skip to main |
skip to sidebar
How fun was this!?! There were heaps of options for mashups that would keep you busy for days!I really liked the puzzle maker. Being near Christmas, it popped into my mind that it would make a very nice personalised prezzie =)I chose to do a Warhol and used a picture I liked from Flickr. This isn't my dog (I don't have a camera!) but it looks so similar to the faces my dogs pull, right down to the lolling tongue, that it almost could be =)Happy 23thinging! We're on the home stretch now!
Ah ha!
So that's what POD stands for! I've been wondering for ages. But I won't spoil it for you. It would be like telling you the end of a movie =)After looking at the podcast pages of several public libraries, I see it is most commonly used for book reviews and author talks. I think it could also be used for certain community events held in the library. For example, a staff member at my library organised a "Digital Libraries" event which involved several experts giving a half hour talk about their area of expertise. Typically at these events about 20-30 people attend. Making such events available as podcasts would add value by allowing many more people to access an event they would otherwise have been unable to attend.Another very important thing I noticed about other public library podcast pages is that many of them have a dedicated area for teenagers. Typically teenagers are a difficult demographic to bring into the library. Teenagers today have grown up with advanced technology from a very young age and are quite savvy with using it. Podcasts offer teenagers a new, fun way of contributing and accessing the library. From what I saw of the other public library pages, it does work =)
A) TO BE of course! Just as long as the 'to be' is good, as in the phrase, "I'm to be given Jaffas tonight for dessert" =)Haha! Probably not an award winning answer but surely I get points for the awesome subtle suggestion!Q) So have you guessed the topic of this blog? A) Answerboards!I think Slamming the Boards is a great idea. It is certainly one very good way to promote librarians and the work we can do for people with questions. I even think if I ever get a spare few minutes I'll have a crack at slamming the boards too =)Answerboards could work well in elibcat with people reviewing books, though perhaps it would be a bit overwhelming if unlimited comments were allowed. I think a good way of implementing reviews would be to create a selection of books each month based around a theme (eg, new release, popular, classic, genres, non-fic subjects) and for that month customers are invited to share their comments.I really liked the answerboards that implemented a rating system. It means people can have a say without taking up a lot of time getting into the details (as required by reviews/comments). Ratings would work very well in elibcat and be compact enough to use with every item. It would allow people browsing for a good read to quickly see the average concensus of what other readers thought. It would also be quite engaging for the people choosing to contribute to the ratings =)
I really, really like this idea! I've never tried to count the number of different computers I use in a week but at a guess I'd have to say it would be more than just a handful. Bookmarking sites like del.icio.us would be extremely handy. No more struggling to remember that really cool site I'd like to show a friend!
Bookmarking is very similar to RSS feeds except that rather than have the info constantly coming in to you, you have a list of handy sites at ready reference to go to when you need it. RSS feeds seems more suited to things that update constantly (eg, news, blogs, reviews), whereas bookmarking is great for ferreting away those sites you might not use often but want to keep on hand (eg, reference items like dictionaries, encyclopaedias, calculators).
To be honest RSS feeds initially irritated me because I didn't understand this difference. There isn't any site I look at regularly enough to be worthy of being on a feed and so having the feed telling me there was things I needed to catch up on constantly felt pushy and took the fun out of it. What I needed to do instead was to put those sites on del.icio.us. That way I have the sites on record but can access them when I choose, not when I'm told! The control is in my hands! mwahahahaha!
Here's the link to my del.icio.us bookmarks, http://delicious.com/alteredformula. I experimented with del.icio.us by bookmarking YouTube but with 23things winding up soon I haven't added anything else yet. I'm keen to try all the other things before it finishes =)
I'm so glad someone at some point introduced me to YouTube. I have a lot of great memories of falling off chairs with tears streaming out of my eyes, laughing at a totally silly but hilarious video!Currently "Beached Whale" http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdVHZwI8pcA is my favourite. It's such a simple little thing and yet it seems so many people I come across know about it. That's the power of popular culture when it has the means to spread with ease.The other thing I like about YouTube is its ability to grow and change over time. The following scenario is quite common: someone uploads a video ---> lots of people watch it and it becomes very popular through word of mouth ---> some very witty and creative people edit the original video to create something new but in the same vein. An example of this is the Beached Whale video I mentioned above. Add some techno music and edit the video to match the beat and all of a sudden you have something even more hilarious and worthy of the name "Beached Whale Hardstyle" http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=aSEVCPmmTBA.With the previous two Beached Whale videos I purposely just posted the link. This time, to practice embedding the actual video into my blog, I shall leave you with the following - "Introducing the Book". It makes fun of people's reaction to learning computers by showing how people first reacted to learning how to use books.
Well, at least I can be assured I won't ever starve now that I'm being fed by Bloglines =) Let's just hope I'm not eating junk!I'm not a huge Internet surfer. I tend to have a very focussed goal; I go straight for what I'm after; I get out :) I think RSS feeds are more for people who like to surf and turn over a lot of info. An RSS feed would significantly reduce the amount of search time.I love the library comic strips you see around the place every now and then. With the variety and number of people you meet in a customer service role, you can't help but find many humourous situations worthy of becoming a comic. With RSS feeds I now have several library humour sites converging in one place so I can quickly and easily get my funny bone fix =)Since doing this task I've begun to notice the surprising number of sites that display the RSS feed symbol. It's amazing how you can tune out the things you don't understand. I wonder what else I've missed that has been right in my face...As for library RSS feeds, I can see it would be very useful for customers to receive info on library events, book awards, release dates of popular new books, etc. I see the elibcat already allows customers to subscribe to a feed. That might be a very handy piece of info to pass onto customers that show an interest!
The thing I like about Flickr is all the unusual and funny stuff you can come across.
To be honest, I don't use Flickr personally, but I imagine from the librarian point of view it would be useful in getting informal images of the library out there into the public domain. The old straight laced view of libraries is still very much present despite today's relaxed libraries and that can be intimidating to many potential new customers. I think the casual nature of Flickr would show a very different side to libraries... like we don't all run around going "shhh" to the noisy kiddies... rather we're racing around laughing our heads off as we put the more unusual items in our collection to comedic use :)
I'm sure there are some days I look and feel as the guy in this photo does! hahaI think I would really like the people who took this photo (University of Redland Library). They have my humour :)
How fun was this!?! There were heaps of options for mashups that would keep you busy for days!
