Every Dog Has Its Day

Well, that's it. Learning 2.0 over and out.
It's been lots of fun. I have a whole suite of new passwords and expanded my vocabulary. I've learnt some skills that I can actually use and apply.
It's really been the most interesting learning experience for as long as I can remember. Inspiring, informative, educational and entertaining.
It's also been great to have been part of a blogging community.
So long, and thanks for reading.

Mashup using cover art from one of the fab library career romances highlighted here:
http://loveliestlib.wordpress.com/category/career-romance/

Is the writing on the wall?

OK, after getting quite enthused about a lot of the Web 2.0 applications we've looked at, I'm going to be brave and admit to being a Facebook / Myspace sceptic. Sure, I have nothing against libraries and cultural institutions setting up camp on social networking sites - though I have a niggling worry that to native facebookers it might look as cool as parents taking to the floor at a school disco.
It’s great if libraries and museums can make it work for them. The BL example looked good.
It's just that it's not for me.
When a colleague with cutting edge tendencies invited me to be her friend on Facebook a little while ago, I just couldn't get past the registration hurdle. Facebook seemed to want a lot of information and I do like my cyber privacy. So I retreated and apologetically offered the pale substitute of real-life friendship instead.
Ironically, in eschewing "social networking", it seems I might not be alone. A recent article from the UK Guardian charted what they termed "facebook fatigue" noting that a number of the social networking sites had witnessed a drop in participation with security concerns as one of the reasons.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/feb/22/facebook.facebook
I left Facebook before even joining - how cutting edge is that? I am an early unadopter!

I guess this new development raises issues regarding the safety of the investment for the institutions like libraries who have staked territory on these sites. Will we follow those fleeing Facebook to their next destination? Which is…..?

I liked the way Tom Hodgkinson summed it up in another Guardian article:


"For my own part, I am going to retreat from the whole thing, remain as unplugged as possible, and spend the time I save by not going on Facebook doing something useful, such as reading books. Why would I want to waste my time on Facebook when I still haven't read Keats' Endymion? And when there are seeds to be sown in my own back yard? I don't want to retreat from nature, I want to reconnect with it. Damn air-conditioning! And if I want to connect with the people around me, I will revert to an old piece of technology. It's free, it's easy and it delivers a uniquely individual experience in sharing information: it's called talking."

Tom Hodgkinson, "With Friends Like These", The Guardian January 14, 2008, for the whole article see:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/14/facebook

And, as for Second Life - I’ll think about it when the ironing basket is empty in my First.

"In the past you were what you owned, now you are what you share"

I thought the above quote from Charles Leadbeater a pertinent one for discussing collaborative tools.

It's from a little animation on YouTube to promote his book We Think. More on the book here:
http://www.wethinkthebook.net/home.aspx




While you watch the video, I'll play with Google Docs, Slideshare and Zoho and report back.

I'm back.
Google docs rocks? Well, I think it might! That little gmail password opens quite a few doors, doesn't it?
The applications for online collaboration tools for us are obvious and many.
No more (or fewer) version control and conversion problems. I'm converted.
I believe that sharing and collaborating is more than technological - it's behavioural - but with some of these emerging free technologies, it looks like where's there's a will to collaborate and work together, there'll also be a way!

Bloggie Rescue

Have been doing a bit of catching up reading our blogs (and the public library ones) and have decided how clever we all are!

However this thought was followed by the worry - but what will become of us.....
Yes, I'm talking digital preservation. Web 2.0 Warming.
Can you imagine:
Rare or Underdone long gone
Pea Green Boat capsized
Library Wars lost and
Euphemus ephemera
Unthinkable.

However, I'm buoyed up by a quick visit to the PANDORA site and the contributors' selection policies - one par in particular: (My bold)

5.10. Organisational and Personal Web Sites Web sites of individuals and organisations will not generally be collected unless they are of sufficient state significance or if they provide information of cultural or research value unavailable elsewhere or if they are of exceptional quality or particular interest.

Well now, that puts my mind to rest. Everyone, back to some significant and enduring blogging.....

Two peas

Ah, the Macquarie Dictionary Word of the Year 2007:

"pod slurping noun the downloading of large quantities of data to an MP3 player or memory stick from a computer."
From: http://www.usyd.edu.au/news/84.html?newsstoryid=2140

Have only just this year got my own very groovy little ipod shuffle and my first iTunes account. A birthday present belying middle age. So have been enjoying my $1.69 forays into downloading.
Haven't really experimented much with podcasting elsewhere. Have had a quick look at the Library of Congress webcasts and British Library podcasts. Of all the Web 2.0 technologies, I think this one's got fabulous potential for our industry. Client education / entertainment / infotainment / staff training / talks / events / exhibition guides etc. Cheap and easy to produce and the offerings are more likely to withstand the test of time. Hey, no fashion disasters to embarrass us later and no makeover necessary!

A recent visit to the ABC site reveals a plethora of pod (and vod) choice. You will never miss anything on the wireless again. (Well as long as you get in fairly soon after you missed it.) Their set up is nice and easy to use. Listen now or later.
Sadly the one thing that really took my fancy - Garrison Keillor's News from Lake Wobegon wasn't theirs to podcast - and led me on a merry chase to try to and hear "the latest news and views from the little town where "all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average." "
Obviously the folk there are pretty IT savvy too, as I was a bit lost when told to paste the URL into my podcasting client.
Sure, there were links to iTunes and how to download from there, but my "client" if that's what it is, was at home.
I followed another link to audible.com where it was just was just 95c (US) to listen, but I didn't have the small change and wasn't feeling strong enough for another batch of passwords.
Back home to Radio National and the choices are many and blissfully free. And, hey, if I get the head movements right, no one on the bus will suspect I'm listening to Background Briefing.
And on a different but related topic you might be interested to know that the Macquarie Dictionary 2007 People's Choice Award went to…
"password fatigue noun a level of frustration reached by having too many different passwords to remember, resulting in an inability to remember even those most commonly used."

Q&A

What to make of Yahoo Answers. Well, it's more the questions that are fascinating....
I think it's enterprising of the slam-the-boards librarians to do what they're doing. A nice bit of marketing, but judging by the questions, somehow I don't think they'll convert all the question askers. I thought of giving it a go myself, but where to start?
Some examples:

• How can i get my eyeshadow to look blended and fade to another color?
• What should I wear to Jack Johnson concert?
• Is it important that molecules have different sizes?
• What is there to consider before deciding to become a mother?
• Do you feel that many of us waste time wanting what we do not have or do not need? Do you face this problem?

Or this one which made me suffer reference guilt:

• Do you feel lonely when no one answers your question?

Hard to walk away from, but I'm walking away!

Delicious?

Well I finally got on to tagging. A few quirks to it. I worked out the hard way that it won't take two word tags, as my cloud looked like a dog's breakfast (now that would be delicious).
I guess that rules out attaching LCSH headings!! Once over that hurdle the process of tagging sites was easy. However adding it the blog was not easy at all. Where is the widget??? Where is the chiclet??? I didn't know what a widget was last week and now I feel like dashing off a letter of complaint pointing out my right to be provided with one. Library Thing was a breeze. I won't tell you how many times I tried to get that little cloud to cooperate. The fonts were wrong / it wasn't visible at all / it was too big / it was wrapping around. Even now (look over to the right) there are annoying underlinings that I can't get rid of and are ruining the whole feng shui of my blog.

I certainly think the idea of having portable favourites is very handy. However, I'm not so sure about the the "social networking" aspects. I'm not that interested in knowing what other people's bookmarks are - their books yes - their bookmarks, not so much so.
Also if I look at other people's tags will that always be useful - what I mean by one tag, won't be what you mean by it - control without a controlled vocabulary?

OK, it's about browsing and discovery and I need to loosen up. As the light and breezy Delicious Help information advises:
If you don't get it right away, that's OK -- you don't have to. Tagging is pretty intuitive and can take some practice to fully understand. Try it and experiment a bit! There are no wrong tags.
Now that attitude wouldn't get you a Distinction in Bibliographic Organisation 101.