Week 10: Podcasting and YouTube

This week I'm doing it all backwards. Why not?

YouTube:



Yes, you are right to be viewing absolutely nothing but a bit of html. This is because my blog steadfastly refuses to allow any html links to be added due to scripting errors. I don't know why but I know that you can usually get around technology in some way so I'm going to include some old-fashioned hyperlinks to the YouTube clips I have been attempting to silently watch (that's right these new computers don't appear to have sound and I don't want to ring up IT yet again about a problem they don't yet know how to fix). I would just like to add that I've loved YouTube the whole 2 times I have been able to gain access to a computer with both sound and internet capabilities that allow you to watch something other than a succession of static images. I once spent 5 hours watching 80's music clips and completely exceeding my poor mother's paltry download limit. Anyway, here are a few links - I'd been interested to know if the 80's library workout clip sounds as amusing as it looks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_k8BKX2eQ0Q. Some 80's clips:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKzx8LRqFT0 (all the much better as it's transferred from a video and looks like my old ones - yes I still have a substantial collection in a shed in Reservoir)
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGeuX-W0XrY (as per above)
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cajy5WSDd0 (why not)
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQ5YRYUZC94 (YouTube is great for more obscure stuff that Rage never shows)
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JXk_oV4nbo (ok - it's from 1990 and I'm now getting carried away)

Unfortunately, I can't find the original video for Stevie Nicks' Edge of seventeen - it's worth watching if you can find it amongst all the live clips.

So, what have I learnt?

Hmmm......

I think I'll move on to the first part of the exercise and see. I'm incredibly frustrated about these scripting errors that I keep having - no one else is having them and I've had a few people help me and they don't understand. Obviously I should take this personally and try to finish this exercise next week untainted by my recent disappointments.

Podcasts

Ok - it's next week and I really want to finish this thing. Unfortunately my computer has no sound so I am having trouble getting into the spirit of things. I've hastily subscribed to a few podcasts that I haven't had a chance to listen to. This doesn't seem quite right but at least I've managed to do the fiddly stuff so that if someone ever asks me how to do it (in the next 6 months or so - until everything on the Internet and computers changes to the extent that I need to learn some new process).

However this had made me reflect on the whole Learning 2.0 thing. If anyone is ever to read this - please don't read on unless you have some patience for my non-groundbreaking observations. Ok - the Internet and especially the 2.0 direction of it, is great. It offers almost endless possibilities for education and entertainment and interacting with other people (albeit the latter is a subject for a much more comprehensive discussion). However, is it still a choice for people (like cable tv/foxtel etc) - you either have it or you don't and if you don't then the world of antique roadshow marathons is not one you can participate in - or if you don't have a certain level of access to the Internet then are you not only missing out on web only content and activities but on an entire sphere of communication. Kind of like not having access to any television. I'd like to pretend that there is much about the Internet that doesn't interest me (at the expense of doing just about anything else away from a computer screen) but the reality is I have needed to take this position partially because I don't have access to the Internet away from work. Now that I'm only working a few days a week I can see how I'm missing out on information that is only given to me via email (ok - I know that's not the Internet but stay with me here), and the end result is that I feel quite disenfranchised. This just reiterates how important it is for public libraries to have working computers for public access because it's people like me who need them - and it also emphasises the need to have some sort of training/education for the people who want to use them.

And with that, I climb off my soapbox..

Week 9: Books & Reading

At some stage previously I must've learnt about embedding things. Sad to say I've obviously forgot and had to get technical support (thanks Theary) in order to embed my widget (which is possibly a bit useless as I've not added any books to my LibraryThing account. Why am I going on about this at the expense of discussing the value of virtual library tools? Probably because I don't have anything new to add to the discussion and also because until I'm in a position to catalogue my collection of books (half of which are in a shed in Reservoir), I'm just going to have to remain a frustrated cataloguer.

Here goes my widget:


Several hours later...

I've just spent a few hours (involving IT, Theary and Fiona) trying to get the widget to work but alas there is a scripting problem and the world will have to wait until they can see the 10 books that I hastily added to my LibraryThing Library. Oh well!

Week 8: Productivity

In the spirit of this week's exercise, today I have been so productive that I not only made it to the Council Staff Xmas Gathering at Frog's Hollow, shelved, did tea relief, emptied the dishwasher, did a spot of weeding and answered a very tricky reference question regarding a vaguely recollected line of a poem (thanks to Google, my Dad and a somewhat unorthodox use of search terms) but I also made it through 3 whole exercises (- just don't test me on them next week).

I have just spent 10 minutes 'pimping' (and then 'depimping') my Google page. I think I will just end up removing the 8 widgets (am I using this term correctly? - or are they applications or something else?). It all seems a bit distracting (a bit like Pimped Japanese Trucks - http://damncoolpics.blogspot.com/2006/12/pimped-japanese-trucks.html) but so very easy to use. I have also taken my own advice (which was no doubt someone else's advice) and done the exercise in FireFox.

And what have I learned? That the next time I need to convert a document I can try Zamzar (I usually try one of a number of free online tools depending on the day of the week) and that I could recommend it to people trying to view attachments sent to them via email that are docx (until we upgrade). That everytime I open up FireFox I can read all the Learning 2.0 blogs (as I've subscribed to them all and now Google Reader has added them to my browser page). That after doing 8 exercises I'm still unsure what to call things, and finally, that it is now time for me to go home and rest my noggin in order to get through the next 2 weeks activities.

Week 7: Tagging, Technorati and del.icio.us

I have to admit I kind of raced through this one (maybe spent 45 minutes). As someone who did their degree in the last 10 years, I am quite familiar with the concept of tagging and metadata etc. I can understand it's uses and actually think the library catalogue receiving feeds from LibraryThing is quite a good development (from a Readers Advisory perspective). Yes, AquaBrowser (and other products/resources) might be more spectacular, but I find the ability to let library patrons do their own 'if you liked this, try this' quite helpful (and they usually think it's pretty good too) - most especially because it's only linking off to other items in the library catalogue (I think our collection is big enough to do this - smaller libraries and library services might not be well-served by this).

I could go on with del.icio.us but I've never found it personally helpful and really struggled with my browser over this (n.b. I will try the next weeks activities with FireFox - like I think I should've already been doing). I'm also not one for tagging (but I'll try to tag this) - possibly pretty shameful for a librarian/information manager but I'm being honest. I also struggled with Technorati but only because it seemed pretty unspectacular to me (and when I have a reaction like that I always wonder if it's because I failed to grasp/see the concept). This is why it would've been good to participate in Learning 2.0 as a group, rather than as a lone librarian on a friday afternoon (when I think I should be out weeding the 920's), but it just didn't work out that way. Maybe for Learning 4.12...

Week 6: Fun Stuff

Wow - I finally have some time to finish week 6 (I think this is my 3rd week of week 6 - but it's a lot more fun than my 3rd year of 3rd year of Uni but that's another story).

I know I had all these intelligent things to say after spending a wonderful 15 minutes stumbling upon random web pages (and they were random - I think that I ticked that I was interested in just about everything). One of the pages was an incredible find (for me) as it allows you to upload an image and divide it into smaller ones for printing - something of great use for the library and our current printing resources (http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1yWuJy/www.blockposters.com/). I was quite happy to find something on the Internet that kept me interested for longer than 5 minutes. I don't think that I'm easily bored - I think that I often limit myself to various sites on the Internet rather than taking the time to explore (perhaps this is a bit like going to the library and only looking at the DVD's and perhaps going home empty handed because you've already seen the ones you want to see).

I keep finding that Learning 2.0 is making me interact with websites that I knew about but didn't bother (for whatever reason - though I've probably gone into why in various previous ramblings/posts.) Again, I'm having trouble viewing some of the pages/resources due to IT shortcomings but I think the basic idea is to interact with what you can and possibly keep the others in mind for when some very distant relative leaves me a fortune and I finally buy a computer (by which time of course, the Internet will have moved on - Web 67.5 anyone?). I can't say that I can totally understand what Rollyo is doing - at the moment I'm wondering if it is to help you create directories and then search them (yes, I know that there is a description but I need to understand this in my own way) - I think I may have a look through other blogs and see whether anyone else has had anything to say about it.

Week 5: Photos & Images

Do you like this picture? - I have plenty more where this comes from including approximately 1555 photos of trees (of course I exaggerate).

I thought this was an apt picture as I have just recently spent 4 or 5 or 6 weeks away from Learning 2.0 (alas, I was not on the holiday pictured or indeed any holiday at all). Now I'm not quite sure that I'll get it all finished in time given that this Learning 2.0 thing appears to have gotten all competitive - thanks Jaynie :-).

Also sometimes I feel as old as this picture as I grapple with the everything of the Internet. I know that as an information professional I should feel happy that it's all out there for everyone but oh the dilemmas of having too much choice!! Whinge whinge.

Anyway, on to the topic du jour...

I have been on Flickr since April 2006 (smug - but that's what it tells me - but that's after it got bought up by Yahoo so I'm not really old school). I think it's incredible but I'm only a minor user of its features and an ad hoc poster -and most of my pictures are set to private as I use it to store pictures 'in the cloud' (technical term there) so I can access them whenever without needing to have one of my usb's or camera devices. Actually I have about 500 pictures I intend to post there but haven't gotten around to do it and in the interim (since my last upload) a million different things have happened on Flickr and now I feel as old as the house as I don't know about any of them. Please take a look at my pictures http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaeldo/ - many of them are from 2006 when I found 10 rolls of undeveloped film from about 1996 and had them developed so please feel free to relive a heavily censored version of my days as an Arts student in Carlton.

Ok - as for this week's exercise. My computer obviously took sympathy with my old state of mind and went back to 1999 speeds to help me relive my Internet youth and it took me half an hour to do anything (and none of the apps would load), but I am completely intrigued by the apps that allow you to find photos by colour (as it is one day my intention to catalogue a library full of books via colour - actually I achieved this as a 5 year old when I catalogued all my 2nd hand fairy tale collections via the spine colour - and then forgot all about being a Librarian for 25 years). I'm going to wait until the always immiment computer rollout and see if I could have a look at some of these apps then.

Week 4: RSS Feeds

I have to admit I have been wondering why I've never bothered to sign up for RSS feeds. Possibly I knew that if I could potentially have all the latest updates from my favourite (admittedly quite lowbrow) sites flash across the bottom of my page, that I would barely get any work done. Of course I might still not have got the idea of RSS feeds right (I know that bloglines is but one application and that I should take the time to have a look at some other free sites that provide this service in possibly different ways) but this is what I have understood them to be. I know that Google have already capitalised on the idea of having a personalised web account that when you open it, has quicklinks to all your favourite sites etc. (yes, I know they probably didn't pioneer this idea but I have not been keeping up with the latest in web innovation - it's been almost 6 years since I graduated - and I know that this is the point of Learning 2.0). Phew, I apologise for the long and unwieldy sentence.

I have been inspired by the intelligent musings on the drawnthreads blog to comment on what I think might be the potentially usefulness of this weeks highlighted web 2.0 application in relation to public libraries. I'd say that I'm not the first person to think that we could have constant feeds regarding new items but that this is possibly an inappropriate use unless you're in one of those poorer public libraries where you get a few books a month (in which case you might not like to broadcast this). It probably works far better for events that are coming up - you want your library service to appear busy and dynamic but you don't want actual and potential patrons confused (which is what happens when you have too much information). I am going on a bit aren't I? Might be time for some camomile tea.