Finished!

Well, I know I went through the last few weeks very quickly, but I was familiar with most of the social networking and podcasts. I'm glad its over, it's been very time consuming and I really do have a lot of work to do. I hope you enjoyed reading and watching/viewing my posts!

FF

Second Life and other social networks

I think social networks are really interesting, especially Second Life. I know that they can exploit children and some people can get into a bit of trouble with them... but having a second life floating around out there is such an interesting concept.

I think MySpace and Facebook are great social networking sites and could be really useful for libraries. They do have a few downfalls though... like the public posting all sorts of things on your libraries page, etc. and also the time factor. In fact the time factor is one of the reasons why I refuse to get a Facebook page. All my friends want me to but I'm standing my ground. I just don't have the time to keep it up to date!

Also in a library situation, while yes there is always something happening in the library, it isn't always interesting enough for everyone to see!

FF

Google Docs

I think that Google docs is great and could be really handy. However, at our council we have a program called the EDM (Elctronic Document Management) System. It does what Google docs does. As it is a council based program with all council staff emails already in it, I can't see Google docs being useful to us. Maybe to others in the library profession though :)

FF

Mashups are cool fun!

Ok so I have gone a little crazy with Big Huge Labs, because I loved transforming my last holiday pics. Here is what I came up with see if you think it's cool as well! .... FF

Podcast, Vodcast and Audio

Well I guess for libraries (specifically public ones) the most interesting suggestions for podcasts that I have heard about were from City Library in Melbourne who were considering using podcasts for there new members. The podcasts would be a library staff member taking them on a tour around the library. The new member would have access to an iPod, take the tour, then return the iPod when done. The reason for suggestion podcasts were because staff were finding that they do not have enough time to take new patrons on tours, and by not doing this they were disadvantaged and did often not know where to find stuff.

Interesting concept, but a lot of money!

FF

'Slam the boards!'

How interesting. I had heard of 'Slam the Boards!'but never bothered to check it out. I'm glad I did today though!It's really interesting and I know that if in the future I have a sticky question that none of us here can handle I will post it. However in a library situation I don't think I would use it for customers. It's not really something that I think I could make customers wait for. Instead I might refer them to this service to use at their own lesuire or at home.
If our customers could rate reponses and we did have our own, them maybe if they all had the same questions (very very unlikely) then each customer with the question could read all the answers provided or just the best rated one.
Hope this makes sense, it does in my head!
FF

RSS feeds and tagging

Oh my god, this is so exciting! Thanks to Working Mum with L-Plates for showing me how to add an RSS feed to my blog. Yahoo!(expression of great joy, not the search engine), I can do it. Not only have I added RSS feeds to my blog I have also saved these website as my favourites in del.icio.us (which are also showing up in my blog!). Pretty nifty if I must say so.

I think tagging is great for libraries. I would love for our WebOPAC to have tagging facilities. At present it has a tag cloud, but I'm not sure how many people use it or even know what it is.

Tagging in del.icio.us and saving favourite sites could also be handy for those pesky school assignments that we get!

Wonder if we will ever start one?

FF