I really liked using Rss feeds in the last 2.0 program and it was fun and interesting to find even more ways to utilise them.
The features on AccessScience are great - all sites should have this easy ability to save searches and findings, the amount of time I've spent searching the uni library for the same thing will boggle the mind.
The seemingly never ending ability of Rss feeds to connect to anything is amazing, I'm sure in the future I will only need to look at a single webpage to discover everything I need to know.
December 08, 2009
December 07, 2009
Library Tweet
Helpful Hint use sort due date tab on your myinfo page to make sure you are aware of due dates and aren't caught out by any DVD or magazines
(140 exactly :))
(140 exactly :))
Twittering Libraries
It was really fun to explore how libraries are using Twitter, it is a very effective means of communication and I was surprised and glad to see that many of them had large numbers of followers.
My favorite of the accounts I looked at was the one by Rodney Libraries - I thought it was nicely laid out with informative and interesting information. If someone was to follow this account they would know all the news and be well aware of all the Libraries services and events. It was great to see; reviews, reminders about giving the correct email and photos from local events.
Compared to this I found the one for the National Library of NZ, confusing and unhelpful. While their graphics were lovely and the site well presented the tweets seemed to be a private conversation between the contributor and followers - something about cows. Very informal communication style and not very informative.
My favorite of the accounts I looked at was the one by Rodney Libraries - I thought it was nicely laid out with informative and interesting information. If someone was to follow this account they would know all the news and be well aware of all the Libraries services and events. It was great to see; reviews, reminders about giving the correct email and photos from local events.
Compared to this I found the one for the National Library of NZ, confusing and unhelpful. While their graphics were lovely and the site well presented the tweets seemed to be a private conversation between the contributor and followers - something about cows. Very informal communication style and not very informative.
More Twittering
Searching Twitter was quite and experience, I had no idea that all those search engines existed, it's definitely much bigger and more well organised than I first thought.
I thought that Twoogle was the best, it was clever and fun to use. Amazing how everything is so interconnected and efficient.
For my search I used the Twitter search engine and Twazzup - I chose Diana Gabaldon as my topic, I've just been reading her latest book 'An Echo in the Bone" and I was curious what kind of information would come up. In the generic Twitter search I mostly just got links to people tweets saying that they were reading her books or saying how much they liked them (nice to see she is so popular). There were also one account called superbooks that use their tweets to recommend good books - which I thought was a cool idea.
In the Twazzup search, I got exactly the same links to the real time tweets, but there was also links to; news items about Diana, where to buy her books and a very helpful tag cloud - for further browsing. This search engine is much better than the ordinary twitter one as it gave the same info but added on it. I would definatilly come back to this search engine in the future.
I thought that Twoogle was the best, it was clever and fun to use. Amazing how everything is so interconnected and efficient.
For my search I used the Twitter search engine and Twazzup - I chose Diana Gabaldon as my topic, I've just been reading her latest book 'An Echo in the Bone" and I was curious what kind of information would come up. In the generic Twitter search I mostly just got links to people tweets saying that they were reading her books or saying how much they liked them (nice to see she is so popular). There were also one account called superbooks that use their tweets to recommend good books - which I thought was a cool idea.
In the Twazzup search, I got exactly the same links to the real time tweets, but there was also links to; news items about Diana, where to buy her books and a very helpful tag cloud - for further browsing. This search engine is much better than the ordinary twitter one as it gave the same info but added on it. I would definatilly come back to this search engine in the future.
December 04, 2009
I have always thought that Twitter was inane and pointless and the closer examination of it for this exercise only increased my feelings.
First I looked at Meg Cabot's page and while I do think it is generous of her spend time connecting with her fans, do I really need to know that she just locked her cat in the cupboard? I thought that her page layout was great, with all her books as background and things like a link to her website advertising book giveaways was a nice touch. I also really liked the fact that she used; full sentences, punctuation and correct spelling - much more professional and easier to read.
This contrasts with one of the other sites I looked at - Cookbook via Twitter. I could not use these recipes as I understood about one word in three and the directions are too lacking in detail. There are so many wonderful and helpful cooking websites out there and I don't see the point in the need to write a recipe in only 140 characters. Although it is nice that someone is taking the time to post these for any ones benefit and while they are not for me I can see that some people might find them very, quick and helpful.
First I looked at Meg Cabot's page and while I do think it is generous of her spend time connecting with her fans, do I really need to know that she just locked her cat in the cupboard? I thought that her page layout was great, with all her books as background and things like a link to her website advertising book giveaways was a nice touch. I also really liked the fact that she used; full sentences, punctuation and correct spelling - much more professional and easier to read.
This contrasts with one of the other sites I looked at - Cookbook via Twitter. I could not use these recipes as I understood about one word in three and the directions are too lacking in detail. There are so many wonderful and helpful cooking websites out there and I don't see the point in the need to write a recipe in only 140 characters. Although it is nice that someone is taking the time to post these for any ones benefit and while they are not for me I can see that some people might find them very, quick and helpful.
December 03, 2009
Creative Commons
Exploring ideas such as creative commons is what is best about the web 2.0 program, I already know about Facebook and twitter but it is great to discover and learn about things lesser know yet far better resources like creative commons.
The CC license of this program is - people are free to share and adapt the work so long as it is attributed and is not for profit. Also that theses conditions can be waived with the permission from the copyright holder.
The Photo I chose from Flicker had var similar conditions as the web 2.0 program - people are able to share and adapt the content so long as they attribute it to the author/licensor. The one difference was that the other conditions was share alike - anyone can use and adapt the work but they have to distribute it under a similar licence.
The CC license of this program is - people are free to share and adapt the work so long as it is attributed and is not for profit. Also that theses conditions can be waived with the permission from the copyright holder.
The Photo I chose from Flicker had var similar conditions as the web 2.0 program - people are able to share and adapt the content so long as they attribute it to the author/licensor. The one difference was that the other conditions was share alike - anyone can use and adapt the work but they have to distribute it under a similar licence.
December 02, 2009
OpenID
I feel that OpenID is a very effective organizing method and it could be of great use to people. For my self personally I don't think I would ever use this technology, I find using the same password for all my sites works well and since they are ones like LibraryThing and Goodreads I'm not to worried about people hacking into my account.
I also find that creating one username that is both easy to remember and not to generic that others have already taken really helps in organisation - I like using my name and favorite number.
Loved the video - informative and funny.
I also find that creating one username that is both easy to remember and not to generic that others have already taken really helps in organisation - I like using my name and favorite number.
Loved the video - informative and funny.
November 30, 2009
Online Privacy and Security
Back for More Web 2.0 Fun
I found the resources provided here were some really good, simple and easy to use guidelines and suggestions for being safe on the Internet. Although I did think that some of the advise, especially from the McAfee brochure went a little over the top. People need to also be aware that some forms of Internet security totally restrict all Internet use, for example some safe searching programs block any sort of online shopping which can be vary frustrating.
I think that many of these resources would be of use to our patrons as I have found that when it comes to things like Your Info patrons are not that careful with their privacy. I often find OPACs still logged on after a patron has left and I think people are unaware of the amount of personal information that is displayed on these pages.
The best advise is simply a better awareness of these issues (which these resources can definitely help with) and greater care taken with passwords. The password generator was fun to use and while more complex passwords are harder to remember, programs such as keepass seem as great solution to this.
I found the resources provided here were some really good, simple and easy to use guidelines and suggestions for being safe on the Internet. Although I did think that some of the advise, especially from the McAfee brochure went a little over the top. People need to also be aware that some forms of Internet security totally restrict all Internet use, for example some safe searching programs block any sort of online shopping which can be vary frustrating.
I think that many of these resources would be of use to our patrons as I have found that when it comes to things like Your Info patrons are not that careful with their privacy. I often find OPACs still logged on after a patron has left and I think people are unaware of the amount of personal information that is displayed on these pages.
The best advise is simply a better awareness of these issues (which these resources can definitely help with) and greater care taken with passwords. The password generator was fun to use and while more complex passwords are harder to remember, programs such as keepass seem as great solution to this.
October 06, 2008
This is the End
WOW, I actually did it, got all the way to the end (go me). Having started the web 2.0 program so late due o illness I thought I would never catch up. But I did, yeah and quite enjoyed doing it too. When I first heard about exercise I thought, Oh that will be easy as I had deluded myself into thinking that I knew enough about the Internet already. However I was happy to be proved wrong as most of the activities and web 2.0 technologies were new to me and also very interesting and I can see them being useful in the future.
My favorite thing was LibraryThing, I love this website and can happily spend hours on it. I love the social interaction with other people and how you can build up your profile making it more and more personal which then leads you to more aspects of the site and things you might like. My reserve list is already filling up with their reading suggestions. I think that the social interaction and how it adapts to you and gives you suggestions are all the best aspects of web 2.0 and the ones I am most keen to see incorporated into our library.
While the Image generator sites and YouTube are a lot of fun I also really enjoyed finding out about the more educational ones. I really liked the Rollyo technology and I think I will come back to my personal search engine a lot.
Many thanks to the Web 2.0 Admin team for their helpful and encouraging comments and everyone else who took time to comment.
I feel a great sense of accomplishment in having finished, however I think I will miss it a bit.
Thanks for everything
Lizzie.
My favorite thing was LibraryThing, I love this website and can happily spend hours on it. I love the social interaction with other people and how you can build up your profile making it more and more personal which then leads you to more aspects of the site and things you might like. My reserve list is already filling up with their reading suggestions. I think that the social interaction and how it adapts to you and gives you suggestions are all the best aspects of web 2.0 and the ones I am most keen to see incorporated into our library.
While the Image generator sites and YouTube are a lot of fun I also really enjoyed finding out about the more educational ones. I really liked the Rollyo technology and I think I will come back to my personal search engine a lot.
Many thanks to the Web 2.0 Admin team for their helpful and encouraging comments and everyone else who took time to comment.
I feel a great sense of accomplishment in having finished, however I think I will miss it a bit.
Thanks for everything
Lizzie.
More Social Networking
the power of Web 2.0 for social networking is immense and I think that if done properly libraries can use this tool to reach out to more people. This has to be done the right way as we don't want to be invading peoples space or adding things to the library just because they are the new thing. I agree with the article on social networking software that the use of profiles on places such as Myspace and Facebook can be great tools for encouraging library. However these need to be more than simple profiles to really encourage interaction. For example, her idea that these profiles should encourage two way communication with the patrons, especially suggestions and questions is a great idea and for us something like an expansion of the already existing AnyQuestions could be a very useful tool.
If these new technologies can bring new people into the library, they need to be utilised but it is very important to use them the right way to have a major effect.
If these new technologies can bring new people into the library, they need to be utilised but it is very important to use them the right way to have a major effect.
October 05, 2008
Social networking
I was already a member of Facebook before I started web 2.o so this exercise was easy for me. However I am not on Bebo or Myspace (and do not ever plan to be) so I had a look around those sites. After this I have reconfirmed by belief that facebook is the best of these sites. Bebo and Myspace are more for younger people, but it is great if they can be used to encourage people to use the Library.
Facebook is a great tool for keeping in touch and recently it has enabled me to reconnect with friends I hadn't seen for about 7 years. This personal side of Facebook is great and I am very curious to see how libraries will come to use these sites in the future.
Facebook is a great tool for keeping in touch and recently it has enabled me to reconnect with friends I hadn't seen for about 7 years. This personal side of Facebook is great and I am very curious to see how libraries will come to use these sites in the future.
October 03, 2008
ebooks
Ebooks are fantastic and I was very happy to read all the articles on how they are becoming more and more available. I use ebooks all the time for research at university and it is great as it lets everyone have a change to read it and not just the crazy people who start their essays two months early. With ebooks everyone gets a turn and there are no recall wars.
I searched for Jane Eyre on Project Gutenburg and I was impressed by their range. It's great that you can also download audio versions which I plan to try out for myself. Once you have actually chosen a book however, I found the print size and style very unappealing. It would be great if in the future they could become more readable.
Podcasts
Like with blogs I couldn't believe how many podcasts there were out there, people create them about everything. I found the Podcast Pickle the easiest site to navigate as it had good lists of categories and but I thought there should have been better summaries of what the Podcast was about, the site Podnova was very good in this respect. I found some good movie review ones, such as Kendall Weaver's Top five. Nice and succinct movie reviews.
One of My favorite authors Diana Gabaldon regularly realises podcasts of news and other information on her website that I listen to. I think they are a great tool as they are capible of so much variety, as you can listen to them anywhere. They are great for lazy people and have that added leval of personality which is nice.
One of My favorite authors Diana Gabaldon regularly realises podcasts of news and other information on her website that I listen to. I think they are a great tool as they are capible of so much variety, as you can listen to them anywhere. They are great for lazy people and have that added leval of personality which is nice.
October 02, 2008
October 01, 2008
Web 2.0 Winners
All these sites are so fantastic and I had fun exploring a few of them as one was not enough. I was really pleased to see how many I already knew about from doing this program, really getting up to date with what is happening on the web.
I had a look a the books category as that is what I am most interested in and had a look at all the sites. I chose to focus on VuFind and I was very impressed by what I found. I love the social interaction of this site, how you can leave comments and tags and I think the link to Amazon reviews is a fantastic idea. I look at these all the time an they have been very helpful.
I think it is great that this is the direction that libraries are going in and it can't come soon enough.
I also really loved Onesentence, such a great idea and I spent over an hour reading the funny and poignant stories. I can see this becoming a great procrastinating tool in the future.
Zoho
Another great tool, yeah. This site is a great idea and I can see it being very useful. In the past I have always typed a document than sent it as an attachment in an email when I wanted to use it at another location or send it to someone. I can see this being a lot quicker and easier and I look forward to trying it out some more.
I found the site fun and easy to use, all the formats are similar to Microsoft Word so that made it simple. I had great fun playing around with the Zoho Show, great lot of templates and clip art and the Writer is a great tool.
I found the site fun and easy to use, all the formats are similar to Microsoft Word so that made it simple. I had great fun playing around with the Zoho Show, great lot of templates and clip art and the Writer is a great tool.
Rollyo
This excercise was quite fun and I can see it being very helpful. When you type something in to Google you get millions of hits and often ones that are not usefull at all, so it is great to have a tool to organise your searchs. I had some fun searching the qoutes and photos pages had a good laugh over my favorite Oscar Wilde and Jane Austen qoutes. None of hte books I searched for appeared in the other two search engines, maybe I was beening to vague.
I decided to create a search engine that could be useful in my art history studies. I get most of my information out of books but I still use websites to get good colour representations of paintings and often short summaries of paintings to get me thinking. I put lots of the official art gallery sites as I knew they are trustworthy and fulled with interesting facts as well as links to scholarly journals and more amateur sites that I still like. Rollyo is a great tool that I think I will come back to again.
Link to my Search Roll
I decided to create a search engine that could be useful in my art history studies. I get most of my information out of books but I still use websites to get good colour representations of paintings and often short summaries of paintings to get me thinking. I put lots of the official art gallery sites as I knew they are trustworthy and fulled with interesting facts as well as links to scholarly journals and more amateur sites that I still like. Rollyo is a great tool that I think I will come back to again.
Link to my Search Roll
September 30, 2008
LibraryFantastic
I love LibraryThing, it's so much fun and another treasure trove of a website. I had created an account before starting web 2.0 as one of my colleagues told me about it. I have been slowly adding more of my books to it and I love seeing them all on my virtual shelf. My favorite mark of the site is how they display all the different covers and people can upload more. As two of my main passions are art and books I love looking at all the differnt covers, how differnt people have seen the book and how they have changed over time.
The interaction with other people on this site is great, through forums, reviews and the cool feature of finding people with the same books as you. The reading suggestions are also very good. The only complaint I have is that often the search brings up very poor results and the book I want is often not on the first page.
I am very excited about the possibilities for colaberation with libraries, as the visual and interactine acpects of this site are very cool.
The link to by catalog is here, hopping to add more soon.
The interaction with other people on this site is great, through forums, reviews and the cool feature of finding people with the same books as you. The reading suggestions are also very good. The only complaint I have is that often the search brings up very poor results and the book I want is often not on the first page.
I am very excited about the possibilities for colaberation with libraries, as the visual and interactine acpects of this site are very cool.
The link to by catalog is here, hopping to add more soon.
September 29, 2008
Fun with Pics
This activity was a lot of fun and quite simple to use. I chose to explore ImageChef as it looked like the best and most easily navigated site out there, which also had a great bunch of templates. I couldn't resist the flower text, (it's just so pretty), love the effect of how the flowers grow, great to add movement to my blog. The link is www. imagechef.com/ic/flowers/.
I liked this image so much that I chose to add it to my blog as the front of my posts. I tried to add it as my banner but couldn't get it to work. I played around with a few other images (I could spend hours on this site) and also looked around some of the other blogs out of interest to see how everyone else had done it. I found some very cool and creative images. I Would love to come back to this site to add more things as I am trying to personalise my blog more.
I liked this image so much that I chose to add it to my blog as the front of my posts. I tried to add it as my banner but couldn't get it to work. I played around with a few other images (I could spend hours on this site) and also looked around some of the other blogs out of interest to see how everyone else had done it. I found some very cool and creative images. I Would love to come back to this site to add more things as I am trying to personalise my blog more.
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