Online Applications and Tools

Well goodness it has been a while since my last post and I feel very guilty. For this week we were meant to take a look at some online productivity tools. I signed up for Zoho Writer what seems like an eternity ago. It is an online word processor which allows you to share your documents with your friends. At first I thought what is the point of this I have Microsoft Office why do I need Zoho. But after checking out their website and trying it out I can see how it would be very useful. It is a great way to share documents without having to constantly email and get confused about different versions of documents. I also thought this would be great for people who have an Apple Mac computer at home and use microsoft at work. This way you can simply save your document online and access it from the different computers. I found Zoho Writer to be very similar to Microsoft Office word it has very similar features and is easy to use. Zoho also has many other applications such as Zoho sheet which is a spreadsheet application and Zoho Show which is a presentation tool. It came 2nd in the Web 2.0 awards in the organization category with high scores for usability and usefulness.

Wiki Sandbox

After reading everyone else's blogs and the trouble they had trying to access the Learning 2.0 wiki sandbox I was a bit worried. When I saw that Eleanor Thomas was the last person to edit the 'favourite blogs' page I thought woo hoo I might be able to add mine under the lovely UniSA banner. However here is a picture of me struggling against the quicksand in the sandbox!

It is a pity that this wiki hasn't been kept up to date I noticed that other people have been posting comments asking for help and looking for the elusive 'edit' button.

Anyway I will write my wiki post about favourite things here instead. Hmm I find it hard to pick favourties... favourite colour, favourite song etc I think it depends on what mood I am in. Recently I voted for my top 10 favourite songs for the Triple J hottest 100 of all time. I found it extremely hard to pick just 10. I think my list included some Radiohead, The Cure, Pearl Jam, The Violent Femmes and even a Johnny Cash cover of a Nine Inch Nails song. When asked what my favourite song is and why? I wrote David Bowie's Space Oddity because "My Mother said to get things done you better not mess with Major Tom".

I better mention favourite book seeing this is a Library related blog. Again I find this very hard I do have my favourite authors who I tend to stick to although I am trying to branch out a bit. I love and re-read the Lord of the Rings Trilogy so I suppose that would be one of my favourites (or 3 to be exact) I also still love The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe which brings back fond memories of my year 2 teacher reading it to the class.

Closest Book Meme

Harry looked quickly over his shoulder and saw the archway shrink instantly back into solid wall.

Here are the instructions please join in:

* Grab the nearest book.
* Open the book to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post the text of the next seven sentences in your journal along with these instructions.
* Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

The nearest book on my desk was Harry Potter and Philospher's Stone by J.K. Rowling. I received the final book The Deathly Hallows for my birthday last year or was it the year before anyway I have put off reading it till I reread 'The Half-Blood Prince' so I could remember what happened. After going to see the new Harry Potter movie I thought I might just reread the rest of the series as well, so I pulled it off the bookcase. I think it is funny that reading just that one sentence can enable you to visualise that whole scene where Harry has his first glimpse of the 'magic world' as he steps into Diagon Alley.

Wiki Wiki Woo

Just a quick post I just started checking out some wikis online. The only wiki I have had any experience with is Wikipedia. I must admit I really like Wikipedia but I know I should probably question the reliability of the information on there a bit more. I guess that is a downside with wikis because anyone can edit or write things on there how do we know that the information is accurate. Anyway I just looked at one of the wikis mentioned on 23 things and I really like the 'Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki' it has some really great information on there. I just started having a look at the tips for new Librarians they have lots of helpful hints that people have added. They also have a great section about looking for a job with hints about applying for jobs and going to interviews. I think it is great that people can share information and ideas openly like this. Here it is if anyone is interested in going and having a look for themselves or possibly joining up and sharing their own ideas on the wiki:
http://libsuccess.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

I gave Technorati a try I think I prefer Del.icio.us but I might have another play around on there later. I looked at tagging my posts using Technorati tags but it looked a bit too complicated for me. Something else to try later. I enjoyed reading the perspectives on Web 2.0, Library 2.0 and the future of libraries. I thought Rick Anderson's Away from the "icebergs" was quite interesting and made some great points. His comments about reliance on user education and asking yourself what your library's "patron-to-librarian ratio is" really got me thinking. It really is impossible to train every library user so we need to make it easier for them to find the information they need. Personally I think UniSA Library's homepage and catalogue is great and quite user friendly especially when compared to some of the other Universities websites. Although there is always room for improvement and we have so much information and help to provide it sometimes creates its own barrier to patrons. I worry that some of the great help guides and information to help students can go missed because our patrons either do not know about them or do not know where to find them. But we cannot provide all the information on the homepage (obviously or the writing would have to be really little) there needs to be a balance.
I find the same problem when talking to students who need help that you have to find a balance that you do not give overload them with too much information.

Delicious

I think this sounds quite good I think I might set up my own Del.icio.us account and start saving and tagging websites. The only time I've tried 'tagging' is when you 'tag' someone in a photo on Facebook. I use my favourites tab quite a lot to save sites that I might want to go back to. I've created little folders for various things including one called 'work stuff' (creative I know)which includes links to 23 things, blogger etc. This would be handy as you could access it from any computer. How Delicious!

Rollyo o o

I just signed up on Rollyo and tried some of the searchrolls which other people have created. I tried the celebrity gossip one which was on the homepage. I typed 'Brad Pitt' and it searched all the gossip websites for me. It came up with 192000 results. I thought I would try and create my own searchroll so I made one called 'Books' what an exciting title. I added some Australian Online Bookstores like Angus & Robertson, Dymocks and then I added Amazon. It works pretty well I did a search on a title of a book and it came up with results from all the websites. I guess this could save time than going to each website seperately. It does seem to bring up some duplicates of the same websites. I'm not sure I will use it again I might have a play around on it again later. Even if I don't use it again it has been interesting learning about all these different websites like this one through 23 things that I never knew existed.

Week 5 LibraryThing

Well I have signed up on LibraryThing I think it might be good. I tend to stick to reading books by the same authors. I've been thinking lately that I need to start branching out a bit. I've just started reading Kathy Reichs novels which are quite good. I borrowed the first few from my local Library and then my Mum has lent me some more. I had not read any of her books before so its good to try a new author, although I also tend to stick to mystery/thriller type novels. I received a gift voucher for christmas and I bought my first autobiography but I haven't got around to reading it yet. I think LibraryThing might be a good way of looking at what other people are reading and see what they think.

Play Week Online Generator

I've enjoyed playing around with the image generators. I had a look around The Generator Blog and found a Simpson one called Simpsonize Me which sounded like fun. You download a picture of yourself (or someone else) and turn them into a character from the Simpsons. Above is the before photos... Here I am Simpsonized http://simpsonizeme.com/ecard.php?lang=en_us&code=avljrwedchqbhwnwqeekhhnvtqgzpsre#

Here is Tony

http://simpsonizeme.com/ecard.php?lang=en_us&code=dimkblebfacqhopuakxdjjxyrgxnngwd

Here is Karen

http://simpsonizeme.com/ecard.php?lang=en_us&code=aersznalwhzwzfgpvduzwxmlaikffolc

Sorry guys I hope you don't mind being Simpsonized but you look pretty cool especially Karen who looks pretty darn good as a Simpson's character! I still look like a nerd!

Hmmm who can I find pictures of next to Simpsonize...

RSS Feeds

After a long delay of starting this one I have finally conquered RSS feeds. This is one of the weeks that I was really keen to learn. I am always seeing the little RSS feed logo but I was never sure how to use it. For some reason everytime I started reading the directions for this week I would get distracted or something would happen and I'd have to stop. I swear I have read the 23 things page on RSS feeds at least 10 times. Well I have finally done it and subscribed to some blogs and different pages. When my husband complains why I am always on the computer I shall blame 23 things. In theory this should have meant that I would spend less time on the computer as I can just check pages I normally check seperately all at the same time. But alas I have now found some new blogs and pages to check out so I think it will take me more time. There is always a catch! I found some from the list when I joined it came up with a page of Today's Top 50 subscriptions. I signed up with quite a few from this list including Rotten Tomatoes which has movie reviews. Librarians must be getting into this or maybe there are quite a few of us doing 23 things because Librarians' Internet Index and The Shifted Librarian both made the Top 50. I found a few more Library related signed up for Librarians.net and Library stuff. Great I also subscribed to Unshelved which is a Library comic strip I'm actually on their email list but this might be easier. Maybe if they update the 23 things they might include twitter for this week as it seems to adopt a RSS feed approach. You 'follow' different people or groups and you are updated when they post something. Twitter seems to be the latest craze that everyone is talking about. I am just getting the hang of it. If you want to see my tweets or see which celebs I'm following here I amhttp://twitter.com/leanie78

P.S Just noticed you can RSS feed tweets, twits, twitters whatever they are called! I can't keep up with the Lingo I must be getting old.

P.P.S Hopefully nobody noticed that I accidently posted this on the wrong blog. Well I guess you'll know now anyway. It must be because I'm getting old that I'm having trouble with my eyesight and didn't notice that I posted to the 23 things blog.

Technology

Yesterday I realised just how much we rely on the internet. Unfortunately we started our Saturday by discovering that we had no internet connection at Mawson Lakes (or any of the other campuses). We could browse our University pages but could not access anything outside. I sat wondering what I could do as I could not answer any of the queries from patrons sent through QuestionPoint because we could not access the website. It also put a stop to the research I was going to do for a patron using the databases as we could not access them. I went to demonstrate to a student how to access an ebook woops that's right no internet. At first students were coming up to the desk to enquire about the internet problem and you could just see the look of fear in their eyes (we let people know as they walked in after that). That is a bit unfair all the students were really good and took the bad news very well. We did have further problems as the calls started coming in to let us know that from outside the Uni you could not access any Uni websites. These students were a little bit more frantic. Thank goodness for the IT guys who came to the rescue and by about 3pm we had our internet back hooray. This problem has started me thinking about how much students (and the rest of us) rely on the internet to find information. I found some great articles on this subject (yes I found them online) one called '"Of Course it’s True; I Saw it on the Internet!” Critical thinking in the internet era' by Leah Graham and P. Takis Metaxas it was quite interesting and discusses how many students use the internet as their primary method of researching. Anyway I have now realised how much I take my internet access for granted; I will be giving my modem a kiss goodnight from now on to keep in its goodbooks.

Fun exploring Flickr

I enjoyed browsing around Flickr it looks like a great way of sharing pictures with family and friends. I had heard of it before but I didn't realise how much you could do using the site. I was very interested to learn of all the different editing features available. I think I will have to sign up and have a play with some of my own pictures. I thought I would try and search for home and I found an aerial picture of Ardrossan (on the Yorke Peninsula) which someone has tagged Tiddy Widdy Beach in. It looks so small from the air. Although we do only have about 5 streets in total so I guess we are a bit small. I think I have added the picture to my blog we'll see if it works.

I had a look at some of the mashup sites some are really cool! I liked the mosaic one Flickr Montager where you can select a picture and it will do a mosaic of the picture using lots of little pictures. Although I'm not sure what you could use it for I guess it's just a bit of fun.

P.S I couldn't get the aerial picture to work but if you would like to have a look here it is:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/leonefabre/3068296244/

Goodness I didn't realise how hard it would be to come up with a name for my Blog. I thought about calling it Vashta Nerada which is a monster ( invisible "piranhas of the air" who hide in the shadows) in an episode of Doctor Who which is set in a Library. The Library has a copy of every book ever written and takes up an entire planet. Imagine how many Librarians they would need there. I think they would need a few reshelvers too! Instead I thought I would go for something a bit easier to remember and still with a Doctor Who theme. In Doctor Who Bad Wolf signals the the return of those nasty Daleks and the end of the Universe. Perhaps this is the same way some people feel about web 2.0. Personally I think change can be good and if web 2.0 has the potential to show us more ways of making information and the library more accessible to patrons I'm all for it. Yes I am a bit of a nerd! Although I must admit I still prefer to read a book with paper pages than one on a screen.