jonathan reads books

#23 - is this the end? Or just the beginning...

2007-11-30T02:41:00.001-08:00

Although it's been hard to find the time to get everything done, this really has been a wonderful journey.

There were a number of parts of the course which were not completely new to me but I was able to find new things to explore even within sites I already new. I keep a blog at Wordpress, so it was good to spend some time with Blogspot. Similarly, I use Google reader and Google docs so it was good to spend some time with Bloglines and Zoho. I will definitely stick with Google reader, but am going to keep going with Zoho for a while.

Of particular interest to me was Rollyo simply because I had never even heard of it before and it hadn't even occurred to me that the concept would be useful. But it is.

Another useful exercise was Technorati. I was aware of the site and what it did, but had never really played around with it. I have now registered my blog there and use it for searching blogs when I know it is blog-type information I am looking for. In the past I would have just used google.

The other wonderful thing about doing these exercises is that they have led me of on slight tangents to discover other interesting sites and applications that weren't covered in the course. It's daunting but also exciting how much useful stuff is out there.

All in all the course was fun and very worthwhile.

#22 - audiobooks

2007-11-28T19:21:00.000-08:00

This directory of free audio books is a nice little gem to know about. The selection is obviously limited by copyright and the fact that there is no money coming in to support production, but nevertheless a useful collection. Knowing that these books are available freely means we can direct library users there if we don't have the audio book on CD/tape (or even if we do). Some people may prefer to download an mp3 than to listed to CDs or cassettes.

Compared to the human voice files, there are a huge number of computer generated voice files. I tried one to see what the voice was like and I don't think I could bear it. It was very clearly computer generated. Of course, it's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

On the other hand I listened to human voice recording of a Brothers Grimm fairy tale. I've never really listened to audio books and it was quite fun to sit and have a book read to me.

Having audio books available online is a clear area that libraries could and should be looking into. There is technology around to look after the digital rights management side of things, like files that stop working at the end of the loan period. How nice would it be for a users to be able to get a new audio book from us even when in the middle of their holiday at Noosa?

#21 - podcasts

2007-11-28T18:56:00.000-08:00

Podcasts are an area of web 2.0 that I have been curious about for some time but have never really played with. This exercise was therefore a good opportunity. I had a play with the listed search tools & found a few library related podcast feeds.

However, at the time I was working on this I was directed to a podcast about the Amazon Kindle as part of a discussion in the comments of my other blog. I decided that I would use that as the experience for my first podcast. It was really good to listen to, but I'm not sure that I will get into podcasts in a big way simply because the format does not quite suit me. I follow enough blogs now that I simply can't read them all in depth and tend to skim through the feeds, stopping on things that grab my attention. It's much harder to skim through a podcast. I could listen to them on the train, but this is the time I do most of my book reading.

This leaves me in a slight quandry. I think that podcasts are wonderful and definitely hear to stay. Their usefulness for broadcasting library events is obvious, but they don't quite suit the way I operate. I might try subscribing to a couple just to see how I go for a while.

#20 - youtube

2007-11-28T18:28:00.000-08:00

Playing with Youtube was lots of fun. There is so much stuff on there it is amazing. Of course much of it is probably breaking copyright laws. Want to see a Duran Duran video clip to relive the eighties? Easy. Looking for a good laugh from a a clip from great show like Whose line is it anyway? No problem. Trying to remember the scene in Friends with Billy Crystal and Robyn Williams? It's there too. Youtube is also an easy way to upload videos for friends or relatives to see. There are also a large number of people using Youtube as a video blogging tool.

Aside from the sheer volume and variety of content, the great thing about Youtube is that is all works so well. It is easy to upload clips, to search for them, and to embed them in your own blog. As for library uses, perhaps it could be used to broadcast storytimes or author talks for people who can't make it to the event.

Or we could use it to broadcast run of the mill, everyday library activities like this one...

#19 - discovering web 2.0 tools

2007-11-21T21:35:00.000-08:00

For this activity I decided to explore Twitter. Twitter provides the opportunity to regularly answer the question "what are you doing right now". It is often referred to as a "microblogging" site. Posts are restricted to 140 characters, so they can be submitted via text messaging.

It is a very simple site to use. Once signed up you can choose to "follow" other people's posts and view a running list of your posts and those of the people you follow. I have also been using a Firefox plug-in called "Twitterfox" so posts can be made and followed in a small pop-up window accessed by clicking a small button at the bottom of the browser, rather than having a seperate tab or window open. It was also very simple to create a widget to display my most recent posts in the sidebar of this blog.

#18 - web based apps

2007-11-20T21:13:00.001-08:00

In the past I have played a little bit with google docs. The most valuable feature for me was the ability to access documents from any computer, for example, home and work. One particular example was a travel itinerary when we went overseas. It was mostly complete when we left, but I was able to add to it & modify sections while travelling.

This session of the learning 2.0 course is a good opportunity to have a look at Zoho in comparison to google. I signed up, which like most web 2.0 apps was straight forward enough. The layout is fairly clear, although the toolbar initially looks a bit cluttered. This, however, can be modified and less frequently used buttons removed. The screen keeps a list of your documents in the left hand side of the screen. This differs from google docs which lists your documents in one window, then opens a document in a new window or tab of the browser. This is obviously a very persoanl preference but form my purposes I think the Zoho layout may my preference.

I looked through the welcome document which outlined the key features, then launched into writing this post. My intention is to try the feature that allows me to publish the document directly to my blog.

Edit: The post went through to my blog with no real problem. Zoho gave the option of publishing it to my drafts folder, but I went the whole hog. It also offers the ability to add tags to the post which worked fine, keeping in mind that they are Technorati tags embedded in the post not regular blogsport tags.

I think I'll keep playing with Zoho for a while as I suspect I may prefer it to google docs.

Technorati Tags zoho,google,apps,docs,web-based

#17 - playing around with PBWiki

2007-11-20T16:56:00.000-08:00

This excercise simply involved adding my blog to the "play" wiki set up for this course. I tried adding in the url and title in square brackets as indicated but this didn't work. I could just put the url in by itself as others have done, but I ended up using the editing menu at the top of the page to insert a link with title.

A very easy and straightforward thing to do. Makes me want to come up with an excuse to start my own wiki. I just need a reason or topic for it. Maybe I'm better of just contrinuting tho others like Wikipedia and Library Success as a way of playing & learning.

#16 - wikis

2007-11-20T15:55:00.000-08:00

I think Wikis in general have been somewhat hidden behind the success of Wikipedia. Wikipedia itself is a fantastic site in my opinion. No, it's not Encyclopedia Brittanica and no, I won't cite it in an essay. However, it is so much faster and simpler to search than it is to get into the Brittanica through the library website and for many types of general information it's just as good, or better.

The SJCPL wiki was a great use of the technology. They use it for subjects guides and it is therefore set up to only be edited by library staff. The format allows them to includes listings of new books on the subject and magazine subscriptions (all linked into their catalogue), along links to websites and other useful pieces of information. A really good example of how wikis can be used as the new pathfinders.

I think the Library Success wiki is fantastic too. A true wiki allowing anyone to register and add or edit entries. This is an ideal application for a wiki. It gives everyone the opporunity to share their knowledge about libraries with all interested people. People can add links, book references, quotes, ideas, whatever they feel valuable. This site looks to be a valuable resource and I have now added it to my del.icio.us and also added the updates RSS feed to my reader.

#15 - on Library 2.0 & web 2.0

2007-11-18T17:20:00.000-08:00

Among the readings for this sessions, I particularly liked the article by Michael Stephens. His first point - that Librarian 2.0 plans for their users - is a crucial one. It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that "old fashioned" libraries were stuffy and too inward looking and that the new breed of 2.0 librarians are outward focused because we are on facebook, youtube, flickr and blogspot.

The danger is that we start using these technologies simply because they are there, or fashionable, or because someone else is using them. Michael Stephens points out that we need to start with our users. What do they need? How can they best be served? Then we look for the technologies that can meet that need. It's not just about using all the available technologies. It is about using the technoogies that best meet our users' needs.

At the same time, we need to be up to date with the latest technologies so that we know what is available when we see a need. That is where programs like this Learning 2.0 course come in handy. The other aspect of this awareness is that like it or not, people ask us for help on public internet terminals. It's all very well to have a policy that they are self help and we can't always provide assistance, but surely we can aim to provide better service that that?

Librarians who are more comfortable with the online world will be better able to help users find their way around. We don't need to be intimate with every website, every web 2.0 tool, every email app. The more we use these types of things, the more comfortable we will be with them generally. Having used various applications in the course, we should be in a position to provide at least some guidance to a user struggling through a similar application that we have never seen. This is what I feel anyway.

#14 - technorati

2007-11-08T15:27:00.000-08:00

Given the huge popularity in blogging, the development of a site dedicated to searching and tracking blogs makes sense. Technorati is one such site and probably the most popular. Many blogs are set up to automatically "ping" Technorati so it knows to index new content when blogs are updated. This ensures that it accurately reflects the constantly changing content of this medium.

There are several ways to search with Technorati. I tried a search for "learning 2.0", the default search is to search tags. The way these results are presented was discussed in an earlier post. The search can easily be modified to search entire posts. The search for items tagged "learning 2.0" returned 107 hits, while searching entire posts found 513. This is using the default option of searching blogs with "some authority" according to technorati's authority ranking. Modifying the search to include blogs with any authority ranking returned fugures of 1098 and 5047 respectively, including a number of posts that were clearly part of this program. Note also that I was searching for the phrase "learning 2.0" not individual keywords.

The results are obviously different as they reflect the fact the the content of a post may not warrant being tagged as "leanring 2.0" everytime the phrase is used. I also performed the same search using the blog directory search function on the advanced search page. This returned 352 blogs that are tagged that way.

#13 - del.icio.us

2007-10-30T21:59:00.000-07:00

I have been using del.icio.us for sometime as my main bookmarking tool. I like having my bookmarks available whether I am home, work, the library, wherever. Most of the time, that is all I use it for.

Having said that, the social side of it can be handy too. Searching for something with del.icio.us adds a layer of human selection when compared with a simple search engine. You know that someone found the page interesting, or useful. You can even see how many people liked it. You can skim straight past the sites that only a few people liked and focus on the sites that have been tagged my a large number of people. This is one of the key aspects of a web 2.0 application. Del.icio.us can also be a handy browsing tool by looking for sites with a certain tag

I have always liked the site. It is easy to navigate. There is just enough information, without overdoing it. The layout works well for me. Posting new links & selecting tags is easy. I particularly like some of the little things like using progressively darker shades of orange to mark pages that have been tagged by more people.

All up, a site I really like and will no doubt continue to use frequently. My tag cloud is now on the sidebar.

#12 - rollyo

2007-10-30T20:43:00.000-07:00

Much of this course covers sites that are not new to me, but Rollyo is something I had never heard of before. I found it fascinating and really useful. To a degree.

What I found useful was looking at other people's saved searches. Either to use their preconstructed search, or simply to find specific sites that have been used in the searches. It is a really good source of finding popular sites for specific subjects.

When it came to constructing my own search, however, I struggled to think of a type of search I tend to do regularly that would benefit from this. In the end I created 2 new searches. One for information about Australian finance & money markets, the other with a few of my regularly visited bike sites.

I found what I consider to be a slight limitation when creating the finance search. I wanted to add the URL www.theage.com.au/business/money to the search, but it still searches all of www.theage.com.au. Not the end of the world, but would be nice to limit the search to that part of the site. I then created the bikes search which I am reasonably happy with.

As is the case with so mayny sites, it was very easy to create some html so that my searches can both be searched from the sidebar of my blog.

#11 - librarything

2007-10-28T02:17:00.000-07:00

I'm a big fan of LibraryThing. It's really designed for people to catalogue the books they own, but working in a library I don't tend to buy many books. So I have been using it to track books I have read. For books that I actually own, I add a tag "own". This is one of the beauties of so many web 2.0 apps - there is not always a "right" or only way to use them. There is often enough flexibility that you can tailor the app to suit your own needs.

I don't tend to use the social side of LibraryThing very much but it's interesting to poke my head in the forums occasionally. The new "Common knowledge" feature is great. It allows users to add information about a particular book. Characters, important places, awards, etc.

The organisation of the site works really well. Click on a book in my library and I get a page of information about that book. Tags other people have used, links to reviews, common knowledge, and recommendations. It's also possible to see anti-recommendations, a cute and fun but perhaps otherwise pointless function.

One of the best things about LibraryThing is that the founder and other staff are constantly working on it and developing new ideas. It never stagnates. They seem happy to try out new features and see what people think of them and how they get used. This is a great thing for a web 2.0 application.

Oh, here's my library.

#10 - image generators

2007-10-28T01:46:00.000-07:00

Had a play with a few different image generators and have posted some of the products below. The first one is from the Dummies book cover maker.

Next is a photo of myself modified with the Warholizer.

Last, and possibly least is a likeness of yours truly produced with the South Park character creator application in Facebook.

#9 - finding feeds

2007-10-18T23:46:00.000-07:00

This excercise was all about finding new feeds using some of the various blog search tools out there. I tried Feedster, Topix, Google Blog search, and Technorati. As an experiment I went to each of the mentioned search sites and searched for "library 2.0" in the default search box. Below are comments on each set of results:

Feedster. The results are presently clearly with a minimum of clutter. Each result includes the title of the post (linked) a block of text containing the search term, the title of the blog (linked), word count, and how long ago it was published. This last piece of information is interesting as that is the way results are sorted. No fancy ranking algorithms here. If you're the last to post on the topic, you're at the top of the list.

Topix. Was also clear and relatively uncluttered. It contained all the same information as feedster with the exception of wordcount. Again, results are sorted by time posted. This says something for the temporal nature of blogs. They are not necessarily meant to be a lasting reference source, but an ongoing commentary. Topix also contained a bar graph with the date on the horizontal axis and relevant posts on the vertical so it is easy to see peaks, troughs and up or down trends in blogging about the topic.

Google blog search. Again, a clear simple set of results presented in the familiar looking Google format. The same information as Topix is presented, again omitting the word count present in feedster results. Again, results are sorted by time. Google has an interesting option in the sidebar that allows a date range to be selected. Google also lists at the top of the results a list of relevant blogs, rather than specific posts. This is limited. For example, my search for "Library 2.0" only returned one blog. Even a search for "library" returned only five blogs. This probably says something for the non existence of metadata on entire blogs (rather than posts) or perhaps on the tendency or percieved value of searching for entire blogs.

Technorati. This was by far the best (or only) of the four to allow effective searching for blogs. Tabs in the results screen allow you to easily look at results that are posts, blogs, videos or photos. The posts results present in a similar way to the three other sites. The blog results page lists the blog title (linked), a small blurb about the blog and Technorati's "authority rating" which at a glance appears to be based on other blogs linking to the blog in question.

All of the search engines returned results that looked appropriate. However, they all returned a number of different results. This perhaps highlights the value in using several of the sites rather than sticking to one. All of the layouts were good with none of the sites standing out drastically from the others. Technorati's blog search could be a handy feature, although I suspect the nature of blog searches is usually to find a blog by finding a particular post, then choosing to follow the blog regularly.

#8 - RSS

2007-10-15T02:19:00.000-07:00

I didn't have too much trouble with this excercise. I've been a regular user of RSS for sometime although I have preferred Google reader to Bloglines. The really cool thing I discovered was that I could export all my feeds from Google Reader into a file and import them into Bloglines. Too easy.

I then used the share feature to send my blogroll straight into the sidebar of my blog. Unfortunatley it looked fugly as I had far too many feeds there. I decided to trim the list down a bit.

Reading my feeds is a daily activity for me. I follow a number of book and library related blogs as well as technology & web info. I also track some eBay searches and forums with RSS. My list of feeds can seem overwhelming, but I don't always read everything. If I'm too busy I just click "mark all as read" for the feeds that are less important to me.

A simple use of RSS in libraries would be to keep users informed about upcoming events and other useful information.

A brilliant use of RSS by libraries would be to have feeds for new books added to the collection. For example, it would be great if I was able to do a search for "Tim Winton" and on the results page click an RSS button so that I am notified whenever a new Tim Winton book is added to the collection. Simple as that. How cool would it be?

#6 revisited - even more flickr fun

2007-10-15T01:42:00.000-07:00

It appears that my effort at excercise #6 "more flickr fun" did not demonstrate that I did what was required. So I've decided to have a play with another flickr mashup. I decided to make a magazine cover.

It was relatively easy to do although a fair bit of trial and error was required. You have to enter the text while looking at a template (that does not include your image) to get a rough idea of how it might look. You then create the new image to see if it worked out. If it needs adjustments, you go back & try again. It would have been much simpler with real time changes being visible on the final product.

Having said that, it is a wonderfully fun thing to play with and I could see myself wasting plenty of time on it :-)

#7 - technology

2007-10-10T21:44:00.000-07:00

I like technology.

A lot.

I like my computer. Well, I don't so much like my computer with it's noisy fan, too slow processor & too little RAM, but I like having a computer and regularly dream of a new Mac.

I love having broadband at home. I seriously could not go back to dial-up or heaven forbid, no internet at all. There's the web 2.0 stuff I do like my blog, facebook, librarything, following other blogs and participation in forums. But perhaps what I would miss most with no broadband at home is the way it has become my newspaper, TV guide, phone book, cook book, weather guide, train timetable, map service etc etc etc.

I also love my Palm Treo 680. I've had various Palm devices for the last 7 or 8 years. The others were all pure PDAs so I also carried a mobile phone. The Treo is a smart phone, it has all the PDA functions I use and is a phone. Yay. It is my phone, diary, to do list, alarm clock, document reader & editor, random thought note taker, solitaire game and low resolution camera for filming aj so her grandparents can see her on youtube. I even use it as a torch to find my clothes in the morning so I don't have to turn the light on. There is heaps more that can be done with a Treo, but this pretty much covers most of what I do with it. I would love to make use of its internet access but can't bring myself to pay the $$ involved.

#6 - more flickr fun

2007-10-08T18:29:00.000-07:00

I had a poke around to look at some of the different flickr mashups out there. To really have some fun with most of them I would have prefered to have a bunch of my own pics up there already. One that cought my attention and worked well with other people's pics was photo wall.

It basically scatters a bunch of thumbnail pics over the screen and gradually changes them over. You can select pics in a number of ways. I chose to search by tag and tried "cape breton" - homeland of my lovely wife. It turned out to be a nice way to see a bunch of pics of the countryside, although at times it did end up showing a large number of the same photo. They are small and you don't get a lot of detail but it's an interesting way to browse the pics. You can click on a pic to see it in more detail if you so desire.

#5 - flickr

2007-10-08T18:20:00.001-07:00

Childrens Library Seattle Central Library
Originally uploaded by brewbooks

For this exercise, we have two options: post a pic to flickr or find a pic & blog about it. I don't have a camera with me at work today so I'll take the second option.

I decided to the flickr's "blog this" function. It makes you write the blog post within flickr so I'm not exactly sure how it will organise the layout, although I seem to recall it asking if I wanted to set a layout template when I linked my blog to my flickr account. I guess we'll see what happens.

I chose a picture of the Children's section of the Seattle Central Library taken by flickr user brewbooks. I visited the library earlier this year and thought the kid's section was pretty cool. Lots of computers for them with signs saying they were for kids only.

jonathan 2.0

2007-10-08T17:48:00.000-07:00

Those of you who have come to this blog because you are doing the Learning 2.0 program already know what it is for.

Those of you who stumble upon it by some other chance of fate should know that it is being written as part of a course run through Victorian public libraries encouraging us to learn all about the wonderful world of Web 2.0

For now, I'll basically keep this blog purely for the purposes of the course. If you so desire, you can also read my regular blog, bookboy.