Finally

http://explorediscoverplay.blogspot.com/2007/04/learning-21-master-list-of-things.html

Let's keep going.....

Well, so I think that I have decided that I quite like blogging, the problem being that I just don't think that I am that interesting. So like the big nerdy nerd that I accused someone else missing their Learning 2.0 homework to be have decided to embark upon Learning 2.1 which can be found here
http://explorediscoverplay.blogspot.com/2007/04/learning-21-master-list-of-things.html
And I have also gone back over another persons blog entry about Cultural Literacy and something else I have forgotten now, and in the main part I have to say I agree. In fact just the other day I was remarking to a co-worker that within two generations I'm not sure anyone will be able to read anymore, or perhaps I should qualify that with I'm not sure they will be able to figure out what to read for themselves anymore. And if people cannot find what they want within two mouse clicks they will give up. I think it's a great shame that we don't seem to be letting people in on the great joy of discovering information anymore. And sometimes we as librarians are facilitating this. "Can't find that in a book, let me google it for you" is a common catchcry amongst the staff, don't think you can find that amongst a list of items, let me create a bloody great icon for you on the screen so you don't miss it, are we really this busy people that we can't take a minute to look for something any more???? I don't disagree with making peoples lives easier, in fact I'm all for it, but shouldn't part of making their lives easier include helping them to find information themselves, and now that I'm sounding a bit ranty it might be time to go.....

23 Done, but not quite dusted

Finally, the end. I was going along quite well, then things went bellyup for a bit, but I got there in the end.

First,
Habit 1 – Begin with the end in mind
Habit 2 – Accept responsibility for your own learning
Habit 3 – View problems as challenges
Habit 4 – Have confidence in yourself as a competent, effective learner
Habit 5 – Create your own learning toolbox
Habit 6 – Use technology to your advantage
Habit 7 – Teach and mentor others
Habit 7 ½ – PLAY!Have fun! It's never too late to become a lifelong learner.

I've got most of them covered I think, although some of you out there may not agree. I am known to procrastinate a bit and that's not so good, but here I am at the final post for Learning 2.0. But, you know, not my final post for ever I don't think, I quite like this. I would like to explore the possiblity of a blog for the reading group I run for upper primary school students, they never hand in their reading log books, maybe they would blog about books they have read, you never know until you try I suppose.
I have really enjoyed the learning 2.0 program, but I have to say I have probably done about 95% of it at home. I felt guilty trying to do it at work, there was always something else I should be doing. Some of the people who have struggled to complete the program in the time slot have also had this problem, paired with the fact that this is just stuff that they don't do at home, makes it hard. As with our patrons, there are staff who just aren't interested in learning the ins and outs of all this stuff and that's ok. If we did it again, maybe do it in pairs and have time together organised off desk to do it, when it is ok to do it.
There's stuff I have to go back to, the RSS feeds for example, why do I have them, and what do they really do? Really simple stuff, probably, but ???
Podcasts could be used to great advantage by libraries, advertise the features of the library on local websites that may be getting more hits than the library website, people nowadays are more visual and may look. Link into the local school websites with podcasts on the local library and how they could support the students, podcasts to explain how to use the catalogue, the list is long.
Wikis sound awesome for libraries as well, book groups, staff manuals, facilitate more patron input, all good ideas for a wiki.
So that's it, congrats to all who have finished, and keep going to all those who haven't. I know some people who are keen to go in the next round, so that's good. There were some negative aspects to all this, but I'm trying to be a more positive person, so that's for another day.

Is this what we will have to do with the few books we have left because everyone else is finding all they want on the internet?? I for one hope not!!

22 Audio Books

Well this was interesting wasn't it. The first site I tried, The world ebooks/Project Gutenberg site, raised some questions. Are they free or aren't they?? Some were and some weren't, some were easy to download and some weren't, some were easy to find and some weren't.
Then I did the tried and true, I googled free audio books and found the Librivox site, also alluded to in Mr Diems wonderful blog. Thanks to him I also listened to a little of the computer generated David Copperfield. Very funny.
The whole idea is a good one, and one that could be used very successfully in libraries. Copyright implications would have to be worked out and other issues such as does the patron provide the player for the file, or should libraries consider loaning mp3 players? There would then have to be staff who could explain how to use the equipment and deal with any problems that may arise with the equipment.
I think audio books in this format could be very useful for older or visually impaired patrons, if you could have a very simple player with large buttons on it. Some of the mp3 players these days have difficult to use scroll wheels and very very tiny buttons.

21.5 a bit more

I did put the create your own podcast link into my favourites to look at later, this could become really useful in making podcasts that the local schools could maybe link to from their home pages showing the kids that libraries really aren't uncool! and that just maybe we could help them with their school work. You could have podcasts on how to use some of the libraries databases to search for school assignment topics, how to use the library catalogue from home, you could podcast about new music cds and dvd's in the library, anything to get them in, once they're in they might stay.

21 Podcasts and everything

Well, this is something I think I could get really into. I did however find the directories full of stuff I really don't want, and it was hard to find what I did want. So I then went to Itunes as I am lucky enough to have my daughters old Ipod, lucky me! This was reasonably easy, a lot of the podcasts were free and easy to download, you could download more than one at a time and I now have a couple to put onto the ipod and then I can listen to them anywhere, sounds good doesn't it.
I then tried to add a podcast to my poor neglected bloglines account. This was really easy as well and I have now suscribed to Mugglecast, and as I am typing this I am listening to a podcast how cool!
I had actually already suscribed to a couple of podcast but didn't realise it, silly me.
I will need to spend some time on locating the good podcasts as this was a problem. Itunes had a lot, but surely don't have everything, and this is just something that will take some thinking on how to find good relevant stuff.

20 Well I can You tube

The first go didn't work, I found this silly clip of people doing a broadway song and dance in a library, but I couldn't copy all the code needed to put it into my blog, so I tried this one. It is a trailer for "The Hollywood librarian" a documentary film on Hollywood Librarians. Enjoy!

P.S. You could waste many many hours on You Tube couldn't you!

19 Discovering Web 2.0 Tools

Well, I just may be a little web 2.0'd out. I picked music to look at as it is probably the one I would most likely be asked about at work. Working through the list, Pandora wouldn't work, so I tried last fm. I had to download it to my computer and then create a playlist so I could get a widget to put onto my blog. Now you all know my weird music tastes. Anyhow, it took a while and I would have to spend longer to try and fully understand it, little things like there only seems to be 30 seconds of each song there as I was quickly picking them to try and generate the list. And I now have another username and password to add to my ever expanding list!

Zoho ho ho

Or in this politically correct world should that be Zoha ha ha. The previous post is actually a zoho document that I published to my blog, not that you can tell that, very cool!!!

limerick

A happy young lady named Mary
wanted all of the books she could carry.
"Books and info I'll get,and some time on the 'Net...
And it's all for free at the Library!"

17 Playing in the sandbox

Well, I think that I have successfully added my blog, and my favourite leisure time activity to the sandbox, it was a bit frustrating though, it didn't seem to want to do it the first time, and wanted me to press save twice for both, not sure why?? But I've found something else cool in doing so, who says this isn't fun??

16 Wiki me Wiki you

Wikis, what a wonderful way to help share information, but do we really think that as a profession we want to relinquish the control and power we have over all those people who come to us for information???? I know that many people are working in libraries to share information and help people in their search for further information, but at the moment we control what we do to a certain extent. I notice that by reading some of the other blogs that the control of content in a wiki seems to be a major concern, and after watching the interview with the guy who created Wikipedia on the Sunday show a while ago I understand this. It was interesting as the interviewer questioned him on information about herself that she found on Wikipedia that was in fact wrong! I personally think that Wikis could be a great tool, but would have to be monitored to ensure content was appropriate and applicable to what the Wiki was about. As many of us are finding whilst doing this Learning 2.0 it is all too easy to be taken off course here on the Internet. I would like to explore the possibility of Wikis for a young adult book group, it seems that it too difficult to get one running in person, perhaps by starting in the electronic world????

15 On Library 2.0, Web 2.0 and other stuff

After a break while my daughter was quite sick, in and out of hospital for a month I'm back!! They finally decided to take out her appendix and she is better now, so it is all systems go.

So library 2.0 and Web 2.0, well, I love it a lot, but I also loathe it just a little. I think it is a great way for people who may be far apart for whatever reasons to be able to communicate and share information. I think all the social networking is ok, but in is it all really necessary?? My fourteen year old comes home and gets onto msn, or myspace and talks online with people who she has just spent all day with at school, but try and get her to make an actual phone call and talk with an actual body rather than use a keyboard, sometimes that's like pulling teeth. That aspect of all of this scares me a little, in this rush towards social networking are we forgetting the basic social skills???

In the library world many of these skills can be used for good rather than evil. The often proposed idea of wikis for staff manuals or book groups, blogs for the younger generation to interact with us old fogey library staff and more interactive library catalogues are all great ideas. Sometimes in this rush towards being so technologically savy are we disregarding the needs of the less technologically savy of our patrons? Some of the older patrons who come to my library have no desire to get the latest and best reads in their favourite genre emailed to them as they have no desire to ever have an email address, so we have to balance the needs of all our patrons without favouring one group over another.

I think the library of the future will still have books in it, maybe not as many, but the ability to get books from further afield helps this, I think it will still be staffed by actual people, we will just have more advanced skills in all things web 2.0

So I guess I see a future bright with the glow of library 2.0 and 3.0, 4.0 and beyond, but hope that the people who do still like to hold a book in their hands and feel the paper as it turns are not neglected in this rush towards reading books on your mobile phone as you network electronically with your vast friend network of people you have never met.

Finally Bloglines

http://www.bloglines.com/public/prim18

Well, I think that this is what I was supposed to do with the bloglines thingy. Took me a while, but here it is. More later, working on something super secret and have to keep going.....

Conference thoughts

Well, just back from a busy day at the National Library Technicians Conference. Busy, crowded, loud but strangely reassuring. The Drama Queen and I were lucky enough to go on the first day. There was a very nice Welcome to Country by a Aboriginal Elder Woman, followed by a lovely dance accompanied by a didgeridoo.
The first session we attended was the one including Loud@Pathways a youth engagement initiative. Now this was where things got good, they run a program called "Loud" that is designed to bring in the group that we all want to get the 12 - 17 year olds. Once a month they hold these nights out of library hours were they have up to 100 youth in the library for pizza, drinks, internet, music and the like. These are very successful and they are assisted by a very helpful friends group, the local policeman attends for the night, and they also have a group of regular attenders deemed 'angels', kids who also help out on the night and self-monitor the behaviour, etc a little. The funding for these nights appears not to come from the library but from the Pathways group, which is apart from the library. Pathways is a large multi-purpose community facility combining a new state-of-the art library, leisure centre, education and training centre, village-green and meeting and function spaces. They discussed treating the teenagers like normal people, but setting boundaries and having respect for the rules. They appeared to have a uniform of sorts, a t-shirt, that the library workers, friends group, and the teenage 'angels' all wore, I guess this helps identify the necessary people and probably makes the 'angels' feel more important. They allow people who aren't library members to attend, but only library members are eligible for any prize draws they may have on the nights. I think that we already do very similar things with our Runescape nights, the games consoles, etc. Perhaps the after-hours opening specifically for the targeted age groups would be a good thing to consider.
The next one was 'One desk, one stop', again stuff we are already doing. This one was talking about combining the information desk and the circ desk into one, and the pros and cons in doing this. They also discussed having no desks and roving librarians. This was discussed as happening in an academic setting, and interestingly they found that roving librarians did not work for them. Wonder if it will work at the new NAR if this is what they decide to do?? The roving librarians had a uniform to assist people in identifying them, I wonder if our staff will like that?
We then had a long spiel about how a certain library service manages their inter-library loans without paper. It was very specific to their library service, and sounded very involved and maybe a few bits of paper would've helped them.
Then we were told about how a library service in Queensland went about amalgamating their library services, what was good about this was the multiskilling that the staff ended up with, although for people resistant to change this would've been quite a difficult process to go through.
The next session involved the dynamo that is Suzette Boyd, The Connected Library: engaging users author. She was great, very customer service focused, and passionate about it. She suggested things like a getting to know your staff display, so that our patrons could begin to understand that we actually have a life outside of the library. Some gems included, 'Always under promise and then over deliver' and the always good one 'It is easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission' so take a risk she said. Not so sure about that last one. Now she also heads a staff of 11, has a patron base of approx 1400 students (if I got that right) so her staff to patron ratios are a little better than ours. She did push the idea of getting the customers input into the ideas for the library, maybe this is something we should look at more.
Then came Interior design for libraries. He has been out to CRA library before, and was very good. A lot of it we already knew, and put into practice pretty well I thought. There is always room for improvement, but the necessary funds need to be there as well.
The last session was Ipods and the library. Unfortunately this wasn't as interesting as I thought it would be, the presenter was very knowledgeable, but a bit all over the place. And it was a bit of a long ad for ipods at the start, I mean, most of knew what an ipod was, and wanted to know about the possible uses in the library area. She mentioned about libraries pre-loading audio books onto ipods and then loaning out the ipod to a patron. This would mean having access to a computer to do this, with the necessary programs and staff-time to download the material, knowledge of copyright laws, and a way to pay for the downloads at the time of downloading. The possible uses for ipods in a public library seem great, but there is a lot to sort out first. For example with such a large client base, how many ipods would be enough?? Podcasts were also discussed, and these seem like they could be very useful, but staff time to develop content and then produce the podcasts may be prohibitive.
That's probably enough from me for now,
I hope all the others lucky enough to go to the conference have a great time, I know that the Drama Queen and I did.

Doppel Me !

Thank you Beer 'n' tyres Doppel me is heaps of fun, I made one and added it to my blog as well. It was really easy as well, I love the way all these sites generate the code for you and all you have to be able to do is cut and paste.

Tag clouds again

Now that's a tag cloud, pretty cool hey! But now I think I should rest my tired mind and go to bed!

Not really a tag cloud

I have removed my 'tag cloud' because as discussed with a friend, it really was a 'tag box' and a pretty lame one at that. I will have another go soon, now that I have signed up with Del.icio.us it might work better, let's hope so!

another one for Heather

Here's another photo for Heather, although, he doesn't look particularly frazzled does he?? I was looking for a picture to jazz up my title thingy, but I'm not sure I like it, might take it off

Rollyo????

Just had a go at Rollyo, have to say not sure that I like it at first look. I tried to make a search roll for children's literature, there are some great sites out there as I found out when I did a children's lit subject for my course. I gathered together a few including Wikipedias entry on children's literature and then tried a simple search. The search results all seemed to be from the Wikipedia site and I found that a bit frustrating. I then removed the Wikipedia site from the list of sites in my search engine, the results are a bit better now.

I suppose that it might have uses in a library setting, maybe a school library where teachers want to have certain sites grouped together, but the advertising was a bit of a nuisance. Maybe it would just be easier to have a list of suitable sites linked by a topic and let people look on their own.

I guess a question is, do sites like Rollyo just make people even less information literate as certain people (like librarians) are doing their research for them??

My Monz Mashup

this is my attempt at a mashup, and a couple of private jokes at the same time, I also consider myself very lucky that Monz loves having her photo taken!!

Making life Really SSimple NOT

I thought this was all good, made my bloglines account and added some blogs from the wonderful interesting library blogs that are out there, then thinking, yes I am up to the challenge tried to do that thing where I could provide the URL address to my bloglines account, looked at the pictures and again thought, I am up to the challenge. But sadly, I was not up to the challenge, there is no share tab on my thingy, so although I have tried to be a good child and share, bloglines is not allowing me to!! Maybe tomorrow......

Progress and Library 2.0

Whatever we might all be thinking about all this library 2.0 stuff, from the name which some people find all too confusing, to all the passwords and related nonsense it is heaps better than how libraries used to work, note the picture found of 'library workers preparing books' although at times our back room looks a little like this!

Technology related blog thoughts

I am thinking that this blogging could become a little addictive, but probably not enough to rival chocolate.
What I am finding a little annoying is the multitude of usernames and passwords that you have to remember, and sometimes these wonderful things like flickr seem to be a bit ponderous, it took me forever to get just seven photos on there. I am sure there is an easier way to do it, but I just wanted to do it and get it done.
Went to the movies today and saw Stardust, very funny, loved it and would recommend it to anyone.

Toes

010
Originally uploaded by primrose1934

Aren't these lovely finger toes!

Monica modelling FTI

396
Originally uploaded by primrose1934

Hard at work and deep in thought

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Originally uploaded by primrose1934

Saw this at the Nan Tien Temple and loved it.

another one

I have made a Library Thing, but don't know how to put it on my blog, my first attempt failed miserably, so stay tuned.

Flickr

Have finally Flickred. Heaps of photos out there, seemingly many of libraries, do we have nothing else to do but put photos out there and talk to each other in the electronic world. Just makes me ponder a bit, but that said I do love looking at what everyone else puts out there, people are funny creatures aren't they.

Now to find something to add to my blog post, that may have to wait, I'll find something cool hopefully.

Tried again, this one will be it

Well, I've tried again, with the realisation that I'm supposed to be aware that all you people will be reading this now I feel the pressure to be at least a little bit interesting. Don't know how that will go for me.

Hope to get back to the 2.0 stuff this week, been busy, have to do an activity this afternoon and I'm not ready.

Christian your photo is a bit scary, and Heather think of how blogs can get all that interesting history out there to the people who are missing it!!!

back soon.