Facebook and Libraries

Facebook can be a useful tool for libraries because:

• It is in the space where the users are and therefore likely to get noticed;
• Images, videos, blogs, postings and many more things can be uploaded to push information to "fans";
• Libraries are a central location for socialising and collaborating on group assignments. Why not use social networking to connect to other users and peers (and to librarians).

There needs to be set guidelines on what is posted on Facebook. If there are too many postings and members are getting lots of news feeds, it can be quite annoying. There is always a blog for more detailed information. Facebook postings should only contain highlights of things happening in the library, like significant changes. The point is not to overdo it with too much information.

Now ticking off Things 13 and 14.

Thing 12 - Images

OK. So I was a bit lazy to grab a camera and go and take some pictures. I had a look on my PC and found this image of me giving a presentation. A bit of an "action" photo.

I had difficulty getting the Images link to open in Explorer to upload this image, but it worked fine in Firefox.

I had a Yahoo account as this is where I created my Avatar. So I loaded some library / work related photos on Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/library2009/. I added some contacts to view the photos and I joined a group called Libraries and Librarians with over 31,000 members. I added my library / work related photos to this.

I also have a Picasa account (the Google equivalent) to which I have uploaded photos from flamenco shows. I do like Picasa as you can embed the photos into a website (see previous post on flamenco dancing).

Thing 11 - Social book-marking and delicious!

I already had a Del.ici.ous account and had imported my bookmarks from Internet Explorer as well as adding more to it. I like the tag cloud as I can see which tags are the most popular in my collection of bookmarks. I haven't added any bookmarks since last year, so I need to update this. I also like to see how many other people have bookmarked the same site to see how popular it is.

Thing 10 - Social Tagging and Search

Del.ici.ous
The phrase I searched was Flamenco Dancing. Del.ici.ous found 117 results. What I like is that you can filter your search by tag (eg. Spain) and it also displays other phrases you can limit your search by, such as history of flamenco dancing, flamenco dancing video, flamenco dancing pictures, Spanish flamenco dancing and flamenco dancing lessons.

Anyway, as I noticed not all the sites I am checking out are general, some are specialised, I chose another term to search across them - mental illness.

Del.ici.ous retrieved 5,934 results with limiters like types of mental illness, mental illness symptoms and mental illness statistics.

Connotea
The searching part was quite slow. Then it came up with an error message as there are technical difficulties. Perhaps I will try again later.

CiteULike
This is great. The search retrieved more than 800 articles. There is also an RSS feed to keep up to date with the latest information on your topic. It lists groups interested in your topic.

I would like to have been able to arrange the articles by date, I didn't see such a feature, although at least you can keep up to date with the RSS feed. I like that you can choose a citation style (eg. APA) and it gives you the reference (although not always acurate if bits of information are missing from the record). People can write reviews of articles, which is great. Users have rated the articles on a star system and you can export references in the style you need. I haven't registered, but could this be useful for undergraduate students?

ACU Library Catalogue
I get 1, 062 results. I like that the results are ordered from the latest publication. I also like the cover image and Google information about the book.

Google
9, 700, 000 results? Who looks passed the first or maybe the second page of results? I prefer to search some of the other sites that filter information for quality, or that have been chosen by people for the integrity of the article / information.

Zuula
Try sifting through this lot! The results from Google alone was practically double, 17,700,000. Yahoo was worse with 42,400,000. I don't think I would bother going to the other search engines. At least these search engines give you the choice of narrowing your search by doing a related search on things like types of mental illness or mental illness symptoms.

KartOO
I like this one! I like the concept style map option displaying the results. Hover the mouse over and you get some information from the website to see if you want to look futher. It has updated information in the bubble from the site and there is also a section on the left with the latest news. I don't know the number of results retrieved, and it is UK oriented, but great! The thumbnails are useful too.

Other useful sites
I won't go into these in detail, you can explore for yourself, but they are also useful sites for quality information:

• Intute: Gateway to subject catalogues with links to high quality Internet sites, selected and described by specialists from within British academia. www.intute.ac.uk/
• Infomine: INFOMINE is a comprehensive virtual library and reference tool for academic and scholarly Internet resources, including Web sites, databases, ... infomine.ucr.edu/

Booktagger

I find Booktagger frustrating. Any book I entered in the search just wasn't there. Also it was really slow. The Facebook application is also not as good as Social Bookshelf. I think I will give Booktagger a miss for now and stick to using Library Thing.

Library Thing

Hi again,

I have been a lifetime member of Library Thing for several years now and have added all of my personal collection there. If you want to see it, i have added a widget to this blog.

Library Thing is useful to the ultra organised, and for booklovers looking to see who else has read your favourite book and what other similar books exists that could be of interest.

One way this could be used is for a teaching staff member to make an account and share with students, via a funky widget, what books would be useful to the unit - students can add their reviews! It's another way to get invovled in web 2.0.

More about RSS

Hi there!

Well, I have learnt a few more things about RSS. Firstly, I played around a bit with Netvibes http://www.netvibes.com/ - and there is a lot of potential there to customise the page to suit your needs, with RSS feeds and widgets like Facebook and so on.

I can also tick off Things 7 and 8! The RSS feeds I am following are:

• Helen Highwater's Blah;
• Manoucha's blog;
• ABC news;
• SMH news headlines;
• Information literacy meets Web 2.0 blog.

I have also subscribed to Library Biz through my Outlook account.

I like that you can customise and organise your news items. You can create folders and be kept up to date without filling your email inbox with thousands of mail - that would take you a lot of time to sift through. Now there is a centralised location and you can visit whenever you want and read whatever you want.

In my personal life, tools like Net Vibes assists you to go to one place for Facebook, calendars, to dos and news and blog. It's a one stop shop for your organisation of information. In work, you can keep up to date with work related blogs and information, like web 2.0 blogs and information literacy ideas (as I have just subscribed to such a blog). Also, this is a great tool to share and train interested parties like students and staff in the use for their work related information. Then they won't get annoyed that the library keeps sending emails all the time, they can get information via the reader on issues related to them directly (eg. perhaps creating subject specific blogs people can subscribe to?)

Libraries can use RSS as mentioned, to inform clients on things and also to be kept up to date by following and subscribing to news and blogs that relate to our professional development.

That's all for now!

About RSS feeds

Hi there again.

I finally managed to create an RSS feed for ABC's Breaking Stories News feed. I couldn't see the three options Kate was talking about, but I copied and pasted the XML link into Add Subscription in Google Reader and that worked. I also managed to put the blogs and the news I'm following into folders.

I can see the potential in this as our clients can follow updates for the library. Now that I understand this better, I can probably show others how to set up their RSS feeds via a reader to keep up to date. They can also set up RSS for their favourite journal. Yay!

Google Docs - some thoughts

Google Docs is quite intuitive and a useful tool to use for collaborating on documents, presentations and reports. However, it does not handle big files well as I created a Presentation with photos from my holiday, and this kept making Internet Explorer crash all the time an attempt was made to open Google Docs. Firefox worked better, so I told my "collaborator" to open the presentation in Firefox as it kept crashing on her PC also.

I do, however like it as a free tool to share information and work on things like subject guides, reports, etc. Now that I have had training in Sharepoint, though, I prefer this option for collaborating with colleagues as you can "check out" a document, edit and "check in". Also in Sharepoint you can have dicussions, create a wiki and blog, share calendars and arrange meetings. It is a more blended approach to managing workflow and projects.

For students, Google Docs would be extremely useful. So many students do group work nowadays, that sharing their presentations and assignment this way is less confusing than 5 different versions of the same report going around. However, are students aware of Google Docs? If not, how can they be made aware of this option?

Flamenco is my passion

I dance flamenco in my spare time. In fact it has been 10 years now since I started. I have created a website for the school I dance at : http://www.pasionflamenco.com.au . Included is a Wordpress blog which I desperately need to update (time?) at http://pasionflamenco.wordpress.com/ .

Also, you will find YouTube videos and photos load onto Picasa on the website, but here are links anyway:

All about Wikis and Library 2.0

Wikis are great for collaborating on a range of topics. Why are they great?

• Library staff manual / procedures, such as the reference manual, circulation manual, etc. can be created and updated using a wiki. There is also history tracking through wikis. Other manuals can include how to use a database. The users cannot edit this but they can comment and staff will update.
• It is a free cheap alternative to intranets;
• Guides (eg. subject guides) can be created using wikis;
• Professional development wikis – a wiki of library related things (see Library Success wiki at www.libsuccess.org) ;
• Conferences – schedule of conferences, people attending can be incorporated into a wiki.
  
  Libraries can use wikis to promote internal communication (which remains up to date since anyone can add and edit content), provide a virtual space for group collaboration or create dynamic content for the user population.
  
  Libraries are also using wikis for subject / research guides, which used to be static web pages pointing researchers to appropriate information in a subject area. As these guides can become outdated quickly, they can be edited in a wiki when the need arises.
  
  The wiki contains such information as tough questions and research assignments that reference staff are presented with in semester. This information is readily accessible at the time of need. The wiki serves as a place to put answers to staff FAQs, and is a repository for department meeting minutes.
  
  See Ohio University’s BizWiki http://www.library.ohiou.edu/subjects/bizwiki/index.php/Main_Page. For business, it contains information about reference books, websites, research guides and how-to documents. Also visit http://msref.pbwiki.com/. The WikiMatrix (http://www.wikimatrix.org) allows users to select multiple wiki applications and compare them side by side. The Choice Wizard allows users to narrow down applications and software options based on selected criteria.

LIFELONG LEARNING AND SET GOALS

The easiest habit for me is to use technology to my advantage. I have come a long way in my confidence of using technology. When I first bought a computer in 1995, it sat in its box in the middle of the living room for weeks before I had the courage to set it up. Over the years of university study and then in the role as librarian, I have gone through exponential growth in the confidence and skills in using technology and I am a lifelong learner, always updating my knowledge of the latest trends in technology.

The hardest habit for me is viewing challenges as learning opportunities. It requires a training of the mind to remain positive and practical when obstacles arise and to learn solutions and make decisions rather than panic and get anxious.

From this program, I would like to achieve the following:

• Merge new knowledge with existing knowledge of web 2.0 technologies. I use some tools already, but there are still gaps in my knowledge;
• Ideas of how these tools can be used in the library environment;
• Have the ability to teach others some of these skills.
  

My goals are:

• To learn enough about Web 2.0 technologies to be able to use the tools confidently in any setting;
• To be able to implement some of the tools in my work at some point, in order to communicate to staff and students in my designated area;
• To increase my understanding, knowledge and skills of a variety of new Web 2.0 tools.
  

My toolkit will consist of:

• People who can help (like Kate);
• Books on how libraries use Web 2.0 (are found in the library);
• The Internet and accounts with a variety of tools;
• Friends as part of my online social network.