a site quickly. I can imagine, for example, saving appropriate sites as aids for a school project that you may get asked for information on by most of the students - individually! (Or, of course, their Mums!)

My del.icio.us account can be accessed through the blog title. And I've made a del.icio.us network badge (see left); not that I've quite gotten around to an actual network yet!!

#12 Rollyo ho ho

I've had a good look around this site, created an account and added some search rolls I might find useful. Once again it's a time will tell thing. I'll see whether, and how often, I refer to this and whether I find it more efficient (for my purposes) than using favourites or bookmarks. I think it would be a good idea, over time, to create a search roll for myself from the best of the search rolls' urls or from addresses I discover and like. I have a feeling this could become like my experience with bloglines and RSS : I did the exercise about them, feeling fairly dubious, and then I discovered Google Reader, established a new group of feeds, and now I find myself checking them regularly! So I guess 2.0 opens the door and what I do when I'm inside is up to me!

Best thing for me with this exercise was the simply splendid directions for putting My Rollyo on my blog template. This helped me do this very easily, and then I used it for My LibrayThing bookcovers. They are both on the left hand side of this blog page. Thanks!

Some 2.0 moments!

# 11 Librarything and everything else

So here's another thing I never knew existed....Facebook for books! It's another thing to play about with over time and see how useful it is. But it's one thing to recall and enter all the books you've read (which, if my brain allowed, would be over 200 and incur a fee), and quite another to imagine accessing my catalogue with my mobile phone. Perhaps at a party when I just can't remember the exact title but know the author? Friends might start worrying about me. Perhaps in a book shop 'cause I can't remember if I've read it? Hmm. I feel a touch of OCD coming along! But I'd like to see how it works linked into a library catalogue.

I know you'll want to dive straight in and look at my books, so here's the most absolutely fabulous thing of all! It's taken me the better part of the afternoon to figure it out, but if you click on the title of this blog, you'll get straight in!

One way and t'other, my horizons are broadening!

# 10 From the sublime to the ridiculous

Looking at image generators can take up huge slabs of time! So many, many options on the Generator Blog. I've done much playing in an area I knew nothing about and found much that was funny and much that was riduculous. And much that on the last step of the process, or when I first clicked on, wasn't functioning. And my little Hermoine here was one of my first attempts. I can't use any of the others I ended up saving at this stage; all of a sudden the blogger is hiccuping when I try to upload a pic! Still, a brave new world has been opened up for me! And I'll try to blog one of the others later.

Incidentally, LetterJames and AlphaPicture are being rehabilitated and won't be back up until the 29th.

Oh, and the link to my image is :

http://elouai.com/chibi/harrypotter/icons.php

# 9 Rssssssssssss........

Forgot to number this one when I actually did it a couple of weeks ago! But in the meantime I have taken the advice of a fellow 2.0 blogger and set up a Google reader. And I do prefer the layout and the way, when I check my RSS feeds, the newer ones are already open on the right hand side of the page. Among my subscriptions with Google are Guardian Unlimited Books, London Review of Books and NYT Books. So the other day, when I thought to check it out, I very quickly found who had won the Booker Prize, an interview with the author and a review of the book. So this assignment became useful! And the feeds I've chosen aren't all dutifully serious. I've added Marieke Hardy's blog and a blog called "The Society for Librarians who say M......." Well, I perhaps shouldn't say what they say here : if you watch The Sopranos you won't have much trouble figuring it out! And it's a blog for people who work in libraries to debrief about the good, the bad and the ugly of their day.

# 7 technological leaping...well for this blogger anyway!!

I slaved over the very simple step of pasting the bloglines address onto my blog, retracing my steps over and over until I finally discovered the error of my ways and hey presto! It was easy really! Some days later at work we were talking about bloglines and I described my predicament and then showed another 2.0 participant the key to getting this right. She of course had no idea of the effort involved on my part to be able to do this - rather like young women have no idea of the early feminist struggles to achieve for them the basic equalities they have grown up with!!! But I was thrilled to realise that : I had retained the information; I could show someone else what to do...sort of simply!

So it is a relief to know that I am learning a lot of new things with 2.0 and am able to share them. And that all this learning gives me more confidence on the internet in general as I mess about with RSS feeds, flickr, facebook, bloglines,...etc. Only it doesn't get the washing done, or the pruning, the vacuuming, the ironing, the shopping. Nor the book read. Let alone any face to face socialising with real people!!

#6 A trading card...via flickr

My creation, originally uploaded by elplates.

Here it is..better late than never!!!! Trying to fill in those gaps on the staff tracking log, as well as having a play with flickr and being led step by simple step through the process. This seems to me to be a very user friendly site. All you need is the time and space and place to indulge!

But why, when it's truly Saturday afternoon and I am doing this on my weekend, does the blog say it's Friday??? As if I have time to do this in my working day??

And this trading card is a decent size so that if any people with my sort of eyes want to actually read it, no further clicking's required!!

#8 making life oh so simple!!!

Whacko, this was the simple one!! In fact, it took a lot of time, only because I was absorbed in the task of finding RSS feeds that I'd want to see. I learnt how to delete the ones I decided were a bit too precious or weighty!

It remains to be seen how this will work in my life. It's all new and seems impressive, but I need to use it a bit for a proper evaluation. I imagine I will be first with the latest : that the information will come through to me rather than my spending ages trawling for it on the net, waiting to hear about it or reading endless newspapers and journals. I've tried to find useful feeds for work and for news : might need to refine these after a trial period. And might need to report later on just how useful it is!

And now, (hoping this will remain a simple task and my self-esteem will remain intact!) the URL :
http://www.bloglines.com/public/elplates

#5 flickr

Hokey Pokey, originally uploaded by FredoAlvarez.

I found a pic of this saying when I first looked at flickr. You might imagine I could easily find it again, but, after trawling through umpteen zillion pics, I accept that that one is lost forever. I think some 1700 pics had been uploaded each minute after I saw it, which is a bit overwhelming. Is this all people do on a Sunday? This version is the next best thing.

I have played The Waifs "Shelter Me" twice while I have been trying to complete this simple little task. Miraculously, what seems impossible (and frazzling and exasperating and sweat producing and frustrating and aaaaarrrrgggghhh!!!) suddenly clicks over and is possible!

Would that the hokey pokey was what it's all about!!

Slightly less than stunning

.....But not so easy that I got it quite right the first time. Did I copy & paste the right URL or the one that appears when I write? Did I realise that birtdates have to be the American way or I would end up being an Aries? And..did I remember my username when I wanted in again???

I am viewing my problems as challenges!!

beginning

I am congratulating myself! I have just created my first blog! And, thank you - it was stunningly easy.