Social networks

Facebook and its like could be used to wrap up and showcase just about everything that we have covered over the last 12 weeks.

Library serices, service points and specific library groups (like bookclubs etc) could use it to:

• blog about how wonderous we are
• show photos & videos of what we do, what we plan to do, and where and who we are
• create RSS feeds to share new, up-to-date info
• link Wikis etc to relevant areas (like homework/assignment help)
• show our LibraryThing bookshelves for reader advisory
• help others (both our own public and people far away) by using answer boards to solve challenging questions
• have podcasts and vodcasts linked in for even more ways to share information
• create mashups to make it all so very pretty

If of couse Facebook can't show/link to all of these types of things, well it should

Done and cheers

Google Docs and Zoho

Well, this is pretty great - no more attachments to go missing, fail being saved, crash and burn etc. Finaly there is a secure way to share documents with as many or as few as you need

In libraries there are applications for things like online progressive story writing for competitions and writing groups, staff meeting minutes and reports that people can add to as warranted, a fluid Suggestion For Purchase list that can be either restricted to staff &/or be made available to the public...

Actually I really like this last idea - the public could add suggestions and track to see if they were bought and when they have arrived so they can reserve them.....nice possibilities there for a more interactive, customer focussed collection

Sadly the slideshare thingie has been loading for a while now and it seems to be broken. I have had a look around the rest of the site and it's impressive. I guess it could be a type of online PowerPoint presentation?? (I'll check back in with the site later and see if I can load something up to see what it can actually do)

Mashups

Sadly the Star Viewer wasn't working for me today but on the surface it looks like an awesome site - astronomy talks go well in my library and being able to show an interactive site (if it works of course) is a great cross promotion that will appeal to people who like to explore

I thought that my Mashup above should refelect the first Flickr exercise I completed and so I have chosen a mosaic of Dubai's 7* hotels

As you can see it's fabulously colourful (to the point of being garish when the pictures are all together like this) but you have to admit it's pretty spectacular

In libraries Mashups can be used to advertise/show branches and services, to show points of interest for local studies (like London: a life in Google Maps) through a tour of the area, they can be a 'get to know the staff of....' exercise (if people are brave enough to have their names and faces out there) and they can be of great use in online newsletters, events advertising etc

Pod casts and audio

This is fun fun fun

It's great to be able to listen to Triple J's podcasts for interviews I missed

In libraries pods and vods and audio has a role in library and collection orientation, in membership and borrower's rights and responsibilities details and more

An idea that is slightly further outside the box (but not strictly original I am sure) is having pod casts of people reading books, magazines etc for people with vision impairment, with due consideration for copyright of course

Answer Boards

Slamming the Boards is FANTASTIC - more of us should do it

It's a great way to sharpen our skills, advertise libraries and Librarians to the wider community and convince upper upper upper management that we are viable and relevant to today's society

As one of the tags says - The Library is a resource, not a building. Librarians are where you are - online!

I think I'll see if I can gather a group from my library service together to start Slamming

Homework help is the most obvious use for this kind of thing in an internal way - kids could post their questions on OUR website and we would answer them on a rostered basis. This is a more direct technique than having them post on the international Internet sites and enables us to reply using specific examples from our own resources that the kids can then access easily simply by walking into their local branch library

LibraryThing

I LOVE LibraryThing

It's quick

It's easy

It's facinating

So much fun to see what people are reading, get recomendations, chat etc

In library land it's a great resource for BookClubs and reading groups, and as a way to get peer suggestions for storytimes and themed genre / author lists etc

Nice :D

Here's my LibraryThing link
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/kleem01

del.icio.us II

and the answer is no...

I must admit that this bit has broken me. I have saved my favourites to del.icio.us but can't seem to link my del.icio.us account to this blog (is it supposed to embed like Flickr does?)

it tells me that I don't have anything bookmarked and yet I can see them there...sigh

I am now moving on to save my sanity, although I will revisit del.icio.us if someone can give me some pointers

here is my del.icio.us address just to prove that I have an account

http://del.icio.us/kleem01