#23 Playweek and catchup

Wow, I've made it to the end. This has been a really enjoyable learning experience. I intend to go back over some of the exercises, play around some more and explore, adding new features to my blog.

Congratulations and thank you to the team who found this course and adjusted it, the checking, the assistance too.

And below, a link to an interesting video on free digital libraries, be warned it is 20 mins long.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXoHC2D15hM

#22 Social networking and Libraries

Social networking sites and libraries. I see there is a place for this, whether successful or not, I guess that will depend on the community. It would need to be active all the time, constant updates, monitoring etc.
Great for library book clubs.

#21 Myspace and Facebook

I am not a fan of Myspace. Even the homepage looks cluttered, like a teen magazine, which will be exactly who it is supposed to appeal to!
Facebook I liked. I can see the advantage of being able to share photos with family & friends through this site.
As for libraries getting involved, I'll have to do more research before saying yay or nay, or even which site would be best for the target audience. The jury is still out.

#20 ebooks

Project Gutenberg, easily found the author I wanted along with a listing of the books written, nearly 30,000 free books available! In Librivox, again found author easily. Even had version 1, 2 and 3 on one of the books. Also a listing of works in progress. Impressive.
I can clearly see the advantage in being able to search the text of the book for a specific phrase within an ebook, of being able to store thousands of ebooks in a fraction of the space of normal books, but I love the illustrations, the covers, the 'look' of a real book.
I like discovering the availability of the many websites offering ebooks and not being a techie I'd probably not bother with a Kindle, but may at some future date dabble in downloading an ebook to try. After all you can't really judge until you sample!
All in all, an interesting exercise.

#19 Podcasts

This was an interesting exercise, which I wasn't expecting. Many of the audio files that piqued my interest were either a year so old, or the files had been removed. However, on Podcast pickle.com I found the J. C. Hutchins new fiction and author updates. He is a sci-fi novelist who releases his work as free serialized audio podcasts. His newest idea is to have followers contribute to his work and become involved in the storyline. He is asking fans to "play along" and record video and audio as if they were a victim of the chaotic blackout occurring in his storyline. Apparently a first for podcasting! How neat is that?!


http://jchutchins.net/site/2008/03/05/7th-son-obsidian-is-coming/


I keep getting "error on page" when I try to access a podcast of above, so here's the URL.

http://www.podcastpickle.com/ViewPodcast.php?id=11772

Will try something else later to add an RSS feed. Grrrh!
I think that podcasting has limited applications. However I could see it's use as a teaser, adding a vocal 'excerpt' for a library event to the events page on the website.

#18 Discover Youtube

I can definitely see a place for videos on our webpage. Visual instruction for signing up for web account, what you can do with it and why it is different from the "My Info" logon. Also, the best way to use the NSL website after you've logged in through the "My info" box. A short video showing a sample of the children's rhymetime etc. maybe useful. A video walk through each library showing the different areas, and attached it to each library location information could help patrons feel more comfortable when visiting an unfamiliar branch library.
I'm sure there are many more uses the videotaping could be used for.
I loved this video. The romantic in me maybe

#17 Web 2.0 top 1000 awards list

So many to choose from. I settled on http://socialight.com/

This is a site that utilises your cellphone It's a bit like googlemaps plus facebook and a guide book all in one. The examples were done in New York. It utilises the gps that is in each USA cellphone. You can take a pic on your phone and upload it to the applications website where you can add a comment and tag the photographed site on a map. Looks like it's only USA at the moment. When you phone in to the site it'll automatically update you on interesting sites nearby!

I can see it would be great for tagging a map with the coming events at a library location.