Delicious bookmarks

I was really impressed with the Cleveland Public Library's bookmarks, and can see how appropriately it would replace the typed page we currently have stuck to a shelf. This page lists some websites that we thought would be helpful for students doing assignments, but they don't use the list. How much more fun finding a page on the web and following the links?

The famous otters

I also like this one, although the narrative gets a bit much at times....

Youtube and Google video

There is a video out there about almost any topic a body can think of. We have a very small branch library, but I could see how a video could be used to introduce other branches to customers, and to promote our library and town through videos to people in other places.

My favourite ever video

I just love this video - I make my two teenagers sit and watch this periodically so I don't have to go through each item again and again and again.........

The wonderful world of wikis

The first wiki I visited was the St Josephs PL subject guide, and it seemed a great way to connect to the catalogue, and as a gateway to related information, especially local. The booklovers wiki was a "novel" idea, and it could be a wonderful way to get different opinions about a new, or even favourite, book. Wookieepedia is a good example of a pooling of many minds.

Library applications that I think would work well would be book review sites, where reviews could link to the library cataloge, and for local history groups. There is so much information that never gets recorded, and this could be a way to make it happen.

I found while visiting the wikis that I was frustrated with pages that had links only - even though I am on a broadband connection, each click takes some seconds and I was less inclined to explore without some information as enticement.

RSS

What I like about RSS and newsreaders is that I can select specific sites/topics to notify me when new items appear. The sites I selected were the requested Powerhouse Museum site, Bruce Wolpe's White House '08 blog from the SMH, the ABC cricket news site, "statistically speaking" - the ABS site for librarians, and Helen Blowers' Librarybytes blog.

I am sure some of the items that arrive in my email from the Learning 2.0 team have been detected/selected as a result of RSS or newsreaders feeds, and can see that it is a great way of keeping up to date with the latest in technology or just changes, and onforwarding same to interested parties.

Libraries can include feeds on their blogs, or have their blog included on others' to inform about local events/changes or about things happening further afield. I can relate to the concerns of some of the other 2.0 participants about information overload, but as you are only prompted when new items appear, if you have managed your selection properly then it really will save time.

The challenge is to ensure that blogs are maintained, active and current, as the example of the "@ your library blog" shows - it has just one post dated April 10, 2007. I did a Google search which returned over 20 million hits for library blogs worldwide, and 120,000 in Australia - that is daunting.

I asked my 16 year old daughter (an active library user) whether she would access a library blog and she couldn't think of anything more boring, so the challenge is there to create interesting content.

This should work

Unwind
Originally uploaded by krismartin

Another photo loaded on from Flickr - this is perhaps getting easy!