#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!