Assignment #9 - Wikis

I've completed Assignment #9 and posted my page on the wiki at:

http://tpl23things.wikidot.com/assignment-9-kc

Assignment #8 - YouTube

A library related video:

Library students and staff and Lady Gaga:



Improv in the New York Public Library:



I think that You Tube is a great resource for TPL. There are lots of different uses, from posting videos of programs to instructional videos on searching the catalogue, online databases and using other e-resources.


Kelli

Assignment # 7 - Podcasting

I found the following Podcasts to add to my aggregator account:

1. Books on the Nightstand - a combination of blog and podcast about books

2. LearnItalianPod.com - a podcast with short lessons (about 5 minutes) to learn Italian. The website has different series for different levels.

3. CBC's Vinyl Cafe Stories - Stuart MacLean's fantastic stories of Dave and his family and their (mostly his) misadventures.

I haven't had a change to listen to Books on the Nightstand yet, but it sounds interesting. The LearnItalianPod.com sounds like an great way to improve my almost non-existent Italian. I'll have to give it a try. Finally, I love listening to the Vinyl Cafe, but hardly ever remember to tune in when it's being broadcast. The podcast is great. I can listen when I have the time. This I will definitely use!

I'll have to check these out in iTunes, it may be easier to transfer them to my iPod that way.

Great assignment! I had looked at Podcasting very briefly several years ago, but now I'm going to try to use them! I will definitely spend more time looking through Podcast Alley.

Assignment #5 - Delicious

Busy week last week, didn't get to Assignment#4. I will .

Delicious! Fun name for a useful web tool. I created a delicious account many years ago, used it for a few days, then left it alone. Over the years, I've gone back and added links when a certain project came up and then abandoned it once again.

I'm not sure why I don't consistently use this tool. I think I would like it better if I had more ways to organized my links (yup, I'm in the right profession). I would love to be able to group them into collections and have different options of formatting the display. Maybe this is possible and I just haven't figured it out.

Organizing the links just by tags alone doesn't really satisfy- particularly when searching for 'like' links in other people's lists. It depends so much on personal naming decisions that it's not all that comprehensive.

On the other hand, I've just used it again to find library programs and services for 'Older Adults'. While searching Delicious, I found a few more links that my Google searching hadn't found, which proves to me that Delicous does have value. I'll have to figure out a way to make better use of this tool.

Assignment #3 - RSS and Newsreaders

I've been reading RSS feeds for several years now and find them a useful way to keep up-to-date with trends in libraries and publishing. Some of my favourites are:

Quill and Quire at: http://www.quillandquire.com/blog/
Bookninja at: http://www.bookninja.com/
Library Link of the Day: http://www.tk421.net/librarylink/
Dewey Divas and Dudes: http://deweydivas.blogspot.com/
Library stuff: http://www.librarystuff.net/
Stephen's Lighthouse (Stephen Abrams): http://stephenslighthouse.com/

Some fun ones are:
Unshelved (library comic strip): http://www.unshelved.com/
Miss Information (a TPL employee with a dry sense of humour): http://miss-information.blogspot.com/
Cute Overload (not library-related, but good for your daily dose of cute animals): http://cuteoverload.com/

While useful, they are not perfect. The quality of the blog depends completely on the author. As in everthing, some are better than others. Most blogs have the occasional interesting piece of information, buried in a lot of other stuff. This can require a lot of scrolling.

When trying out a new blog, I usually subscribe to it for a few weeks to get a good idea what it is like, before deciding whether or not to keep the subscription. Luckily, it's easy to subscribe and unsubscribe.

Another problem is finding the time to read them - although I have the same problem with printed professional journals.

23 Things Assignment #2

Here are some photos of public libraries I visited during my trip to England last September:

Pimlico Library, London

Derby Central Library, Derbyshire

Cornforth Library, Durham

23 Things - Assignment #1

I already have some knowledge of several of the Web 2.0 technologies covered in 23 Things. However, this knowledge was gained by just playing around with them myself, often fairly unsuccessfully. By taking this 23 Things training, I'm hoping to fill in some of the gaps in my knowledge, learn a few new things and hopefully get a better idea of how these tools can be used by libraries to impove their communication with their patrons.