#17 PBWiki

I have added my blog to the site, after some difficulty. It only lets one person at a time on, apparently, and I had to wait until someone else had finished.I have made a note of the various wiki tools, and will look at them all later. The others besides PBWiki are www.wetpaint.com and www.wikispaces.com.

#16 Wikis

In a flush of enthusiasm I enrolled as a contributor to Wikipedia, and that great resource was really all I knew about wikis until this week. I am now starting to see the many applications for wikis within our own library service. We have many enthusiastic library patrons who are widely-read and would love to pass on their knowledge. This is evident whenever we have book talks in the library. If these enthusiasts could add book-reviews to a library wiki, it would really add to the whole library experience and give patrons a greater sense of partnership and pride in the service. Subject-guides are also a great idea, with obsolete links removable by users.

Del.icio.us

#13 Tagging #14 Technorati

I have made a start on learning Technorati and really like using Del.icio.us - a wonderful way to share information. The Youtube presentation on Del.icio.us is a good way to start. Pauline

#10 Image Generator

Image generator is great fun. I have had a go with doing anagrams. There is even a French one, and the results are sometimes very funny. Also the Sudoku one and a nickname or "handles" one. Pauline

Week 5 - Rollyo again

Having great fun with Rollyo, and have managed to customise it quite well. When I checked my Sustainable Buildings heading and searched under Brunswick, all the relevant entries were shown. Note that advertising sites appear as well, though. They are identified at a glance by green lettering in the entry. Pauline

# 12 Rollyo - week 5

Great fun with Rollyo - especially when my Sustainable Buildings entry came up as a "recently added" item, available to everyone. Have added Rollyo to my blog, but have done something wrong, as it will only do a subject-search on my own blog! I'll try again. Pauline

# 11 LibraryThing (Week 5)

I have worked out how to use LibraryThing and have added it to my blog. Coming on! Pauline

igoogle and google alerts

I have just customised igoogle to give personalised features such as local weather reports and a selection of other information and services. Last week I registered to receive Google alerts on specific topics. The first batch of alerts arrived in my email today. You can get daily alerts, or alerts as they happen, or weekly, which is what I selected. Just go to www.google.com/alerts to register. Pauline

Stephen Abram lecture

It was quite an experience to hear Stephen Abram yesterday. I took some notes but he talked so fast that I had trouble keeping up. Here is the gist of it.

Stephen Abram

SirsiDynix

Notes from lecture on 1/10/07

Ref: Out Front with Stephen Abram; a guide for information leaders.

Stephen’s blog: http://stephenslighthouse.sirsidynix.com.

Canadians are “unarmed Americans with health insurance”

It is important to try things. You don’t know if you don’t try.

Instant messaging is conversation.

The library catalogue is nothing more than an inventory management tool.

Librarians are restrained by:

1. Budget-driven innovation.
2. A culture of victimisation in libraries.
3. Excuses over reasons.
4. Absence of critical thinking.
5. A lack of true relationships with other community organizations.
6. A Servant not Service ethic.
7. A focus on perfection.

Global Change. The US National Debt affects everyone. The US has borrowed a trillion dollars from China, intending to pay it by getting oil from Iraq.

The huge developments taking place in India, China and EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa).

Generations “turtle” driving user behaviour changes. (I don’t know what this means)

Learning sharing. Collaborative knowledge.

Mergers – Reuters, Dow Jones, Gale, MS, Yahoo.There has been a big increase in the Information sector. Multi-type consortia – these will increase. New Standards (XML, JSR 168, etc) drive portalisation and personalisation of the Web.RSS cut and paste uses JSR 168 (the international Standard)

Technology can facilitate close relationships with local schools and other organizations. Personalised web-links.

Ref: Pew 2020 Predictions. http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/188/report_display.asp

Some of these predictions:

1. Low-cost, ubiquitous, fast global network..
2. “Smart agents”
3. Virtual reality. By 2012 80% of Internet users will be using an Avatar.
4. Problems with “technology addiction”.
5. 5. Technology “refuseniks” will emerge as a group.
6. Privacy levels will be chosen by users.

Ref. Peter Kaufman on predictions. Check.

Content, not context is king.

Points for strategic focus in libraries:

1. Real goals.
2. Community vision.
3. Cultural preservation and use/re-use.
4. Learning, scholarship, recommendations.
5. Bridging the divide. Blocking access is bad. We have no right to do it.
6. Entertainment is not trivial.
7. Discovery, Creativity, Invention.

Ref. Library dominoes (a video)

Intellectual access and not just physical access, is already here.

The emerging generation has very little fact-based knowledge.Ways of learning have changed radically.

Ref: Richard Sweeney – Millennials.

Ref: Bloom’s Taxonomy of learning styles.

Ref: a sirsiDynix program set up for Kent State Ohio – School Rooms; a learning portal for the K-12 Community. This gives an excellent picture of the future role of technology to enhance learning. http://www.schoolrooms.net/Students/tested.php

Boston Public Library has held Scanning parties to get their collection on-line. http://blog.bpl.org/brls/?cat=22

At this point, Stephen was talking so fast that I just managed to write key words to look up later. Central repository. Metadata. AOL Instant Messenger. Meebo and Trillion. Shared pictures. LibraryThing. Open Content Alliance. Bebo, YouTube. MySpace. Facebook. Wikipedia.

**Note that Free in this context means Unfettered, not necessarily free of charge.

Another list:

Bloglines. Twitter. Ning. Media Wiki. Wordpress(?). Zotero. Skype.Del-icio-us http://del.icio.us/. Second Life, Library e-books. My Bloglog. NowPublic http://www.nowpublic.com/

Prediction: Google search engines will default to local withing 18 months.

MySpace http://www.myspace.com/ A sustainable social network for life. **Librarians must be there!**

Check Wikipedia for an entry for your own library service. Anyone can put one there.

Yarra Plenty was the second library in the world to do the 23 Things.

Note: View the next generation positively.

Someone else’s notes from one of Stephen’s lectures. http://allaboutthe2.blogspot.com/2007/09/steven-abrams-8-am-presentation.html

Pauline M. 3/10/07