sighbrarian

#18 Summary: the end/beginning

2008-02-11T14:41:00.000+11:00

Da-daa! Well I finally crawl over the finishing line several months later. I feel like I've just completed the Dakar rally on a bicycle. First of all, hats off to Lynette, Leanne and Mark for coaching us all through the program. Looking back at my posts I seem to have done a fair bit of grumbling and been cynical about the web 2.0 universe more than once but nevertheless I think this has been the most creative and interesting training program we have been offered in years.
Being self-paced meant I often found it hard to find time to work through the exercises as I found it required a bit of concentration to really explore new applications and so the program would end up on the back burner for weeks at a time. There was also the occasional frustration born of working in isolation when confronted with new interfaces that just didn't work for no apparent reason, were not that intuitive or had online help that was not that helpful. That is all part of the environment though - there are bugs and glitches, people search and browse in different ways and something that is obvious to one person is utterly obscure to another. I think the group workshops were a great way to overcome those issues (even though I rarely got along to them). Not only have I learned heaps I am actually applying new web 2.0 tools and it has changed my perception of the web. I have recently set up a wiki for my classmates at uni, and now add all my bookmarks to del.icio.us - very handy.
I am currently grappling with meebo and the IM thing and am pretty unimpressed at the moment because it's doing the just not working thing. Then again sometimes the technology works beautifully and the people don't. After putting a chat widget into my wiki I am still the only one who ever seems to be in the room (shades of my childhood budgie burbling away to himself in the mirror, through an increasingly opaque layer of dried budgie saliva). That had a bell on it too. The similarities are disturbing. Still there is nothing like 'doing' to let you understand how something really works. That has been the great experience of this program, that gives you that really direct sense of understanding, personal investment and functionality offered by the web 2.0 environment. Permission to play has been a revelation as an opportunity to learn about emerging technology.

#17 On Library 2.0 & Web 2.0...

2008-02-05T14:45:00.001+11:00

Nearly at the end. I read a few of the the Library2 pieces - David Lee King 'Library 2.0 ripples' and the OCLCnewsletter There are lots of clever observations but one thing that smacks you in the face is the zeal of these pieces. I was struck by the emotional quality of this writing as they outline an imminent information utopia of unfettered universal access, harmonious collaboration and the warmth of an online community that never sleeps, free of information poverty or disease. Cool, let's party! And what's with the "Hi I'm a mac" cutouts of librarian 2.0s holding cute props like oars. If you don't embrace it your get called names like "luddite" and warnings of being LEFT BEHIND!It's a bit odd actually because it's hard to believe anyone is reading these posts *except* librarian 2.0s. Zealots make me uncomfortable. There is definitely a particular mise en scene that accompanies the current web/learning 2.0 discussion. Still revolutions are bound to get people excited and an information revolution is no exception. I think the threat of being left behind is a little exaggerated tho. Revolutions aren't generally invitation only events. If you are there at the right place and time, you're in it dude.
I think declaring the death of print collections is a bit premature also. There is no doubt the balance in service provision in library is swinging rapidly toward the online environment but Wendy Schultz's model is persuasive. Library 2.0 should absorb or contain Library 1.0, and just plain library before that. It's not about rejecting the previous model it's about adapting the best of it, adding new stuff and keeping the some of stuff people don't want to lose even if you think its useless. You can find a whole archeology of knowledge living in our library at once and that's a good thing. Diversity is a good thing. It's very easy to be seduced by the virtual, but the physical remains important. In 2001 the Taliban destroyed the Buddhas of Bamiyan. I can google them and still see a picture of them in seconds but wouldn't it be better if they were still there?

#16 Podcasts, Smodcasts

2008-01-30T17:20:00.000+11:00

Running out of January here so might have to use my time effectively by writing my post while I wait forever for the podcast I'm downloading to download. Although there are lots of podcasts out there it still isn't that easy a thing to search for. I searched podcast alley and podcast.net but you kind of have to browse the subject lists to see if there is something there that takes your fancy. Podcasts are great for lectures or talks when you already know what you are looking for and where to find it, say one of the talks given at the state library but less specific searching tends to mean you end up browsing which is time consuming. Long download times are very tedious as are numerous messages to install software. I guess if you have itunes installed on your broadband computer at home it could be more fun.Of course music is still the obvious domain of the podcast and for this it is brilliant. Well, finished my post and that stupid podcast about library news I was downloading still isn't done so bad luck podcast exercise, another time perhaps - click!

#15 Youtube

2008-01-30T13:55:00.000+11:00

Why youtube is good - I have seen many photos of this installation in mags etc but didn't think much of it til I saw this on youtube:

It's Olafur Eliasson's Weather project at Tate Modern in London. Isn't it beautiful?
Downside of youtube? Waiting forever for the video to load but maybe that's just a work network thing.

#14 Discovering more Web 2.0 tools

2008-01-22T15:16:00.000+11:00

Had a look through the web awards. Checked out Wetpaint wiki site as it scored ahead of pbwiki which I had played with earlier. The templates seem more attractive and the interface a bit more intuitive but it was sooooo slooowwww!I had another browse through the site which looked just as attractive today but it was still slow to load pages. I thought that would be a massive turn off for people if you wanted them to visit often and add lots of fresh content. Got sick of waiting so I had a look at the ominously named "Fun" category of the awards. There I found One Sentence: true stories told in one sentence. It was indeed fun, and witty and interesting. I felt the judges were a bit harsh only giving it one star for usefulness. I can imagine having something similar for a library site where users could write one sentence book reviews. Users could rate the review or the book or both!

#13 - blog on tech

2008-01-16T12:12:00.000+11:00

I'm starting to lose count of the number of things I've subscribed to. It's very convenient to have access to lots of info aggregating tools and other applications on the web but you can end up with an awful lot of passwords and logins. After a while it's tempting to use the same one over and over again but that might not be a great idea.
There is a constant tradeoff between convenience and privacy and/or security. If you want to participate fully in the web 2.0 culture the pressure to forego certain rights or expectations increases steadily. For example you have to not mind too much who is accessing your content - pictures, posts, info. That's the whole point - it's a porous dynamic resource that is shared. It helps to have a trusting, optimistic nature. If you do, the rewards can be huge - extensive, vibrant online communities, a cornucopia of content and opportunities, and it's all free! These huge multibillion dollar websites just want you to join in and enjoy yourself. If you are concerned you can always read everything in full, turn up the privacy settings to the max, say no to all the unsolicited emails, not take unusual comments too seriously and never give your real name, but it gets to be a lot of work and the fun can drain away a bit.
There is also the question of personal investment. How much time and effort are you prepared to commit to your online life? It is certainly time consuming if nothing else and life is short. If you are going to pour hour after hour of your life into this environment it had better be important to you and in that sense, as lived experience, the virtual does become real.
Then there is the question of who is looking after your virtual world? I think the queen of darkness raised the question of all these .com's becoming the dubious custodians and owners of this vast archive of human experience, memory, culture and trivia. Who's storing all these exabytes and for how long? What happens when they collapse or just become passe? No matter, I'm sure we all have backup copies and print versions...

#12 Web-based applications - not just for desktops

2008-01-08T17:46:00.000+11:00

I do like Zoho even though it probably takes more than one visit to master it completely. The posting to your blog option is great and gives you so much more control over the layout of your posts. It did a few odd things with my test post though. It converted a smiley button to the word "laugh!" which made me feel like I was suddenly reading a script with some heavy handing acting prompts. Also I have a background colour on my blog ie charming vellumesque beige,and it dropped out to white where I pasted existing text from Zoho's welcome page. I guess you gradually learn these various quirks as you edit more entries.

intro to zoho

2008-01-08T17:41:00.001+11:00

I know its a bit slack but maybe I'll see if I can post a chunk of this to my blog. After all zoho articulates it all so well!
It all seems very wonderful I must say. I wonder at which point, after you have become totally dependent on this online productivity app do you suddenly run out of storage space? I noticed with Zoho show you only get 10mb so not too many big pix inyour presentation.

Can't get the tags thing to work - zoho is convinced the word "test" contains special characters, which is not permitted. Well I guess we're all special characters in some way so too bad zoho! Get over yourself!

Welcome to Zoho Writer

Your Word Processor on the Web

Thanks for signing up with Zoho Writer!

Zoho Writer is the word processor designed for you, the next generation web citizen. Built using AJAX technology, it's fast and revolutionizes the way you work with documents. Having all your documents online (and offline too! we'll get back to that later!!), you have access to them from any computer, at home or at work. And no more emailing them back-and-forth to your colleagues, clients or friends for review, thanks to its instant collaboration, inline commenting and chat facilities.

It will take a lot more than this short welcome document to list all of Zoho Writer's features and hence a chosen few of the Zoho Writer's functionalities below :

Formatting Options:

Bold, italicize, underline, set back ground color & color your words, link to a web page,Set margins, use cool smileys and do much more. Use the same keyboard shortcuts as with any other word processing application for accessing these functions.

No Searching Within Menus:

Most functions are available at a click, thanks to the friendly toolbar. And for the super user in you, a few extra features are accessible with just an extra click.

2008-01-04T17:47:00.000+11:00

Polaroid series #1

2008-01-04T16:55:00.001+11:00

Polaroid series #1, originally uploaded by mister bend.

Lovely view of the Cathedral at Mount Buffalo, Victoria, by mister bend (but you can call me mister). One could spend a lot of time roaming round flickr. It's easy to find lots of things but then it gets harder to find something in particular, or to go back and find something again if you were silly enough not to tag/fav/bookmark it the first time. I stumbled on this image the first time I searched for images of this popular family holiday destination. then went surfing for a little while on another tangent and next time I searched for Mount Buffalo I got completely different results and rather more prosaic. I found that Mtbuffalo, mtbuffalo, mt buffalo, Mt Buffalo, mount buffalo....all produce different results and there were rather a lot of them - shows the drawback of making up your own tags. Still, it is a wonderful resource for finding and sharing images.

Flickr

2008-01-04T15:47:00.001+11:00

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

#8 and #9 Del.icio.us and Technorati

2007-12-18T16:43:00.001+11:00

click click click , scroll, new window, back, forward, click, tab alt, new window, tab tab, click loooooooooad ...wait...check.....still waiting. click scroll click, check- stiiiiiiiilllll loooooading new window copy tab paste save click...click click click! MS_DOS??? what?? tab click,exit, think of appealing, easy to remember password.....hmmm ok, weird dialogue box, close, weird dialogue box, close,weird dialogue box, close, voices?-tab, watch vid -huh? click tab click tab copy paste save review.(sigh).....

Okay tags are a good idea, and delicious is a good idea too (apart from twee name and silly full stops) but I draw the line at technorati. I refuse to sink into the abyss of trawling blogs all day long until I become a mad, housebound troll with long fingernails and transparent skin, living with 37 cats.

2007-12-18T16:24:00.002+11:00

2007-12-18T16:24:00.001+11:00

2007-12-18T15:29:00.000+11:00

Technorati Profile

#7 Finding feeds

2007-12-17T12:17:00.000+11:00

Well after #6 and adding a couple of rss feeds from sites I was interested in I find I have little desire to go to sites that can find 1000s more for me. Went to feedster - under construction, went to topix - no good, lots of junky results. Google blog search seemed to work well but given I've somewhat lost interest in reading my own blog I can't see myself spending a lot of time reading anyone else's, let alone regularly harvesting the bounty that Google blog search offers. I think I am more likely to find a useful feed or blog by visiting a good website with high quality content. Everyone can write but not everyone is a writer. There are a lot of dull blogs out there. This is probably one of them.

#6 Make life "really cluttered" with RSS & a newsread...

2007-12-05T16:43:00.000+11:00

I can see how RSS "saves time" by collecting info for you instead of you having to go around looking for it but then it takes it all back again if you actually intend to read it all. It's a bit like going to stocktaking sales where you go and buy piles of stuff you don't really need because it's discounted. I was feeling a bit uninspired at the time so I just said, Oh yeah, to a 'bundle' of feeds when I signed on to google reader and then poof! there were dozens of articles I couldn't be bothered scrolling through. Having said that I do think it is a good idea but you have to be quite selective if you are time poor and I assume that is why one uses RSS in the first place.

#5 Playing around with PBWiki or Zoho Wiki

2007-11-28T17:02:00.000+11:00

There are worse things than having users put drivvle on your wiki. What if you had a party and nobody came? I looked up arts and entertainment on one of the wikis in the discovery exercise and apart from the basic template with some links and four thumbnails of book covers no one added anything - no discussion, no stuff, nothing to do. "Hello?..hello..hello..
Anybody there?.. there.. there.. "

dull and sad - click

So not only can anyone contribute to a wiki, they *have to* or it doesn't work. If people don't join in you are left with the husk of a website, testament to the fact most of us have too much to do and not enough time to do it. This is probably more of a #4 comment than a #5 but anyway.

Back to #5. Freeware and wikis. Freeware is a wonderful democratic thing but sometimes you get what you pay for, so when stuff doesn't work you can't exactly demand to speak to the manager and ask for your money back. I spent some time diligently trying to post my blog on the PLMCLearning 2.0 Favorites wiki*. After working thru the 14 easy steps several times I enlisted the help of my friendly Learning 2 mentor. She had a few goes (about 42 steps) and then gently explained to me that I was using freeware... I decided it was time to get on with my life. I tried the slvpractice wiki instead, a much more rewarding experience - found some stuff on the website -select, copy, paste, edit, save - Bingo! That's more like it.

2007-11-28T15:41:00.000+11:00

#4 Wikis

Oh Dear, is that the time?! I have a bit of catching up to do.
Wikis: Who doesn't like wikis? Anyone who was here during the SLV website's last ice age, (you may remember there was a period of several years when nothing could be changed because it was being "updated"), well any such person would jump at the chance for a collaborative website where people with info could just put it out there and everyone could immediately share that knowledge. Yes there is the potential for wild hooligans to put poorly composed tracts of inaccurate garbage up there (there are plenty of professional journalists and web aficionados who can do that too) but mostly they don't. As with any information source, the reader has to take some responsibility for their own gullibility/laziness. If you know how a wiki works you may suspect that it is not 100% reliable all the time, but for quick info and news, particularly for a specific user group eg a workplace, what a great idea!

Rainy afternoons

2007-10-12T15:43:00.000+10:00

Not everyone gets to spend rainy afternoons at the library. Some people are stuck at home indoors and have to make their own fun.

This vid takes a while to load but hey, it's Friday! Post something on your blog while you're waiting, then watch it straight through and go home early.

Greetings

2007-10-08T14:05:00.000+10:00

Blog no.40 (or 659,000,001 if you include the rest of the world). Has it all been said before? Possibly. I feel like the last person to introduce myself to the group in a circle of chairs the size of the solar system. It would be nice to say something interesting or original but that's a lot of pressure, I don't think my muse is up to it. Perhaps just a standard greeting will do. I quite like the style of the Icelandic so I'll go with Komdu sæll og blessaður! Or you can choose one you like here .