Virtual networking

There are two main ways that public libraries can benefit from social networking applications such as Facebook and My Space; by promoting library programs and services and by bringing together in the virtual world. I have a Facebook account and I've made friends with a librarian in the United States simply by being fans of the same applications.
Both these applications are simple and effective way of reaching young adults particularly, it should be standard procedure for all libraries to use these applications.

Online applications

A couple of months ago I used Google docs to communicate with other library zone members on videoconferncing. It was very easy to use and and a useful way for a group of people to communicate who are not on the same network. As with all the 2.0 applications I've only scratched the surface with GoogleDocs. I commend the PLS for setting up this course, even though it seems to have taken me forever to finish the course.

Mashups and sell!

I'm amazed at the different things you can do with mashups and the ease of using the applications. These have great potential for professional advertising without the cost. I made the poster to see how easy it would be, but I'd like to make a calendar too, it could be a useful planning tool as well as a promotional tool.

Pod Casting and more

Podcasting

Podcasting has immediate uses for staff training where a procedure is more easily described with a video rather than written text. Podcasting would be a great way to record guest speakers and similar library events for people who cannot attend the function, or when the library has reached capacity for that function. I'm sure the more we use podcasting the more professional our videoing techniques would become. It would also allow the library to store recordings of it's events for local history purposes.

Library Thing

So I've finally done the "library thing" thing. It has lots of potential for promoting library resources. For example, you could tie library thing in with themes you promoting in the library, such as depression, diabetes etc. The random display of titles would catch peoples attention and it doesn't matter which branch people used the same books are being promoted, which is what we want to do.

Wookies and Wikis

I've never paid much attention to wikis, I didn't like the idea of an article that had no authority, I've only ever used Wikipedia as a last resort.

If it wasn't for this training I certainly wouldn't have investigated their potential. I'm now quite excited about the idea of a locked down wiki for our staff intranet, imagine being able to up date your intranet as soon as you had the information!
I'm going to play around with one and see if it would be a better alternative than a blog for our reference, homework help site.
I can't help myself, every time I think of wikis, I think of Chewbacca the Star Wars wookie.

I joined Wikipedia and I contributed to an article about my local area. The article had listed the surrounding villages, but I noticed that they'd missed one, so I added it using the same double square bracket "[[" before the entry and "]]" after the entry. When I saved the changes I noticed that the village had become a hyper link, so naturally I clicked on it. It was an interesting article on the village, but it had a basic mistake, it was listed as being 25 kms north east of the main town. This was a little difficult as the main town is on the east coast, so naturally I changed it read 25kms north west of the town.

I still have my concerns about the authority of wikipedia but I'm impressed with how easily wikis work, they certainly have huge potential for library services.

Monty Python Lumberjack Sketch

I've really enjoyed the common craft videos used in the learning 2.0 program, I had a lot of trouble embedding the video link so I put a plea out for help and gratefully pls answered it. It seemed that where I was going wrong was adding the text before adding the link. Thanks for the help.