Week 12 : Wrapup; social networks and catch-up.

How libraries have changed in my lifetime!
How wonderful that social networking can be used for promoting
library acticities and services, answer ready reference queries.
Customers can be used as a resource, they can support one another, can be part of a vibrant on-line community.  The possibilities are endless.

Week 11 - Online applications and tools

Found Google Docs quite easy to use, and can see many applications for the public library.  It makes it much easier to work with several colleagues on a project that everyone needs to contribute to. Compiling a report,
reporting statistics, anything that requires a shared workspace, can be accessed by a number of people, and ther is no danger of the document being out-of-date.

Week 10 Mashups

Great fun experimenting with mashups.  Could see them being used with children's and teen activities, also posters and promotional material such as bookmarks.

Week 9 Podcasts and Audio

I can see so many uses for podcasting, both audio and video, in the public library.  Chidren's storytimes, author talks, teen webcasts, patrons giving book reviews, the possibilities are endless.  What a great means of making this content widely available to the general public.

Week 8 Answer boards and social searching

I really enjoyed this week, activities seemed easier than last week, and I found the whole concept of answer boards really interesting and a great tool. "Slamming the boards" is a terrific idea for librarians to participate in.  Who better to provide well-sourced dependable answers and referrals?  And what better way to promote libraries and 'de-mystify' the role of librarians in the community?

'Mosman Readers' is Mosman Library's very own social network, where members of the public can add book reviews and add to the Library's blog and meet like-minded readers online.

Week 7 Tagging, Folksonomies, Delicious

Delicious

Week 6 Video online Youtube and Google video

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Hopefully have successfully embedded a Youtube video into my blog.  Can see how they would be great for author talks, HSC discussion groups and the like.

Week 5 Wikipedia and Wikis

The videoclip was a great example of the benefits of a wiki, for example, in the co-ordination of an event by a group of people, so easy to use, flexible and the base for collective knowledge.  I could see it being used by branch libraries to co-ordinate events and also for patrons to post book reviews, great for book-clubs.
Even though there is the danger of spam and vandalism, it seems that this does not happen alot, and that the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.  I was most impressed with the "Library Success :  A Best Practices Wiki", belonging to the 'community of librarians'.  Great to see what innovative creations there are around in the library world.

Week 4 RSS

RSS is such a great tool that can bring information to you, rather than you wasting time seeking out information.  It enables you to keep up with new stuff on the web that is of interest to you.
As I am very interested in the world of children's literature, I subscribed to the Chidren's Book Council of Australia website to keep up to date on book awards and happenings.  ABS Statistically Speaking is also great for librarians.