7th Post - Testdrive 4 Social networking

Hi Blog,

PERSONAL: here I am again at the end of my short working week and staying back to blog - I enjoyed the Commoncraft video as usual - a great start to looking at the latest testdrive despite the apalling accent - this time much shorter but very good and sharp. TWITTER has amazing ramifications - for politics that is, and maybe libraries too but that still has to be proved - and the THESIS I looked at the other week that wasn't about wikis it was about TWITTER AND CATALOGUING/THE CATALOGUE - not that I've really read it but I will - to prove to myself that the astounding success political parties have created with twitter also applies to libraries - maybe not yet ...

The EXPLOSIAN talked about, by organising tweets and making them searchable is proved by the events in IRAN - the opposition used twitter to organise their huge massive street rallies whilst the government was trying to shut down all social network sites - when Twitter was going to shut down for an afternoon for housekeeping they begged it not to because they relied on it totally for their communication

PROFESSIONAL: Libraries use of social network sites

IFLA's use of FACEBOOK:
they supply a website which interestingly is an old archived one which says "check back later" Maybe Facebook has taken over the role of providing content and discussion.

ALIA'S USE OF NING:

For their symposium using FACEBOOK and ninging - noticed the GOOGLE ADS at the right hand side
Networking for library workers sounds good. "UNDERGOING MAINTENANCE" was prominent - a work in progress.

GAMING NING:
An important public library issue - gaming learning - hard to see if you don't actually join in - a few members which is good and growing - "2 new members"

UQ - SEARCHING THE CATALOGUE VIA FACEBOOK:
Well, not really huge success yet .... but maybe potential ... has 5 monthly users which is a good start - presume they are students or maybe staff. I visited their wall and no recent posts , reviews or discussion - BUT MAYBE SOON! it's all set up ready to go

NON LIBRARY USE:
BIFF'S USE OF MYSPACE
This was the best looking site, well designed, very colourful - the VODCASTS using UTUBE were pretty blurred and the voices indistinct - but maybe that is from my end. Had clear info. on opening nights and volunteers.

All in all the explosian seems to have happened outside library arenas - in the political hotspot of the world. But very much a work in progress and libraries have been quick to use TWITTER - now if only I had the time to read that thesis!!!.... on twitter and cataloguing ..... at twit treat to come... over and out for no. 4

BIFF ON MYSPACE

WIKIS

Well blog, it's happened again. Another nouveau idea for me to apply to my personal life and professional library successes as well- of course (the main idea for this training!)

Personal:

Watching the video with it's cool little drawings made me realise that my chaotic Ma Jong group could be tamed by me opening up a wiki - then we might know when and who will be turning up every month. Quite amazing - everyone knows except me? maybe not .... no-one else has come up with the idea ..

Professional:

LIBRARY SUCCESS WIKI was impressive - at first it seemed overwhelming but when I saw the alphabetized list of categories I started to get interested - then I chose the GAMING topic and liked the neat, concise and informative way it was organised - every entry was the same with no verbosity, just the opposite - name, type and size of library, gaming types, platforms and a contact. THIS IS SO USEFUL!!

WIKIFY THE OPAC
This was certainly mind boggling - how could this happen? how could it be useful? and the entry that presented itself was indeed vast - but interesting. Would the St Joseph County Public Library have the time for an editor?

NATIONAL LIBRARY LIBRARY LABS
The policy is to invite people to comment on issues in this wiki, but if people want to edit or add info. they have to register.

They are involving an important project relating to vendor purchasing in this wiki and hope to 'INFLUENCE CURRENT INTEGRATED LIBRARY SYSTEM VENDOR PRODUCTS' and 'GUIDE FUTURE LIBRARY SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATIONS'
Open Library Environment (OLE) Project

So there is a serious international aspect to National Library's wiki. A communication that would be lots cheaper than a conference - or maybe will lead to one.

Thats all for today, my last working day for the week. I'm getting training and don't have to go to Southbank or sit for an hour listening to something I don't have time to listen to!! cheers blog

FLICKR

More on FLICKR - the other day I saw a thesis written by a librarian on the topic of FLICKR AND LIBRARIES - was gobsmacked - a whole giant thesis on Flickr. Obviously there is more than meets the eye here - or my eye anyway.

LIBRARY USE OF FLICKR

NATIONAL LIBRARY OF AUSTRALIA

Picture Australia invites photos of historical, social and political events that have national significence. It is interesting because they have an outstanding contributer of the month and a discussion group. One conversational item was where a photographer grizzled about the limit of 5 photos a day - the reply was that the quality of photos and tagging varied and to avoid staff time editing poor uploads they limited them. So there is an obvious interest in high quality photos - wonder how many they get daily and how much staff time is spent.

LIBRARY GROUPS

Was impressed that there were 3,000 members and 83 discussions and over 26,000 photos. It is a bit overwhelming to visit Second Life Library 2.0 and see the Info Island Archipelago.

I've yet to evaluate flickr and libraries and maybe should revisit the thesis! for a sobering report on it ..... I think there was a focus on cataloguing somehow.

Anyway over and out. Hope I have some time to catch up and get on to the next testdrive ...working part time makes it difficult - but then I remember working full time there was no time available either for any training ..really.

ONLINE PHOTOSHARING

Well, I'm back on board after a few weeks overseas - whew! an unexpected & sudden holiday of sorts .... and of course have plenty of photos. I was planning to put them in a special album with scrapbooking details I make up myself - but is this enough? now to see what online photosharing is all about .....

Viewed the videorecording with some scepticism of course, being a total or near total technophobe. Surprise surprise the American voice was an informing and enlightening one. I'm convinced by his message about protecting my photos from house and computer disaster. I'll probably choose the PRIVATE option since I'm not remotely interested in sharing my private journeys with anyone but my closest friends and family.

The safety issue was an excellent one. People close to me use the public option of course, young people close to me who like sharing with the universe their most intimate experiences, young people who spend hours of every day sharing their thoughts on every social network they can access. hohum

CONCEPTS AND FEATURES OF ONLINE PHOTOSHARING

SAFETY: I'm immediately sold on this one. To have an online backup, all the precious photos of a lifetime safely backed up on the internet - that's suddenly a vital thing to do and to do soon, very soon, before that house fire.

ORGANISED: This is a bonus, being able to have photos in some sort of order apart from being in obvious photo albums ..

FINDABLE: This is also impressive as each individual photo may be retrievable - often there are one or two really cool ones - like when my daughter's 21st was coming up and I was organising a powerpoint presentation for her parties - my ex and I spent hours and HOURS finding one particular one we wanted.

That's the end of my 4th blog and I'm signing off slightly more enlightened ....