Thing23

The 23 Things was a great learning expereince. I think there are various ways in which some of them could be used in libraries. For e.g. maybe putting the delicious gadget on an infolinks page so that users could click straight through to delicious to save or share useful links. There are really so many applications possible.
I would have liked to be introduced to all the google applications and gadgets a bit sooner in the program. Personally I found iGoogle and delicious the most useful things for me and I am using delicious regularly now as I work in different locations and it is so great being able to access my favourites from anywhere.
As this was really only a taste of what's possible i hope to find time in the future to learn and use more of "the things".
I look forward to getting an idea of what innovations might be implemented library wide so that I can get more familiar with them.

Thing 22

I am delighted this afternoon as my chat on Goole talk finally worked. It was just a matter of waiting until someone I had invited came on line. What I don't understand is how strangers meet this way. Our instructions were to invite people we knew. How do strangers meet this way?

Thing 21

Podcasting is very convenient. I was able to put a program I had chosen onto my iGoogle page and also another one on my blog.Now I'm wondering if it would be possible to place a podcast into an Infolink.

Thing 20

I have been using You Tube to look at music videos for a long time and i really enjoy it. The only issue i ever have had is that often a message pops ups to say that the video is no longer available.

There are some useful videos on there about library resources etc like this one explaining how to use ArtStor- a database of pictures which can be freely used.
There's also how to use JStor.

Thing 19

As I didn't have a pet picture I selected a "pet" - a bluebird which would be wonderful to see in the wild but a bit sad to see as a caged bird.

Thing 18

I have been playing around with searches on Encore and I do like it. I think it will appeal to students as it looks good and is easy to navigate. I like the tag clouds and in the future if students can add them I think Librarians could learn tags which students a familiar with and likely to use. The fact that they are sized to show what's more common and relevant is great. It also gives students the chance to see other tags or keywords which might be useful.

Thing17

delicious is a great tool. i work at different sites so being able to keep my favourites in one place instead of only on my office computer is great. I want to get the tagrolls going and use delicious more in the future. I do think delicious could be useful in InfoLinks. Later i want to go back to delicious and spend more time working with it.

Thing 16

iGoogle was really fun and reasonably simple to use. I can imagine a lot of uses for it e.g. if working on a project either as a student or staff member it might be possible to make a page and keep Google docs( or many other useful gadgets) for particualar subjects or assessment tasks. it was fun being able to personalise a frog who gets fed a fly every 5 seconds. i am nor sure if that is the appropriate number of flies for a frog, but, my frog is very healthy and i believe this indicates a healthy environment.

Thing 14

Google Docs has some fantastic applications for both staff and students. There are many times when students need to work in groups on ressarch or projects and using Google docs would be a real advantage, especially for students who have so much less time to get together(they have to work to survive). It could give anyone working in a group for any reason e.g. students, community workers, political activists a way to get together on documents or any files they wanted to shre for discussions etc.

Thing 12

I quite like Facebook, not so much for personal pages-more for music and bands. Lesser known bands who I might hear on community radio like 3PBS for example might play a track from a band and if you check Facebook you may find information on where they play, the names of their CDs or you might be able to listen or watch them. That's very enjoyable.
MySpace I don't find very interesting -maybe I'm just too old! I was a bit excited that I may find schoolfriends but didn't. Most people on there except for colleagues who've become "my friend". I find it rather hilarious asking people, "will you be my friend?". How will I cope if they say no? Boo hoo

Thing11

Ok , I did it, I subscribed to Library Stuff. Hopefully, this will keep me informed of of every little bit of detail that develops in the Library world.

Thing 10

Well what a "thing" Digg is. I really don't know if I would have the patience to trawl through just in case there was anything important. I guess because the mainstream media is such a monopoly , there is a chance that this gives people a way to share news which would not be widely known otherwise. i have created a feed for it on my Google Reader so I can use it a bit more to see if it's useful or not.

Thing 9

I do like the explanation of why RSS feeds are so handy- it was explained in terms even I could understand !- and I can see great applications for researchers and librarians.
Keeping up with scholarly publishing would certainly be less hit and miss and take a lot less time if it's possible to set up feeds from databases like Ebsco and others.

I set up for myself ( amongst other things) a feed from the Library Homepage of the new titles.
What I wonder is if I can read that directly from the Homepage would I really end up saving time by having it linked to my Google Reader page. I guess it depends how many things I'm following.

Thing 15

Well that is amazing-Google Book Search but especially Google Scholar.
With Scholar I was able to see if VU held the item and eventually get through to the full text of a peer reviewed journal article. Also it was interesting to read in the background information that maybe people will actually use libraries more because of the existence of these Google products. One author argued that because Google Scholar aleted people to libraries which hold the item , users would likely find out more about the library holdings and want to use the library to access them.

Thing 13

I am jumping around now in and doing the things out of order. GoogleMaps is quite amazing- being able to virtually walk around an area is quite stunning. Real Estate people and indeed people buying property must just adore it. I am not sure I think so highly of it in terms of privacy. There will be masses of privacy issues when the day comes that something like this is live.

Thing 8

Here is the link to My LibraryThing:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/krina

LibraryThing is really fascinating. I entered a book I've been reading recently and I found that the author was registered. I was able to send him a comment about the4 book. i wonder if he will reply?
On my blog I also added a widget. Feel a bit clever-only a bit!

Thing 7

This can't be Australian toast- it has no Vegemite!

commenting on mashups

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lplconnects/2575672499/

This is a link to a mashup in flicker which shows some of the things people do in other libraries. Take a look!

Thing 5

Uluru Runoff #2
Originally uploaded by apurdam (Andrew)

It didn't work the first time, but with the kind help of 23things help people I have succeeded in putting a phot i found in flickr onto the blog. It's an aspect of Uluru that I haven't seen before. Hope you like it too.

Thing 4

I hope this works- Iwant to add a photo from flickr to this post.

computers in schools

I wonder if every child having their own computer will really generate the "education revolution" the government claims it will. Surely the computer is just a tool and the strength of education is in the curriculum and how the students engage with it. I think it is a good idea especially for cash strapped schools and those in economically disadvantaged areas to get computers but they also need financial investment to make it work for them in the long term.

are you a culture vulture?

Here are the addresses for two great sites I discovered this week.

The first one is Culture Victoria- : www.cv.vic.gov.au

The State Library of Victoria, Atrs Victoria, The National Gallery of Victoria, Museum Victoria, Federation Square, ACMI (Australian Centre for the Moving Image) The Arts Centre, The Koori Heritage Trust, Bendigo Art Gallery, Mildura Arts Centre, West Gippsland Library Corp. and Geelong Performing Arts bring Victorian Collections together and make them accessible in one virtual space.

The State Library of Victoria has an excellent education website called ergo.
It contains some great pages on essay writing.