Rollyo-ur eyes upwards

This post has been difficult - success at first using the URL for my Rollyo site but then somehow I deleted everything when I made a mistake in transferring a link from one site to the other.

Can I see the value in Rollyo? Well, at present it is the cause of much grinding of teeth and rolling the eyes upwards, but yes it looks useful both in the library and at home to keep track of various interesting websites.

Here's the URL for my searchroll http://www.rollyo.com/search.html?q=Try+it+out...&sid=464965&x=11&y=9

Library Things

Enjoyed my brief look over LibraryThing website, but will need to go back for a closer look at how it categorises/catalogues the books. A shame that the first search engine doesnt bring up recent UK or New Zealand books but there are other ways to locate them. Seems a good tool for libraries.
Below is a link to they first few entries on my own library at LibraryThing


http://www.librarything.com/catalog/gpoplulu

Image generator

This was fun once I found a website I could get around in, and I generated a gorgeous image with some text, daisies, glitter and flying snowflakes. I am not sure if it can be viewed but here goes - or try making something spectacular yourself at jellymuffin.com.
http://www.jellymuffin.com/generators/textpix2/

This could be good for creating a Christmas card, or similar. And if it was slightly less creative, without moving objects etc, it could be useful for display purposes in the library.

Exercise 12

I enjoyed this exercise to add a blog to the North Shore wetpaint favourite blogs page but have had a long gap between doing the exploring and completing the exercise. Will have to review this exercise to gain the most benefit but time to move on now to the next one, so have to go!

Wierd and wonderful wikis

This week I have looked at Wikis, and think they could be a marvellous tool for collectively-writting or editing articles, reviewing books and tackling joint projects. Libraries could use open wikis for gathering feedback from the community, or use wikis that are limited to approved users for internal use. In developing training or resources, they would be superb.

I can also see lots of benefits for people doing committee work - wikis seem a marvellous way of sharing the writing of articles, web content and publications, and for facilitating joint input to all sorts of documents.

As a chronically addicted committee person I look forward to exploring wikis further in that role and the library where I work. Exciting stuff!

Library 2.0

Web 2.0 is successfully dragging some of us into realms unknown - in spite of ourselves. It is already amazing to see how the use of the web has expanded to be central to many aspects of communication and of life, and I expect to stand even more in awe as the exercises progress.

In the library, I cant envisage the day when books disappear from the shelves, and cannot imagine that I would ever be pleased about that. But I see the increasing need for more facilities for patrons to interact with web information in libraries as well as from their homes, etc. It follows that librarians will need to be very familiar with what patrons are doing - we need to be doing the same things ourselves at work (and out of work) in order to be that step ahead. LIbrarians will be called on to teach others how to use the web capabilities that are continuing to develop, as there will always be plenty of patrons who get left a bit behind. We need to be part of the technological revolution, rather than just keeping up. (Help!)

This will change the type of training we do, and will most likely influence the sort of people who are selected to work in libraries.

Technorati and tags

Tags are absolutely necessary if you are to find something useful on a site such as Techorati. Even so, it's too easy to keep on opening up relevant tags and finding hundreds more blogs with each one. I wonder if I can limit the possibilities by using several tags at once - will try this next. It's good to be able to get around a site like this and read what other people think. When the need arises, tags would be a useful way of finding someone's blog on Technorati or similar sites, even Google. (That's something else to try.)

I am aiming to make a supreme effort this week and try to catch up a bit with these exercises.
Cheers!

Delicious Spring and the pox

It's now September and looking like Spring is here. It's wonderful to see! After a week off with chicken pox I am ready to tackle another exercise - here we go with Delicious tags and social bookmarks.

I really liked the Youtube video - it took ages to download but was very clear and helpful. And yes, I will join Delicious and start using tags and bookmarks for my own use - it is easier than the bookmarking folders I try to keep under control at the moment. I can also see the possibilities for libraries, and it's really interesting seeing what some libraries are offering.