langridgep

NSW.net eResources seminar 25/10/11

noreply@blogger.com (PamL) — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 02:21:00 +0000

Hi,
Tuesday last week, I attended the NSW.net eResources seminar at the State Library of NSW. Ross Balharrie had put together a great programme; it's a pity he wasn't able to be there to hear all the great talks!

I was particularly struck by the following common thread between speakers: the expectation by library clients that all library staff will have an understanding of social networking and eBooks, and the growing expectation by clients that they should be able to get loads of free content from their local public library. The importance of getting web design right was also stressed by multiple presenters.

My complete notes can be found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bNBV0Y2lrwvRX6zs-C-om0NTtlKGk_LghtubxIPukyw/edit.

Speaker highlights for me were:
Sue Hutley (ALIA) - I've been waiting to hear Sue speak for ages, and she didn't disappoint! Sue provided a fantastic overview of where Australia is at with eBooks, and how ALIA is lobbying on behalf of libraries with government and business. As a smartphone reader, I was intrigued by Sue's comments about the lack of recognition by the BISG of mobile devices. I also liked Sue's comment that telling our clients' stories is a "powerful" part of the advocacy process. What stories / experiences can we share with our councils to help them understand public libraries and our clients better?

Jeremy McPherson (Canterbury) - community expectations about how they wanted to access resources influenced Canterbury's decision to move away from print reference to eReference.

Carol Yuen (Warringah) and Laurence McDonnell (Auburn) - this discussion about discovery layers got a bit technical for me, but Carol's comment that "people come to libraries to find, not to search", was a pithy reminder that no matter how technical we get, we need to have our clients' search behaviours at the forefront of decision-making.

Martin Mantle (Armidale) and Tim Atkinson (Kiama) - Wow, fantastic insight into what it's like being a National Broadband Network location. I'm sure the experiences Martin and Tim shared will come in handy for the rest of us one day.

Sean Finlay (Randwick) - Federated searching for online databases is getting some good results, but we can't let the principles slip (good website design, promotion, vigilance). The importance of an evidence-based approach also came through in Joan Ruthven's (Woollhara) presentation.

Martin Boyce (Sutherland) - Martin's clear and concise presentation stressed the importance of thinking strategically when approaching website design. Lots of meaty things to think about.

Philip Edney (Canada Bay) - Canada Bay's extremely high rates of internet and smartphone usage might be difficult to relate to for rural / regional libraries (I'm just jealous!), but the principles of targeting projects to client groups and basing decisions on client consultation are relevant for us all.

Joanna Lee (Hornsby) - Online databases and other electronic resources have to provide value for money, just like our print subscriptions. Thanks Joanna, for challenging me to "lift my game" in terms of rigorously applying collection development selection criteria to online databases.

Alexander Sussman (State Library of NSW) - it's great to hear what's happening at the State Library of NSW, especially the driving forces behind decisions and policy. I think it helps the rest of the public libraries in NSW better align themselves with both the state library and each other, and present a unified presence before government.

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Digital Practice Update seminar 15/02/2011

noreply@blogger.com (PamL) — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 11:35:00 +0000

I just realised I had not yet posted my notes from the "Digital Practice Update: digitisation and digital preservation" seminar at the State Library of NSW on 15th Feb 2011.
I really enjoyed the seminar, and came away with lots of little things buzzing around my brain. I've got too many notes for a single blog post, but I uploaded them to Google Docs instead, here.
Enjoy!

noreply@blogger.com (PamL) — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 11:16:00 +0000

I've been very busy this week, attempting to write a Local Studies policy. Here's my rough draft:

Feedback welcome - for the next three days only, that is!

Local Studies Librarians meeting 16/11/10

noreply@blogger.com (PamL) — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 12:36:00 +0000

Yesterday, I attended the Local Studies Librarians meeting at Cabramatta Library. It was a worthwhile day, with interesting speakers and good discussion.
Lyn Bonomini from Southern Tablelands Regional Library (Goulburn) gave her "mug's-eye view" of running a Local Studies blog, www.strlhistorymatters.blogspot.com.

Lyn mostly uses excerpts copied from existing local studies resources, and matches them with interesting photos of the region. Sources are always acknowledged.
She doesn't have a set schedule of topics, but just uses what looks interesting. Also, Lyn tries to 'move' it around the region, so all towns are included.
Only spends about an hour a week on the blog
Site visits have been steadily increasing, with 1 comment a month on average
Lyn doesn't respond to people's comments online, as she's uncomfortable with the idea of being an 'editorial voice'. She would rather have people contact their local branch library for follow-up queries.
Lyn's council doesn't have a social media policy, and her blog was created before her council started blocking access to web 2.0 tools. Blogger remains open.
Her motto: be simple, be wide-ranging, acknowledge sources, don't editorialise.

John MacRitchie from Manly library also spoke about his experiences running a Local Studies blog

It's important to use every means possible to publicise the library, but you might have to be 'performing' for a while before people start taking notice.
Local Studies blogs tend to run out of steam
Watch your topics and your tone, as local people and families have long memories!
John only spends about a hour a week on the blog, and manages a couple of posts a week.
Post about odd topics, you never know who might be reading (eg, Sherlock Holmes society, train boffins).
Watch your Copyright - photos you post show up in a Google Images search pretty quickly, so make sure you get permissions right beforehand.
There are awards to be won (motivation perhaps?). The Australian War Memorial blog has won awards.
Be prepared for community members to bring donations in as a result of reading your blog

Michael Bennett from NTSCORP spoke about the genealogical resources available to Aborigines in NSW.

NTSCORP is a small organisation that assists NSW Aboriginal communities with Native Title claims, undertaking historical and anthropological research on their behalf, and funded by the Federal Government.
Native Title claims have to prove continuity of connection to the land, identify who the claim group is, and identify all the traditional families from an area.
The research focuses on People, Places, and Events. Genealogies are an important part of this.
NTSCORP holds a large database of genealogical information collected as part of Native Title research. Usually the research goes back 7 or 8 generations, but has gone as far 30 generations. Members of these communities are able to request copies of their personal genealogy free of charge.
As part of the personal genealogy provided, NTSCORP provides copies of original documents along with the family tree.
Although respectful of the confidentiality required when handling genealogical information, NTSCORP is attempting to improve access to the information via related agencies, such as LinkUp.

The meeting:

There was some discussion around dealing with disasters, and setting up a network of volunteer Local Studies librarians who are prepared to help other libraries out in an emergency. It was agreed that the RISG wiki would be used to compile practical information on dealing with a disaster.
Australian Newspapers Digitisation Plan - everyone loves it, and would love to have their papers digitised. Cost was a prohibitive factor, with only one library in attendence saying they were going ahead with digitising their papers.
The themes for 2011's upcoming History Week ("eat history") and Heritage Festival ("amazing stories") were considered to be excellent. There was much discussion over the possibility of a joint project between libraries. For example, a virtual photo exhibition for History Week around food, perhaps hosted by the State Library. Most people also liked the idea of the State Library's mini exhibitions on concertina boards, available for loan to libraries.
The State Library of NSWs Digital Practice Guidelines are being updated, and will be published online in January. There is a seminar 15th February 2011 on Digitisation and digital preservation.
There is an Auslib conference "A sense of place" planned for 4-6 May 2011 focusing on local studies. Cost is $660
The next meeting will be on Tuesday 11th October 2011, possibly at Goulburn.

Skype

noreply@blogger.com (PamL) — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 07:16:00 +0000

I'm rather excited at the mo, because my brother informed me the other day (while he was re-installing Windows on my laptop) that I have a microphone built into my laptop. Yay, this means I can start learning to use Skype straight away, instead of waiting until I get around to buying a plug-in headset mike!

PS, free wi-fi internet at motels / hotels is terrific.

Learning 2.1: All done!

noreply@blogger.com (PamL) — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 04:36:00 +0000

Thanks to the pls@slnsw team for putting together another web 2.0 course for NSW public libraries. We really appreciate the hard work that goes into pulling something like this together.
I'm very glad I stuck this one out (not that I had much choice, it's on my Annual Assessment for work!). It was really good to re-visit some of these web 2.0 tools again. The Learning 2.1 course is also great motivation to get back into using some of the web 2.0 tools on a regular basis (eg, blogging, rss feeds).

I think I'd like to investigate more about:

online meeting / training sites - there are quite a few vendors we deal with that are now offering online training (eg, via WebEx), but I'm reluctant to go ahead with them unless I know they will slip in under Council IT's radar (no software downloads required), and be easy for all library staff to use.
Mashups - I'd really like to be able to get stuck in to creating mashups, rather than just skating around the edges, but my lack of IT knowledge stops me.

Thanks!

Learning 2.1 - Week 24: The dark side of the web

noreply@blogger.com (PamL) — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 04:13:00 +0000

Have you ever been the target of a phishing scam?
Yep!

Did you recognize it as a scam right away?
I think there was one I had to think about for a few seconds.

What tipped you off?
Mostly they're pretty obvious, I find. They usually come from people I don't know, or companies I don't do business with.
I've always turned my nose up at all those Reader's Digest, chain letter, miracle-cure things. So, I'm not the sort of person who falls for the "I'm a poor deprived African prince just trying to help my people throw off the shackles of slavery" line. Africans aren't stupid, you know - they don't need my help to launder their money!
The scams that are hardest to spot are the ones that look and sound just like your bank. That was the one I nearly clicked on! But fortunately, I remembered to go direct to my bank's website and check their known scams info.

My parents surprise me, though. They're both really smart, and computer-literate (considering they're in their mid-60s), but they are also surprisingly susceptible to email scams and hoaxes. One the one hand, they're too scared to use Facebook or YouTube, and on the other they're forwarding the most bizarre hoax emails to me without prior fact-checking. Something that screams 'Scam!' to me slips right by them. What's with that? Perhaps they just aren't fluent in the 'language' yet.

Learning 2.1 - Week 23: Mashups revisited

noreply@blogger.com (PamL) — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 22:27:00 +0000

Oh, Groan. Mashups. Again.

I had a look at the mashups listed on the Learning 2.1 post. I really love the idea of bkkeepr's Twitter mashup, allowing you to record what books you're reading and keep track of your progress through them. It's nice to see some value-adding for the old ISBN, too. I'm still thinking about what the potential applications of this mashup are, though. Tracking students' progress through English texts? Bor-ing!

NationMaster would have to be my favourite mashup site, though. It was invaluable about 5 years ago when I was responsible for putting together our CWA Country of Study webpage. It was originally based on the CIA World Factbook, but they have now added a host of other reliable statistical resources. Did you know Australia has the highest rate of burglaries per capita, and Colombia ranks only 48th??

Learning 2.1 - Week 22: Instant Communication

noreply@blogger.com (PamL) — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 08:17:00 +0000

What did you like about them?
I was actually quite impressed with the IM services provided by Yahoo and Google. The last time I looked at Google Talk it was fairly new and pretty basic.
I've been using MSN Messenger at home for years to communicate with my family. I've never had a major problem with it, only the occasional spam friend request.

How would they be useful in a library?
We actually used to block MSM Messenger on the public computers at work. That was before the explosion in different IM services available. It's not not really possible to block all IM services now, and we don't want to.
Many libraries have tried providing chat reference services to clients, but I'm not entirely convinced about this for some reason. It's easier for me to see applications for chat for internal staff communication and development. Being a regional library, Skype is also attractive to me, but I'm pretty sure someone from our systems team has already investigated Skype and found it was not suitable for us for some reason.

Slashdot: The 'Net Generation' isn't

noreply@blogger.com (PamL) — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 23:24:00 +0000

This is a copy of a post I made 10/08/10 on the CNRL Staff blog (a private blog).

This post from Slashdot pretty much says a lot of the stuff I've been thinking lately about the assumptions we make about young people. There are many factors that will determine a person's skill and/or interest in technology and the Internet, and age is the least of them. Other studies I've read say that the greatest users of the net are Gen Xs, not Gen Ys. Here at Tamworth Library we certainly see enough young people who don't have a clue about proper web search techniques, and haven't even heard of Project Gutenberg!
I also think young people have a much smaller social circle, and therefore don't rely on the internet for long-distance communication. They're less able to travel independently, and have only ever known the people they go to school with. Older people (ie, over 18), are more likely to have moved town at least once, gone to uni to socialise with the Great Unwashed, and have a need for significant work-related networking and collaboration.
The internet belongs to us, not them. This is our world, baby!

+-----------------------------------+
The 'Net Generation' Isn't
from the hanging-with-the-peeps dept.
posted by kdawson on Sunday August 08, @20:43 (The Internet)
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/08/08/2139210/The-Net-Generation-Isnt
+-----------------------------------+
Kanel introduces this lengthy review in Spiegel Online this way: "[0]Kids that grew up with the Internet are not 'digital natives' as consultants have led us to believe. They're OK with the Net but they don't care much about Web 2.0 and find plenty of other things more important than the Internet. Consultants and authors, mostly old guys, have called for the education system to be reworked to suit this new generation, but they never conducted surveys to see if the members of 'generation @' were anything like what they had envisioned. Turns out, children who have known the Net their whole lives are not particularly skilled at it, nor do they live their lives online." "Young people have now reached this turning point. The Internet is no longer something they are willing to waste time thinking about. It seems that the excitement about cyberspace was a phenomenon peculiar to their predecessors, the technology-obsessed first generation of Web users. ...they certainly no longer understand it when older generations speak of 'going online.' ... Tom and his friends just describe themselves as being 'on' or 'off,' using the English terms.
What they mean is: contactable or not."
Discuss this story at: http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10/08/08/2139210
Links: 0 http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,710139,00.html

Learning 2.1 - Week 21: More with Google Docs

noreply@blogger.com (PamL) — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 23:26:00 +0000

What Google Docs tips did you find the most useful?
I like the ability to edit / view html and css code. That definitely might come in handy one day.

Google Lookup looks pretty cool, but I'm concerned about the reliability of results. I love the form option also, and the style templates look lovely!

What Google Docs tips would you like to share?

My favourite feature is being able to publish a document direct to my blog (another way of getting around council IT restrictions), however you need to check "change your blog site settings" BEFORE you post, or else Google docs will post to whichever of your blogs it finds first!

Learning 2.1 - Week 20: Event management

noreply@blogger.com (PamL) — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 13:11:00 +0000

Set up a meeting with Doodle - done.
Try out Google Calendar - done.
Try out EventBrite, Eventful, Anyvite - done.

Which of these tools did you like the best?
Google Calendar looks good for personal time management of appointments, as it's the most like MS Outlook. I like the look of Anyvite, but EventBrite looked like a better option for managing the kind of events a public library would be organising.

What did you like about them?
Eventbrite's search options are good.
I quite liked the Demand feature on Eventful, where you can 'demand' that your favourite band comes to your town. What a great way to increase site traffic and user interaction!
However, I think Anyvite takes first prize for personal events, for its added features like colourful invitation designs and recipient videos.

Learning 2.1 - Week 19: Productivity : more ways with rss

noreply@blogger.com (PamL) — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 05:52:00 +0000

1. How have you been using your RSS reader? Do you read it regularly?
I can't seem to find time to read my RSS feeds on a regular basis, but I like knowing they're there. Every now and then I have a big clean-up session of unread items, but I don't want to delete any feeds as I had to work pretty hard to find some of them!

2. How have you organized your feeds? Does that help you keep up?
Yes, absolutely! Organising the feeds is invaluable. It means I can duck into Google Reader and just view staff blogs or my Google Alerts, without scrolling through all my feeds to find them.

3. Which of the above tools did you try? What did you like about them?
I already had four alerts set up from Week 16, but relevant results of pretty rare, so I had a bit of a play around with FeedRinse. The filtering certainly improved the results, but I'm not quite confident enough in the FeedRinse results to overwrite my Google Alerts. I'll definintely keep it in mind for the future. I love the idea of SpokenText's text-to-speech feed converter - how handy would that be for a visually-impaired person!

Learning 2.1 - Week 18: Slideshows, Screencasting and digital story telling (Part 2)

noreply@blogger.com (PamL) — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 02:29:00 +0000

Adventure activity - upload a slideshow or screencast
Thankfully, I already had a ready-made presentation I could upload to Slideshare: my powerpoint presentation from the Reference @ the Metcalfe seminar in May 2010.
The process of uploading the presentation with Slideshare was simple, and I really liked the ability to add tags and a description, all while the file was being loaded and converted.
However, I do think Slideshare should allow proper editing of uploaded presentations, like being able to delete a single slide, or correct a spelling error. Also, the 'Replace presentation' feature doesn't seem to be working at all.

The living room library @ tamworth library

View more presentations from Pam Langridge.

Learning 2.1 - Week 18: Slideshows, Screencasting and digital story telling

noreply@blogger.com (PamL) — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 15:33:00 +0000

Explore slideshows
It's so nice to see online editing software becoming more sophisticated. Even Zoho and Google Presentations are looking better these days.
There are plenty of great presentations available online for professional development, and plenty of opportunities for public libraries to create slideshows for use with the public.

Explore screencasting
Like slideshows, there's a lot of potential for public libraries to create demos and tutorials for library users with screencasting. As more library services move online, our members need to be able to access help and instruction online and at a time that suits them best.
I really like the idea of digital storytelling. Local Studies and oral histories are something I know my library needs to get stuck into in the very near future. I like the way the Culture Shock website includes transcripts of the videos and plenty of useful metadata also. You can tell a museum put it together!

Adventure

Learning 2.1 - Week 17: Nings (Part 2)

noreply@blogger.com (PamL) — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 09:48:00 +0000

OK, as promised, here is the 2nd exciting installment of Week 17... Nings
(dum, dum, DUM)

Explore
1. What did you like about them? (Mosman Readers, Museum 3.0, Biblioteek 2.0, Library 2.0)
I like that they bring together different reading-related stuff in one place, written, visual or auditory.
I like the sense of community on the Mosman Readers ning, although I suspect that there is a very small pool of active members.
Also, I think third-party social networking sites are a great way of moving your public library service offering forward without having to drag your LMS company with you. The trick will be to find ways of continually referring and linking back to our catalogues, as our catalogues are what make us public libraries unique.

2. Did you find them useful?
Not yet. I think the Library 2.0 ning might prove to be useful at some stage in the future. Biblioteek 2.0 looks like it might be interesting, but my nederlands is not fluent enough to follow all that's going on!

I don't think I like the 'all-in-one' approach to the main page. I think I'd prefer a nice, plain, simple welcome screen. You could highlight one or two interesting things, and leave the rest of the blogs, videos, forums, etc to be found via the links on the header.

Adventure: Ning alternatives
Which ones do you like the most?
I had a look at a couple of ning alternatives suggested by Phil Bradley (http://philbradley.typepad.com/phil_bradleys_weblog/2010/04/alternatives-to-ning.html), Spruz and BigTent. From the small amount of investigation I could do without signing up, they both seem good alternatives. They seemed to be prettier than Ning, too.

Adventure: Library 2.0 ning
Join Library 2.0 ning - done.
Edit profile - done.
Join New South Wales public libraries group - done.
Join another group on Library 2.0 ning - "do we do 2.0?" - done.

Have to say, I find it really annoying that I can't login to Ning and get access to all the nings I'm a member of. Having to log in to each one separately gets old very quickly.
I'm still not quite sure what the difference is between a ning and what you get with a content management software like Joomla.

Learning 2.1 - Week 17: Nings (Part 1)

noreply@blogger.com (PamL) — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 23:28:00 +0000

Yawn.

For some reason, I just don't find nings interesting. They always look like my desk at work - messy and crowded with stuff other people have put there that I don't want to read but can't throw in the bin.

I find it difficult to find new nings to join (perhaps because Ning has apparently stopped offering free service??), and today it wouldn't let me log in at all without verifying my email address (which I can't because I'm stranded on a public PAC in the library, not my staff PC).

I'm already a member of a few nings, which I don't really ever look at. I'm interested in looking at the ning alternatives though, so stay tuned for "Nings (Part 2)".

Time for breakfast.

Learning 2.1 - Week 16: Evaluation

noreply@blogger.com (PamL) — Sat, 29 May 2010 06:47:00 +0000

Evaluation, such an important part of the process of implementing new services and features. Thanks for the reminder!

I believe we have just implemented Google Analytics onto our website at work. I can't wait to hear what the results are in a few weeks. We previously had a hit counter, which couldn't really tell us much about how people were using our website. Stats from our LMS Spydus indicate that web-based reservations and renewals constitute a significant portion of the totals. If we are going to provide an effective "e-branch" service, we need more information on how and what people are using. It's a pity you can't track other people's websites too ;) as I'd love to know how our library website usage compares to Council's!

Google Alerts
Google Alerts are a a great, simple way of seeing what others are saying about you. However, it should be said that Google Alerts only searches Google News, not the entire internet. No relevant results for "Tamworth Library" unfortunately :(

Feedburner
Have set up a Feedburner feed for my blog. I'm intrigued to see whether anything interesting happens!

Online surveys
Well, maybe it's the cold affecting my brain, but I just can't think of anything I would possibly want to know from an online survey! Personally speaking, that is. When I can think of something suitable (or suitably ridiculous) I'll put a survey together. I've completed many online surveys via SurveyMonkey, so I'm interested in how the back-end of SurveyMonkey works. I've used Blogger's Poll widget a couple of times, which was really easy to set up, but obviously is not designed for large data collection.

As far as work goes, I can definitely think of situations where online suveys might come in handy. It would make it much easier to collect feedback from customers about our website / subscription databases. Not having to co-ordinate getting paper surveys out to branches and back again would also be good. It would also allow us to improve perceived anonymity for respondents in our small & remote communities. Online surveys still don't reach non-web users, but I feel they are a useful addition to face-to-face surveys. Any feedback is better than none at all!
I think online surveys would probably work better for us than paper surveys for internal staff surveys. Online surveys eliminate the problem of distance and therefore time in collecting data / opinions from library staff. Also, we don't have to worry about sampling issues, as we can easily get 100% participation rates with staff.

Learning 2.1 - Week 15: delicious

noreply@blogger.com (PamL) — Mon, 24 May 2010 23:25:00 +0000

I have to say I still rarely use Delicious, except for really obscure sites I know I won't ever be able to find again, and that I think I might want to use from multiple locations. I have the Delicious toolbar in Internet Explorer at work, but I was having problems with the toolbar in Firefox at home so I removed it. One of the biggest barriers for me is that I find it quicker to use the browser Favourites than the Delicious toolbar.

I was thinking about possible uses in public libraries and I thought Delicious might be a better way to provide recommended weblinks for clients than static webpages. No one has the time to update our existing set of static webpages, but a plain tag cloud or linkroll doesn't really cut it either. The ability to Bundle tags might prove useful, especially if we can choose to display different tag bundles on different webpages. When I've got the time to troll through Delicious' unhelpful Help section, I might find something useful!

Explore
1. Linking Twitter account to Delicious account - done and tested.
2. Search Delicious via browser address bar - I don't think so! Trying to remember the correct URLs for these searches will make my brain hurt. Although, I suppose if I used Delicious a lot I could always put the link on my homepage and then change the 'keyword' after it's opened.
3. Organise tags - I think bundling is a great feature for heavy users of Delicious, and easy to do.
4. Find new bookmarks - I had a lovely time looking for new bookmarks to subscribe to, as well as exploring some of the networking options, like being able to send a bookmark to someone else. I spent ages mucking around with this stuff, but most of that was because I let myself get distracted by one of the websites I'd bookmarked!

Adventure
I already have my Delicious tag cloud on my blog. Didn't we cover this during Learning 2.0? Maybe I'm imagining things. When I changed my blog template I spent some time changing the colours of the tag cloud so it looks pretty with my new colour scheme. I was actually impressed by how easy it was to do this compared with other things on Delicious, and it was heaps easier than changing the colours of my Twitter blogroll.

out in the cold on the western side of the range

noreply@blogger.com (PamL) — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 11:46:00 +0000

I really enjoyed keeping up with the "Murder in the Metcalfe" seminar at State Library of NSW yesterday via Twitter. Thanks to Ellen and Vassiliki the tweets were coming thick and fast, with that old familiar manic RA edge!

The May "Reference @ Metcalfe" seminar used to be the highlight of my year, but since I was 'promoted' from information services to collection management, I don't get to go to seminars or workshops anymore. I see this partly due to a lack of collection-management workshops, but mostly due to a much-needed focus on developing RA skills in public libraries (in other words, I'm not too bitter).

Still, it's times like these I miss the mad back-and-forth with CJ and EF about books and reference work; I miss the sense of community in the Reference group; I miss being able to solve three reference queries at once on two computers; I miss talking with other professionals who aren't my boss; I miss not being responsible for a quarter-of-a-million-dollar budget each year; I miss moving the furniture around; I miss healthy rivalry; I miss conspiracy; I miss sitting in the library instead of working in it. I miss my dog.

I think I need a holiday.

Learning 2.1 - Week 14: Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (PamL) — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 03:02:00 +0000

I love Commoncraft!

Explore
Did a few searches around the word 'library' on Twitter. There's a wide variety of results, from people who think their library is great, to those who think it stinks, to those who aren't talking about libraries at all (it's like a journal database search for 'library' - you always get a tonne of 'chemical library' results)! I think finding anything useful as far as PD goes will require a significant amount of trolling.

Discover
I've had a Twitter account for a few weeks now (I can't let the young Library Assistants at work get too big a jump on me!). I've also added a Twitter widget to my blog (See right).

I resisted Twitter for years because I really couldn't see the point of telling everyone everything I'm doing. It sounded like a real time-sinker, and a little bit sad, to tell the truth. However, I recently came to the realisation that you don't have to tweet about EVERYthing you do, only the interesting stuff. Wow, what a concept!

Now that mobile tweeting has been enabled in Australia, it makes a great alternative to trying to remember everything that happens until you get home and can write a full blog post. I really like that immediacy. Recently, during the 2010 Country Music Festival, we had Guy Sebastian come to Tamworth City Library for one of our Country Music Storytimes (for those playing at home, he read 'Sebastian lives in a hat' and 'The very hungry caterpillar'. We were all very excited about it, and we had a great crowd. When Guy had left I thought, "That was great. It was a real success. I want to tell people about it." I thought about writing a blog post, but I had to get back to work (since I'd spent the last half hour standing around watching Guy), and I knew it would be a bit of a technical drama anyway (see previous post), so I just sent a quick SMS to Twitter and - Viola!, done. Later on, I went into our staff blog and wrote a fuller post, with picture, for our branch staff to enjoy.

I also like the way Google results includes a scrolling section for Twitter results - very handy!

I think there is definitely a use for Twitter my public libraries. However, I think it's important to not over-tweet. I follow someone on Twitter who seems to think they have to tweet every 3 minutes while they're online. If it wasn't for the occasional work-related, useful tweet, I would probably have stopped following them by now. I usually end up going to the list of people I follow to find out if those people I'm really interested in have made a recent post.

Having said all that, I don't think Twitter is a particularly user-friendly website. If you have a private account and someone requests to follow you, there is no link from your Twitter profile to friend requests. You have to go back to Outlook and click on the link in the follower request email. I also don't think their Help pages are very easy to navigate around. There's a lot of third-party applications for twitter, too, which obviously saves Twitter time and money on R&D, but also makes life a bit tricky for users.

Learning 2.1 - Week 13: refreshing your blog

noreply@blogger.com (PamL) — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 01:17:00 +0000

Explore
I enjoy blogging, so I'm a little disppointed in myself for not finding the time to blog more over the last 17mths, both on my personal blog and on our staff blog. I like to be able to share interesting things I've come across with colleagues, hopefully getting them thinking about how they can improve their branch libraries. Since we're a regional library service, I also try to encourage the remote staff and make them feel included in what's happening closer in to Tamworth.
The time required for crafting a new blog often puts me off. Also, I'm usually at work when I get a great idea for a blog post, but submitting a blog post is now blocked by the IT dept [eye roll], so that's another stumbling block. Sometimes I email posts to the work blog, but then I have to go back in to the post when I get home and edit out all the horrid automatic signature stuff Outlook puts in. I also admit to being discouraged by the lack of engagement by the branch staff. (I should take this opportunity to tell Mylee and Ellen at NSL how much we appreciate the little emails and tit-bits you send out all the time via email newsgroups, blogs and tweets. You might be surprised at the number of times your emails get forwarded around the office!)
I've found quite a few blogs, wikis, websites, and tweeters to follow. I've culled some over time, but kept many of them despite the fact I hardly ever get to my Google Reader page to read them all. Occasionally I post a comment, but only if I think I can really contribute to the conversation.

Adventure
Well, I changed my template, but I'm not sure how long I'll keep it. I really quite liked the old one, even though it was a standard Blogger template. I was a bit surprised at how emotionally attached I was! Nevermind, we'll see how we go, won't we?
Looking for a new template was time-consuming, but I found a few I liked. I downloaded them all to my hard drive, so I had a few options. I saved my old template, too, just in case I lost widgets in the transfer. I chose a 3-column template, as I suspect we'll be adding even more widgets and tools as we go through Learning2.1! Once the new template was loaded, I had to re-work some of my widgets. For example, my Delicious tag cloud was originally light blue, and virtually disappeared into the aqua blue background. I had to go back to Delicious, try a few different colours and then re-copy&paste the coding back into by blog widget. I also changed the colours on my Twitter widget, but that just because the default colours of black and grey were very depressing. It took a few goes before I got a colour scheme for it that matched the blog template, though.
The main problem with the new template is that it has removed the Blogger NavBar from the top of the page. This means I don't have quick access to my Dashboard and to New Post. Also, it has added in some links which I don't want, especially the one named "Contact" as it links to a third-party website, not to me. I'll have to mess around in the html and see if I can remove them.

DVD vending machines

noreply@blogger.com (PamL) — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 10:43:00 +0000

From Other Work photos

Just posted on the CNRL staff blog (private) about a DVD vending machine I spotted at Grand Central Shopping Centre a couple of weeks ago. I nearly walked straight past it thinking it was a Coke machine, as there's not much branding. I played around with as much of the menu options as I could without entering my credit card details! The menu seemed easy to use with different browse options, and the titles were all recent releases.

I was surprised that one of the major video chains hadn't got in the act first, though, and put their branding all over the machine. This seems like a missed opportunity for video stores, in my opinion. They must already be losing market share to online movie downloads and discounted prices at department stores. Of course, this is the first DVD vending machine I've seen. Maybe there are tonnes of Video Ezy / Blockbuster vending machines around the country that I just haven't seen yet :)

getting back in the groove

noreply@blogger.com (PamL) — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 07:06:00 +0000

Well, it's back to work on Monday, so I've spent most of today (I'll be honest, my day didn't start until 11am) going through all the RSS feeds, blog posts and tweets that I've neglected over the last 12 months.
Now I'm all set to start on the State Library of NSWs Learning 2.1 course. I wonder if I can get it done before Sunday night?

Rip - a remix manifesto

noreply@blogger.com (PamL) — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 02:46:00 +0000

Great doco, Rip - a remix manifesto, shown on SBS Tues 5th Jan 2010, 10pm. It looks at the problems of Copyright today, especially with reference to today's remix culture.