#7 Technology

Which piece of modern technology is my favourite? I'd have to say my digital camera. Once I had mastered the art of using it, this compact device, with it's re-usable memory card, became my ideal travelling companion. No longer do I worry about misloading film while on holidays & ending up with a roll of blank negatives! No longer do I have to carry copious rolls of film or worry if the x-ray machine at the airport will destroy my holiday images. No longer is it a problem if a wayward tourist walks into my shot as I press the shutter button - I just check the photo on my little viewing screen, delete the ruined shot & take another. The only downside -the batteries - it eats them & you need to carry plenty of spares. My friends tell me I should get a recharger - but that's something else to put in the suitcase!
Overall, as a result of the digital photo age I now have some brilliant (even if I do say so myself!) photos in my album.

#6 Mashups

I found "Montagr" a fascinating & enjoyable site - after using the search terms the screen downloaded masses of tiny images to form a huge montage. The best one was when I searched under George Clooney & hundred of photos of that gorgeous face filled the montagr screen.
This would be a great tool for designing birthday invitations, etc.

Welcome back Fraser

After what must be the shortest retirement on record, Fraser Gehrig is back in the red, white & black. Great news. The other great news, is that the Saints have picked up an 18 year old, 200cm ruckman in the draft. Bring on 2008!

# 5 Flickr

My flickr image can actually be found on an earlier blog posting (Tuesday September, 25, 07.) Before I knew what I was doing with adding pics to my blog page, I had saved it as a draft. My dragonfly photo & caption can now be accessed by clicking on the link to "older posts". I am now going to try #6 - mashups!

#22 Audiobooks

Have just checked out the World e-book fair site. Seems to be a huge collection of the "classics" such as Shakespeare, Hans Christian Andersen, Brothers Grimm, etc. available in electronic format. Searched successfully for "Robinson Crusoe" & the "Importance of Being Earnest" in the e-book format but no luck with modern texts such as books by Matthew Reilly or Monica McInerney. An impressive site, though.

You Tube

I caught this video of a Yolngu Aboriginal dance group on the ABC news over the weekend & thought it was a wonderful example of cross-cultural entertainment. It is great fun & apparently the young men involved are thinking of doing a Bollywood dance in the future - can't wait for that. Enjoy.

#19 Discovering Web 2.0 tools - Web awards

Looked at realtravel.com - good to find a travel site where people doing the travel reviews have really visited the places in detail & are not getting paid to give good reports! Attractive site with great travel photos & I love the idea of the Free trip planner.

Zoho writer - opinion

I enjoyed using Zoho writer. The page layout seems slightly more decorative that the regular Microsoft Word page & it's definitley user friendly as I was able to navigate my way around the site quite well. I also checked out the new features page & am impressed that it now has pagination support & can be accessed in 43 languages.

Zoho Writer

Yippee - I challenged myself to see if I could work out how to publish my sample document from the Zoho Writer page to my blog & IT WORKED! Nothing madly exciting - just a few tongue twisters I remember from my youth but the fact it worked is VERY exciting!

Sample document Web 2.0 Learning program

SAMPLE DOCUMENT FOR web 2.0 learning program

 

 

 

 

TONGUE TWISTERS

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.

Seven silver swans swam silently seaward.

Around the ragged rocks the ragged rascal ran.

I'm not a pheasant plucker but a pheasant plucker's son!!

She sells seashells by the seashore

 

 

 

 

#17 Playing around with Wikis

Added my blogsite under the Kingston Logo - took me a while but I finally figured it out. I also learnt how to edit pages in the Favourites sites - placed small entries on Favourite vacation & movie pages.

Wikis

I enjoyed checking out some of the sample Wikis. St. Joseph's County Public Lib's subject guides wiki was a nice, user friendly site - I especially liked the Staff recommendations. Princeton Public Library was so good that I have noted down some of their 5 star recommendations to order for the Kingston Libraries!
The only downside to Wikis is their exposure to vandalism & misinformation - allowing people with opposing views to sabotage sites with which they disagree & users to place incorrect info. online. I guess that's why as a reference librarian, I refrain, for the most part, from using Wikipedia as a resource.

#15 Web2.0 & the future of libraries

I have just read 2 of the recommended articles - "Away from Icebergs" & "Into a new world of librarianship" & concur with the main drift of them both - that change in libraries is required to keep our services up-to-date & viable. After 20 years of work in public libraries, I now know that constant change is inevitable. As a beginner in 1987, I worked with a manual photocharging loans system, a card catalogue, a typewriter, answered reference questions from print copies of Encyclopedia Britannica AND videos were the new big thing in the library collection. Fast forward to 2007 & we have computers, barcode scanners, an online catalogue accessible to the public from the comfort of their own homes, online databases AND DVDs for loan. Reference services now largely consists of finding information via the Internet - a quicker, more streamlined method but not as much fun, nor as satisfying, as the detective work required in the "old days", when we had to sift through volume after volume to find the required answer.
With the constraints of manual systems in 1987, we offered the best service we possibly could. In 2007, library services know no bounds & library users "can let their fingers do the walking".

#13 & #14 del.icio.us & technorati

I've just checked out delicious & technorati - as a library worker of old, the modern day tagging is just the old "see also" references revamped. My favourite tagging site so far is definitely Library Thing.

Rollyo

I have just created a searchroll about Australian Film on Rollyo. Quite a user friendly site which I'm sure would be a great way for students to share resources for their courses!