I'm not a Technorati......but I've found my Thing

My initial simple search of Technorati using 'bookmobile' brought up a range of hits, which reminded me of Google hits from the 3rd page of search results..... you know, 205 hits, and bits of anything & everything.

When I used Advanced search, and restricted it to blogs about libraries, there were only three hits. One of these was about the Rangeview Library in the USA which is dropping the use of Dewey, and organizing its holdings using a "system adapted from that used in the book industry". Kevin Hannah would love that.

I also tried the Australian term 'mobile library' in the advanced search, and limited the search to blogs about libraries. This search produced some results from Australian blogs.

My Library Thing catalogue is under way. It's interesting just to see how many/ few other members also own the same books. I love what Kingston Library has done, in allowing members to use Library Thing to personalize the library catalogue. I see myself much more as a Library Thinger than a blogger. Yep, I think I've found my thing.

Del.icio.us.......ways to find web sites

My Del.icio.us bookmarks list is a work in progress. I intend to use this as a source of external storage, so that I won't have to worry about regularly saving my favourites to a USB.

There's no doubt that with all those regular assignment topics that school & uni students bring to the Reference Desk, we could create delicious accounts with a list of useful websites, and pass this on to the customer. They would have to be computer savvy enough to use del.icio.us, but some basic instructions would probably suffice for most people in this age group. It could also be useful for passing on websites to those in our computer lessons.

Delicious has so much to offer, I will have to spend some time playing with this one.

RSS ......... a time saver, eventually

It took me longer than I expected to choose which RSS feeds I would add to my account. I eventually settled on fairly traditional news blogs ( The Australian & Courier Mail) as well as the Education & Hi Tech blogs from the Courier Mail. I chose these because I read the articles by many of these journalists in print format whenever I have the chance.

I love the Aussie Library Blogs list, from which I selected the YPS Librarians Blog to follow. I will investigate this list further when I have time. At least now I'll be able to find them both again via my Bloglines account. When I've refined my RSS feeds list further, it should save me time in accessing information to keep up to date with developments, particularly in Australian Public Libraries. I must say that I like the look of Google Reader, and the Google Reader Blog and may end up using that to access RSS feeds.
Many libraries appear to have created RSS feeds for customers to subscribe to. I can see that it is something that our library should do.

Social networking sites are already being used to connect Sunshine Coast Libraries to 'Generation Text' (read the book of the same name by Dr. Michael Osit.)

• We use Facebook & twitter to publicise library events.
• flickr is used to allow access to photos from a range of our staff social events and library events involving the public. We introduce customers to flickr in one of the Tech Centre lessons we offer (the Digital Photos lesson). As a large proportion of our lesson participants are retirees, hopefully it won't only be our under 25's clients who access flickr from the home page of our website.

If our library is going to make use of the various social networking sites to access customers of all ages, we probably need to offer a Tech Centre lesson to get people started.

Wetpaint made me change my 'alias'

I joined 'Wetpaint' in order to contribute to the discussion in SLQ's "Emerging Media and New Technology Wiki". My library alias (Beril) had already been used by another Wetpainter, so I had to become berril. I can cope with that.

The problem is: when I log in to the SLQ wiki, I am able to go to the members page, and from my membership there (#14), I can find the discussion I contributed to. But........if I don't go via the membership page and just look at the threads for the 'Sessions for 2009', without using the link from my membership, I can't see my posting. I know others can see my posting, because someone has commented on it. Aaaaaaaah!!!

I will have to consult the wise (and not at all ancient) Information Professional* at our library (*the new term now given to our Reference Librarians).

Wondering about Wikis

There are certainly uses for Wikis at Sunshine Coast Libraries. Our monthly glossy publication 'Great Reads' consumes a lot of resources & staff effort. Instead of readers emailing us their reviews for editing & printing, a Wiki similar to Princeton Public Library's Book Lovers Wiki might appeal to many.
As an adjunct to the computer lessons we currently offer at Sunshine Coast Libraries, we could have a Wiki which allows customers to extend their knowledge (& help each other), similar to SLQ's Emerging media and new technology sessions.
Meredith Farkas' Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki has a vast amount of information about technology in libraries, and could save us a lot of research time, when considering the implementation of new services. Section 3.8, 'Reference Services and Information Literacy', has some great clues about online tutorials. There is sooooo much information available on this wiki......... it's well worth a look. (I'm wondering why the font in this last paragraph here is 'red', and why I don't seem to be able to fix it. Obviously still a lot to learn.)

Just as well I'm not a perfectionist

My last blog entry doesn't look like it should. When I previewed it, all the paragraphs were in the right place. When I posted it, it turned to mush. I had a go at editing it, but that made no difference. I'll work on it.
It's all readable, but with a strong whiff of amateur blogger, or 'newb', as my son would say. As you can see, I haven't added any labels to my blog, as I'd rather keep it as my own personal learning exercise at this stage. The fewer viewers the better.

The flickr photo here is of the Monastery Our Lady of Novy Dvur where a member of my Czech family is a Cistercian monk. The monks there lead a life of silence, using their voices only for prayer and song. They are however able to communicate via email!