# 23 Is this really the end? Or just the beginning ...

Before I started the Learning 2.0 program I had no idea of the number of amazing programs available on the web, or that a lot of them are free. My favourite discoveries were things like the image generators/tools which enabled you to be creative and do things with photos etc. I could see great potential there for people with hobbies such as scrapbooking. I also liked exploring wikis and the web based office tools such for word processing. I think that things like Google docs could be used to improve our rostering system and provide a central place to update our staff roster and enable staff to view it easily.
Staff that have completed the course are using what they have learned. Yesterday when a customer came into one of our branches that doesn't have wordprocessing PCs and there was an internet PC free they suggested that the customer use Zoho writer. This meant a happy and satisfied customer. I think staff are also a bit more confident about playing with new technology after doing the course.
While doing the program I could see certain tools that would be useful for particular departments so my aim now is to see if I can talk to some of the teams and show them these tools in the hope of making their jobs easier and improving our service to customers.
The biggest thing I have learnt is the need to explore the web and have a look at what is out there. Often in our jobs we get swamped by our day to day tasks and don't take the time to try new things. This means that we can miss out on valuable opportunities to improve our work technology or the chance to offer new services to our customers. My plan from now on is to try and set aside a little time every day to try new things.

# 22 Audio books

I hadn't realized there are so many audio books available on the internet. The price for a year's subscription to WorldeBookFair isn't that costly either so it would be worthwhile for people who use audio books a lot.
There were quite a few free ebooks available in the Gutenberg audio ebook collection. I downloaded the Little Match Girl and found it enjoyable listening. I randomly chose something else to download and picked the "mowersong" but didn't like it particularly much as the person reading the poem was doing so in a very monotone and annoying voice.
The free ebooks could be quite useful in libraries as I imagine you could download them onto a PC and then let customers listen to them at leisure.

# 21 Podcats, Smodcasts!

I initially started looking at Podcast.net. Before I could view any podcasts I had to download Quicktunes. Then it was fairly straight forward to use. I liked the categories search feature and I had look at the ability to browse by tags in the podcast.
PodcastAlley.com did not have as good a layout as Podcast.net - the searching options were a little less obvious.
YahooPodcasts seemed to be quite good for things such as listening to new songs by artists (just a short snippet but probably enough to decide if you liked the song or not).
I selected to add a podcast to Bloglines from PodcastAlley and it was very easy to do, just like RSS feeds were.
I think that podcasts could be quite useful in a library situation for instructional information/how to do things.

#20 You too can YouTube

There are so many videos on YouTube and as with most things there are good and bad ones amongst them. I initially tried searching for videos on "information technology" to try and get something funny about the IT industry but after looking at some bad taste videos, some boring ones and numerous descriptions of IT courses I decided to change topics. I checked out The Categories link and found it quite useful and selected the "Travel and events" category. I initially narrowed my search to Broome and then Cable Beach as I have recently holidayed there but didn't really like the ones I saw. Then I decided to browse the list of featured travel videos that had been put together by the editors (figuring they were bound to be good quality). It's quite amazing what is actually on YouTube - by accident I found a video clip of the Bandaid song "Do they know it's Christmas" from the 1980s. YouTube looks like a good resource for old music and music clips.
The video of "Winter lights on Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland" caught my eye because I have always wanted to visit Disney land. Snow on the castle is also quite magical and very appropriate when you think of the fact that we are approaching Christmas.

# 19 Discovering Web 2.0 tools

There were such a lot of categories and so many amazing things to look at that I ended up exploring a few different sites. Ones that I thought could be useful for libraries are http://www.campfirenow.com , http://clipmarks.com and http://www.biblio.com.

Campfire - The ability to create your own chatroom and set up member lists and discuss issues and post documents is great. This site is good for communication on projects when people can't get to the same physical place. I could see library services in the country that have their branches quite a distance apart benefitting greatly from a site like this. The ability to invite guests temporarily is also useful if you need to consult people outside the organisation.
Biblio - I could see this site being really useful if we needed to obtain out of print or hard to get items. The ability to browse by category/topic as well as standard ISBN etc is good.
Clipmarks - The ability to save only part of a web page is really great. I could see this site being useful for when you only want to print a particular section of a page. It would also be helpful for grouping together design ideas for things such as web pages or a new website.

# 18 Online productivity

Zoho writer is quite easy to use and has similar icons to what people are used to in Microsoft office products. The ability to share documents is great because it means that you could have one master document that several people at different locations could alter. I can see this being useful for staff rosters etc. The export facility is also great because it means you could quickly change a document to HTML for a website etc.
My only concern with the product is security. I had logged into Zoho writer earlier in the morning and started a document but got called away from my desk. When I went back to use it the screen had frozen/timed out. I tried to log out properly and somehow ended up in the account of another person - not quite sure how that happened but the fact that it happened so easily was a bit disturbing.
I like the look of Google docs - realized how useful it could be when I attended a talk about how to set up a Learning 2.0 program and was told that it was used for staff progress tracking. When I have more time I will test it out and see if our rostering group is interested in using it to publish roster details.

# 17 Playing around with PBwiki

It was quite simple to add my blog to PBwiki, although I didn't do it with the brackets as described. I'm not sure if there are different templates for PBwiki but having the edit and save button at the bottom of a long page was not ideal because it involved a lot of scrolling.

# 16 Wikis

I had no idea how many different sort of Wikis there are out there, some free and some with a small cost. The names of these Wikis are interesting, especially PBWiki which I discovered is short for PeanutButterWiki - guess that makes it a StickyWicki. I found a good tool for the comparison of Wikis and their features at http://www.wikimatrix.org/. Looking at this comparison tool and comparing a couple of Wikis I came across the word 'CamelCase'. I now know that CamelCase "is the practice of writing compound words or phrases where the words are joined without spaces, and each word is capitalized within the compound eg.LookWhatIFound".

Things that libraries could use Wikis for:

• manuals/procedures on how to do things in the library
• intranet
• library web site
• group discussion/forums across branches
• project development and implementation of a new service - central place to provide staff with access to the latest information
• allowing customers to provide feedback on library services or suggest what they would like to see in the library
• local history resources

# 15 How we could use Library 2.0 in our library service

1. Library notices - currently we email notices to customers but mobile phones are far more popular and portable so we need to also introduce SMS notices
2. Instant messaging - take advantage of this and perhaps use this for answering reference queries. I know this is quite popular amongst the younger generation in universities
3. Web prescence - promote the library and its services out where the next generation spends a lot of their time - create a MySpace account for the library, get involved in Second Life etc
4. Activities - encourage people to also see the library as a recreational and fun place - have gaming nights for Xbox, Nintendo etc.

# 15 On Library 2.0 and Web 2.0

Reflecting on the meaning of Library 2.0 I tend to think of it as a new model of library service that takes advantage of the technologies of Web 2.0 to create a service that is more relevant to our customers and which encourages greater customer participation/involvement in the library.

Looking at the OCLC website I agree with Rick Anderson that libraries have not always been good at embracing change/technology and that as we no longer have a monopoly on the information marketplace we need to make sure that we take advantage of new technologies and make ourselves relevant to our customers.

On a similar wavelength is George Bishop who talks about how their small rural school library service needs faculty and students to beocme dependent on the library's resources. He says that "In doing this the library increases visibility and relevance. Every satisfied “customer” potentially becomes an advocate for the library." This idea is also central to what public libraries should be aiming for.

Although libraries need to embrace new technology Michael Stephens emphasises that it is also important not to introduce technology just for the sake of it - it needs to improve library services and be something that users want/need. He also points out another problem in existing library services - that traditionally there are long project plans/timelines. As technology changes quickly there needs to good and quick decisions made.

Chocolate - the way to everyone's heart

# 14 Getting not-so-technical with Technorati

The advanced searching feature on Technorati is great. You can chose to do broad keyword searches or do a narrower search by searching the tags. I particularly like the ability to search by URL. This URL search enables you to see what other blogs link to the one you're interested in - which increases networking capabilities and makes it easier to find what else is out there on similar topics. The WTF menu item had me guessing for minute as I had no idea what the letters stood for so I had to explore. I now know that WTF means "Where's the fire?" and covers what is new and hot - some more jargon to put in my head.

# 13 Tagging, folksomonies & social bookmarking in Del.icio.us

I think Del.icio.us is an extremely useful tool for any organisation. We have a lot of staff that move from branch to branch for their work. It is ideal for them because it means they don't have to worry about remembering their favourites, they can simply use any PC and go to the Del.icio.us site to get them. An excellent replacement for IE favourites because once you get a long list of favourites in IE it is hard to find what you want even if you are using folders. I will be using this tool from now on - it's wonderful.

# 12 Rollyo

Rollyo is a very useful tool, particularly for those people who do a lot of searching/research on the internet. I could see our Information Team loving it. It was fairly easy to use, and I am now getting quite quick at adding widgets to my blog.

Select...Library technologySearch The Web

# 11 All about Library Thing

Library Thing was really easy to use and the Amazon.com search engine had good keyword searching. The hardest thing was trying to recall what books I have at home and making sure that I had the correct editions.

# 10 Image generators - final

You could spend hours on image generators - so many great tools out there and lots of them are free. After doing a search in Google for text generators I found a good site called textspace.net. It was great to be able to use an image generator in conjunction with the page element feature in Bloglines and make my own flashing title.

# 10 Play with image generators

Image generators are so much fun. I particularly liked this tool which allowed me to put motivational wording on my own overseas photos http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/motivator.php

# 10 More image generators

I like this blackboard tool - easy to use and no joining up required. Visit the site at http://www.glassgiant.com/back_to_school/

# 10 Play with image generators continued

Next I visited the Doppleme site at http://www.doppelme.com/. I created an avatar that is supposed to look like me, but I had a bit of trouble making it look like me as there weren't many curly hairstyles available.

# 10 Play around with image generators

The Generator blog has lots of wonderful links to image generators. I decided to have a play with the M&M character generator. Although it was easy to create a character and put it on a nice background the M&M site didn't allow you to save the image to use anywhere - you could only use it as an e-card to send to someone. Check out my M&M character

# 9 Finding feeds

The tools for finding feeds make life so much easier. Setting up my initial RSS feeds I used the search tool in Bloglines, and also a general Google search which was a bit hit and miss.
The image for RSS feeds that is used on pages to indicate that you can subscribe to feeds is great as it enables you to instantly recognised feeds. I had not realised that Google had a specific blog search tool, and I was amazed to find blogs on obscure topics like "Spirelli" which is a craft I discovered just recently. Technorati was also quite easy to use. Topix looked good for news and media information if you want to keep up to date in those areas, but from my quick look it would appear that it is fairly heavily American orientated.

# 8 Make life simple with RSS feeds

RSS feeds took a bit of work/understanding, but it could be quite useful/time saving if you visit certain sites on a regular basis. It was quick to subscribe to feeds once I had decided what sort of topics I was interested in. Adding a shared bloglines link to my blog proved to be the biggest challenge (I hadn't allowed sharing on my account and when I worked out that was why the link wasn't working I then had trouble finding the tab which allows sharing). After much trial and error I managed to create my RSS feeds link on the blog template. You can find the link on the left hand side. Now I can move on to more fun things.

Bells and whistles

After visting a few of the recommended library blogs it is clear that products such as Blogger have far more functionality than products such as Wordpress. Although I am now quite familiar with Wordpress I have decided to switch to using Blogger as it seems to much easier and simpler to use and enables you to create far more impressive blogs with widgets etc. Earlier on we had networking problems that meant we weren't able to access Blogger but these problems now seem to be fixed.

# 7 Blog about technology

There are a lot of great web tools out there (including quite a few free ones). It is just a matter of having the time to explore the web to find them and then testing them out to see if they suit your purpose. Talking to other people about what they have used for their blogs it is obvious that some tools have more bells and whistles than others, and some are also more user friendly/easier to use.

The challenging thing about technology is that it is forever changing and what you learn and become comfortable with today will probably be gone/outdated by tomorrow. The key is to keep playing/exploring and to not be afraid of trying new things. As a library service we need to introduce new technology and make sure that we are staying relevant to our customers.

Learning 2.0 is a good way to get a taste of what is available on the web. Looking at things like Flickr mashups, blogs etc I can more easily see what uses the tools can be put to and appreciate why people are using them.

# 6 Flickr and more

My creation
Originally uploaded by gmpk12

I had fun using a Flickr mashup http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/captioner.php that enabled me to add captions to my photos. This would be wonderful for people who are scrapbooking, or for people who want to turn their blogs into printed photo albums.

Other interesting sites included one that enabled you to create your own avatar but unfortunately it appeared to be blocked by our network.

# 5 Flickr

Minack Theatre
Originally uploaded by Jean.

I have just visited Flickr, a website that allows you to share photos.

So many wonderful, inspiring photos on the site. A great place for sharing photos with family and friends when distance is an issue.

Downloading a photo from Flickr to my blog - simple to do once you clicked on the photo and got the blog button. There are photos on pretty much any topic you can think of. I decided to upload a photo of the Minack Theatre - a beautiful tourist attraction at Cornwall that I visted a couple of years ago.

Uploading a photo to Flickr was even easier.

# 4 Register your blog

Setting up a blog was not at all hard - the most difficult thing was deciding which theme template to choose (so many good ones to select from).
Thinking about the possible uses of blogs - raising new ideas/suggestions across branches and getting staff feedback/comments; tracking problems when new things are implemented

# 3 Grab yourself a blog in 3 steps

After a quick overview of blogs it was time to create a blog. Unfortunately the Blogger.com website was not working on our network so I had to choose another site to create my blog. I decided to create my blog using Wordpress.

# 2 Lifelong learning

This week was a nice simple overview of the program. After going through the 7 1/2 habits of learning I would have to say that the easiest habit is to “Accept responsibility for your own learning”. The hardest one is “Have confidence in yourself as a competent, effective learner”.
Looking at the definitions of Learning 2.0, Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 was useful. I was particularly captivated by a quote by Sarah Houghton “Library 2.0 simply means making your library’s space (virtual and physical) more interactive , collaborative, and driven by community needs. Examples of where to start include blogs, gaming nights for teens, and collaborative photo sites. The basic drive is to get people back into the library by making the library relevant to what they want and need in their daily lives…to make the library a destination and not an afterthought.”

#1 Discovery has never been so much fun

Our first task was to listen to a podcast about the program. This was my first ever podcast - simple to do, and a good way to ease people into new technology.