#21 Podcasts, Smodcasts!

My podcast directory of choice is iTunes mainly because I have an iPod. I find it really convenient to be able to search for music, music videos, audio books, podcasts and vodcasts all in the one place. iTunes also scores over the other directories because each podcast has a "Podcast Description" which gives you some idea of what that particular podcast may contain plus there are "Customer Reviews" also available as well as a list of what other "Listeners Also Subscribed To". I did look at both Podcastalley and Podcast.net but they really didn't do it for me.

Obviously this is a technology that would have a lot of applications in the library - recording author visits, recording World War veterans in the local area, presenting short tutorials on how to use the library's catalogue or databases, recording local teenage bands etc. In fact Webgurl has just posted our first podcasts on the ERL website - recordings of the "The Eastern Regional Library Show" found on your radio dial at EasternFM 98.1 on Wednesdays, 12:05-12:45pm. A big Huzzah to Maryanne, Kathy and Lesley.

Podcasts I recommend are:
The Arseblog - just shows what one man with a Powerbook and a burning passion can do.
AskANinja - got a philosophical problem that needs solving? Why not ask your very own Ninja? Very, very funny.
Background Briefing - ABC radio show which is always fascinating and which I always seem to miss listening to in "real time"...... again thank goodness for "pod time".
And last but certainly not least the SirsiDynix Institute - a really useful professional development tool. Has podcasts on all things Library2.0 - I must listen to the David Free podcast on "What's New in Podcasting?"

If you're still having problems coming to terms with what this technology is all about check out this podcast by the Ninja on podcasting...... enjoy!

#20 You too can YouTube

Truveo is a video search engine that , to quote their self-effacing publicity, "is widely recognized as being the most comprehensive and up-to-date video search service on the Web". Despite such a grandiose statement I must concur because it acts like a meta-search engine trawling the web to find you such video gems as "Rex the Chihuahua vs Nancy Pearl" or my particular favourite of the moment "The March of the Librarians" .... obviously some people have too much time on their hands!! It scores over YouTube by itself because it searches a whole host of other sites bringing up relevant and not so relevant hits.

You should check out the "YouTube Copyright Tips" on their site which tells you what can and cannot be uploaded or copied. Basically it appears that 95% of the content available on YouTube may be in breach of copyright......... we await the first trial case with interest.

In the meantime here's 2 minutes and 35 seconds of Blues Brilliance from Fleetwood Mac (pre-Stevie Whatshername and the other guy) and one of the many reasons that YouTube is a fantastic resource. I haven't heard this in years......... play it Pete!!

#19 Discovering Web 2.0 tools

Quick Robin to the Book Cave......


I am adding this to my list for Xmas......... only $7,000 (American dollars that is) - and can be found at Sakura Adachi's online shop.

I found it by checking out the StumbleUpon website that came second in the "Social Tagging" section of the Web 2.0 awards to del.icio.us.
BBC World describes it as:

"StumbleUpon is a brilliant downloadable toolbar that beds into your browser and gives you the chance to surf through thousands of excellent pages that have been stumbled upon by other web-users"

In turn the StumbleUpon website led me to the ThisNext website which describes itself as a "shopcasting" site - this from their website describing what "shopcasting" is:

"ThisNext is a shopcasting network where you can discover, recommend and share things you love. Everything on ThisNext is recommended by real people like you. Shopcasting is a way to spread the word about things you love. "Shopcast" is a word that combines shopping and broadcasting. What podcasting did for audio is what we're doing for shopping—broadcasting taste and knowledge of great products recommended by people like you. Right now, we support several tools that help you shopcast lists and tags on your blog or website."

"Recommended Lists", "Wish Lists", "Tagging", it's interactive, it's social, it's has all the things an online library should have. I checked out the tag on books and found several other consumer items that piqued my interest......


How about a "Book Chair" as an essential part of your Library's furniture?

Or a "I Read Banned Books" bracelet as an item to sell in your Online Library shop?

Wasted a lot of time but had a lot of fun discovering these tools today..... TTFN.

#18 Web-based Apps: They're not just for desktops

Let's start at the very beginning.......

A very good place to start..........

When you begin to read you begin with A, B. C.......

When you begin to sing it's Do, Reh, Mi.................

I really dislike emoticons... just ppping up everywhere.....

I thought that I must really have had the Grumpmeter turned up to "Full" when I found the following Youtube clip by an Angry Young Man rather than a Grumpy Old Man.....

But asides from having emticns as part of the Word Processing programme I can see a great use for Zoho and Googledocs - they would allow a group of you to collaborate on a project at any time and from anywhere. There would be no need to send humungous files to each other nor would you live in fear of wondering if you had backed up your files........ but what happens when you don't have access to the internet? And I'm sure that they don't have all the features of a Microsoft or Apple produced piece of software........ but again these are early days.... I'm sure that Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are a gazillion moves ahead already.....

Now that's really interesting - I wrote this piece in Zoho and inserted emoticons in the text but mysteriously they haven't transfered across - (means that you miss the joke!) - obviously some compatability issues. As I said though it's new technology so I'm sure that there's a posse of computer programmers working on a solution at this very moment.

Just for the record:
"pfrownpping" is "popping"
"Grumpundecidedmeter" is "Grumpometer"
"emcoolticsealedns" is "emoticons"

#17 Playing around with PBWiki

Have added "Amante della lettura" and my favourite TV programme to the Blog List of Infamy- all rather painless. Have also set up an account for my own PBwiki which I will be filling with references to all the other wonderful "PB"s out there asides from yours truly:

Pooh Bear
Paper Back
Paddington Bear
Pandora's Box
Panda Bear
Personal Best
Power Book (Macintosh)
Publications
Productive Burp (Post surgery)

Ah well back to the paperback..........


The illustration of Paddington is by Margaret Emily Noel Nuttall-Smith (aka Peggy Fortnum).

#16 So what’s in a wiki?

"Veni Vidi Wiki" - from the very funny Blaugh.com - The un-official comic of the blogosphere.



It has either been yet another strange case of synchronicity or just the fact that Webgurl and Dave Rave are also up to Unit 16 but I have had several conversations this week about Wikis and how we can use them in the library. At the moment there are several suggestions all of which are good so in no particular order here they are:

* A knowledge management tool for keeping staff up to date on the progress of a particular project - we will be updating to Symphony sometime in the not too distant future so a wiki would be a means of keeping us all in the loop.
* A place to deposit our subject guides and weblinks so that all staff have an opportunity to update them.
* As an electronic training room allowing the training staff a place to deposit the sum of all their wisdom as well as the notes and resources they have used.
* As a community directory for the smaller branches.
* A Local History Wiki - with photographs and histories of significant places in the local area able to be updated by our customers.

The pot keeps bubbling, the neurons and synapses keep firing - looks like "content production" and "designing wikis" are phrases that are going to be finding a place in all of our position descriptions soon.

#15 On Library 2.0 & Web 2.0 ...

What Michael Stephens has to say about Librarian 2.0 really resonates with me:

"Librarian 2.0 also listens to staff and users when planning, tells the stories of successes and failures, learns from both, celebrates those successes, allows staff time to play and learn, and never stops dreaming about the best library services."

Ultimately it is all about the customer/patron/user/client and that is who we have always concentrated on be we known as Librarian 1.0 or 10.0 or 1000.0. Library 2.0 has given us a different set of tools to use in order to satisfy our customer's educational/recreational/informational needs. By the way Michael Stephens runs his own blog called "Tame the Web" which you can find here. He is also one of the talents behind this video of a day in the life of the St Joseph County Public Library in Indiana - if ever an idea needed to be stolen/plagiarised/adopted this is it.



PS: Recently read a brilliant piece about how a University in Venezuela has combined the best of Library 1.0 and 2.0 to service some very remote customers. Check out the Venezuelan "Bibliomulas" (Book Mules) in this BBC report. A four legged mobile library equipped with a mobile phone, laptop and projector - fair warms the cockles of your heart!!