Social networking tools seem like a great way to keep in touch with the community which the library serves in a more informal and fun way. Everyone from young people to seniors seem to be getting more and more into the internet and social networking sites and are demanding up to date services like these, I think they can be useful for promoting our services and finding out what our patrons are interested in.

This technology will definately come in handy for patrons using our public computers. Google Docs seems easy to use and the fomat looks similar to products like email which most computer users will be familiar with. I was able to sign in using my gmail account, which alot of people will have already which makes it even easier. Patrons with internet access at home will be able to save there work from home to the library and back without worrying if it will be compatable or if their usb, etc will work in our computer. Patrons can also save their documents and come back and work on them later, whereas if they are just saved on the public computers they will be deleted at the end of the day. Zoho docs seems to have the same kind of features but I will probably use google docs more as it seems easier.Being able to give others access to work on the document would also be handy when working on joint projects. Zamzar will also be very handy as we often have people come in to print out documents which are not compatable with our computers so to have free software to convert these documents would be great!

I was really impressed with all the things that you can do with mashups, I had never heard of this before and was amazed that the big huge labs website was so eay to use and was free!, I will definately use this technology again both at home and at work. In the library it could be used for promotional materials, advertising, websites etc, however it would be necessary to look at copyright to see what images we were able to use if we were not just using our own photo's.

I have heard podcasts mentioned, mostly on radio shows but I have never had a look to see how they work. I think I would use this technology both personally and for work purposes. I found the podcats I listened to very interesting and I think i will use the ABC site again. The online education podcasts were also good and something I will use again, I would like to see if there are similar sites offering the same kind of material. Obviously there are many ways podcasts could be used in succesfully in a library environment, storytimes, author vists, HSC lectures, staff training, even staff meetings when all staff cannot be present.

It was good to use the social searching tools, I knew of the existance of these sites before but I had never thought to actually use them. When I did have to sign up and think about a question to ask I realised how valuable this would be to be able to tap into the wisdom of so many people. Once I posted my question I was really looking forward to seeing the answers and was surprised at the quality and quantity that I got! It may be hard to varify answers based on facts, however I see people refering to other websites in their answers to back up what they are saying, it is also good to hear people's opinions and experiences. I can see a use for an answer board specifically for reference questions on the libraries website, with a librarian rostered for some time each day to answer the questions. Slamming the boards is a great idea to highlight the skills of librarians and it's great that people are out there doing this!

This week has taken me about 3 weeks to do but I have found it really useful and have used all these services quite a bit to work out exactly how I could use them. I thought delicious would be a really good tool for me to use as I am not always working at the same computer and do not always have the option to save the sites I like to use in favourties. It is great to be able to bookmark all my favourite sites so I don't forget about them or have to try and find them again through google. I thought Library Thing was also a great service that can be used for free which I enjoyed using myself and could recommend to patrons, I really liked that it recommended new books to read based on the books which I have read. I found them easy to add to my blog and I will definately use these two services in the future. Technorati I found a bit hard to use, the bookmobile search didn't really work for me but it is good to know that this service exists to search blogs as this seems to be something which we will be using alot more in the future.

This week was interesting, I have used you tube before but was new to google video. I have only used you tube for enertainment and was not sure if it would be that useful in a library environment. I think it could be quite expensive to produce a professional looking video to promote a library or to show patrons how to use services in the library. I could see it may work to film things like author visits or events but you would also have to be careful that you had the permission of everybody who was in the footage. It may also be frustating for patrons to use the video links from home as we have found using our own computers if your internet link is not quick enough it is very difficult to watch video footage. Patrons in this situationwill most likely give up if they have to watch a video to get the information, so it would need to be in text on the libraries website as well.

I have used wikipedia before and was aware that it can be edited by anyone and so have warned kids doing assignments not to take it as fact and to verify the information with something reliable like an encyclopedia or government website so I was suprised by the fact that a survey found it more accurate than the encyclopedia. After finding out more about how wikipedia works I see that for the amount of people who would post false information there would be so many more people to correct it!
I did not know that there were sites that can host a wiki for you or that they are so easy to set up. This would be great to use in a library or school environment, especially when you are able to have secure access as to who is allowed into the site and editors of the site are accountable for there posts.

This week took me a long time as I had no idea what an RSS feed was!, I have heard the term but I didnt know that it could be applied to the library environment in so many ways. Once I started going through this weeks activities I realised that things like dictionary.com's word of the day which I have subscibed to by email could be sent as an RSS to a feed reader. Learning about the existance of feed readers will come in handy to manage this and any other interesting feeds i find. I also checked some other libraries websites which have RSS feeds which patrons can subscibe to and found many different feeds like book lists, library news, and events.

Mosaico de ventanas en Muestra tu México

Mosaico de ventanas en Muestra tu México
Originally uploaded by Lucy Nieto

Took awhile but I finally signed up for Flickr and worked out how to add a photo to a blog. Flickr seems like a very useful website and I am glad I took the time to learn how to use it. I chose this collage of photo's from mexico to remind me of my last holiday!, looking forward to going back!, love the colours and the mosaic effect ,will have to look at how to do this!, I will now move on to trying to upload my own photos, wish me luck!

I have never used a blog before and was quite suprised to see all the potential applications. I have heard of blogs and know that friends use them to post what they are doing, for example when they go on holidays, etc so everyone can check out their photos and what they are doing straight away without having to wait for them to get back and get the photos printed out as was the case only a few years ago. I was suprised at how professional a blog can look and how I would be able to use it, I can already imagine adding pictures of all the smiling faces at our school holiday craft activites. I am really looking forward to learning to use the other technology mentioned in Week 1, alot of things I have heard about but have never really had the time to look at or use myself.