We can use Facebook and the like for local history - encourage patron's, local historical societies, library staff and local historian to interact with each other to increase the knowledge of our local history. We can use these social networking tools to interact with our community and find out what they like, what they don't like and what they would like us to provide. We can also use facebook to communicate with staff from other libraries - see what they are doing, exchange ideas, find out how they deal with various issues etc

I couldn't watch the Google Docs video for some reason. Anyway, I think it would be quite useful to use for our events checklist form which is currently in hardcopy format. It gets filled out and passed along to several people for action and/or approval before it eventually returns to the original person. Using Google Docs will make it easier to track its progress and you won't have to worry about it being lost or buried.

We are in the process of putting together an events calendar for 12 months. We could use mashups to produce a calendar with the events listed to give away to our patrons as part of a promotional tool.

We could use Mashup for children's activities - maybe have them create their own club badges if they join our chess club or summer reading program.

Podcasts would be a way to promote various services as well as any events happening in the library. We can have them in our 6 languages (including English) and promote services/events to members who don't read English. As we don't print promotional flyers (except library guides) in other languages, we can use podcasts to reach our non-English speaking members. We can also use podcasts to record oral history and make them available online as part of our local history collection. It might be handy to have our HSC lectures recorded as podcasts so students who missed out can still have access to the information provided.

An answerboard may be useful as a tool in our library for students to post questions in which library staff, as well as library members can answer questions (but of course not doing the actual homework/assignment). We can put questions to the public about our services or an event we had and get feedback from our patrons - a bit like a survey. I looked at one of the questions someone posted in Yahoo7answers and I must admit I liked the responses that amounted to "Do your own homework" - the person wanted to know what the themes of Macbeth were and what scenes they can be found in.

I like LibraryThing. It is simple to use and is a great tool to find books to read in a similar genre/subject. It is also handy to see what tags other people have placed on a title - you can look for something in an area that you didn't think of. It can be quite handy as a "Who write's like who" type of resource - I'm a fiction person. Non-fiction rarely interests me.

Del.icio.us would be handy to have on the RA/Information desk. It will make it easier to find information on certain subjects for school students if the relevant sites were bookmarked and tagged. This will be quite useful and saves time - especially if we are looking for current information, but only have books that contain outdated material. It appears to be easy to set up and use (once the restrictions are removed).

I thought I will try to embed a video into my blog. I hope it works.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyDY0hiMZy8

Exploring YouTube and Google Video

There are some amusing videos on YouTube and Google Video. I found Mr Bean at the Library on YouTube while I was looking for Mosman Library (found them in Google Video). I haven't seen that episode in years but it does show library stereotypes - I think it will be hard to find a very quiet public library these days. I found some great Star Wars videos (one was a library display) that I will watch in my own time.

It was great to see libraries using YouTube and Google Video to promote their services. It is something that we can use to promote our library. This could have been something that we could have used to show our patrons the changes the library went through after the flood we had earlier this year. We can also ask our young patrons to help create a video to promote our services to the youth. Like Mosman, we can put videos of our programs onto YouTube and make it available to patrons who couldn't attend.

I have seen children use Wikipedia but I hadn't realised that anyone can edit it. A library staff wiki would be handy for putting together ideas for events as well as preparing for approved events - handy for identifying material that can be reused. The Library success wiki is a great place to look for ideas for programs, in particular adult programs. We don't run many adult programs besides our book clubs and internet/email classes. Our libraries ideas and experiences would be helpful. Being a Star Wars fan, I personally liked the Wookieepedia wiki and would have liked to spend more time exploring it, but that will have to be in my own time. The links within links leading to more information is good. It is something to think about if we create a Library wiki. Having a Book review wiki like Princeton's Library would be good. We would be able to discover what our patrons like and improve our collections. Our patrons would be able to read reviews (and click on the link that takes them to the catalogue) and provide their own feedback. We can have a wiki where staff and students can list books, websites etc that helped them in a particular subject area (especially the obscure topics), saving time in repeatedly doing the same searches.

Connecting to RSS feeds was a bit hard but I finally managed to do it. I chose Yahoo7 news and SMH entertainment blog. I didn't have much time to search for blogs but I thought a blog on the latest fiction released might be handy on a blog, in particular a library blog. Other people's thoughts on new fiction, or even latest release dvds will allow our patrons to read reviews through our blog, encouraging them to add their own thoughts and reviews. We can also view what has caught people's attention and add new titles to our collections (if we didn't have it already). News feeds are also handy for those of us who don't have much time for TV.

I thought I will try to post a picture again and this time it worked. This is one of several pictures taken for possible use in our flyers for the Chess and Checkers Club, which we run every Friday afternoon during school terms.

Flickr

I wasn't sure the first time that I posted the image that it worked, so I tried again. I realised that I had to accept the terms and conditions for it to work. I hope it has worked - I can only see a white box. No image. Oh well, I can always try again.

The image I chose is called Storm Troopers at the Library http://www.flickr.com/photos/tngmalone/1163442950/. Our most popular PlayStation game is the Star Wars game and the children love to play it. We also have fans amongst the Library staff. A Star Wars event for the children might be something that they will enjoy - it is something to think about.

(Hmm, I wonder if a Storm Trooper patrol in the Library will discourage bad behaviour??)

My first post

It was pretty easy to create a blog (although trying to think of a name took me a while), but as I was due for my desk shift I signed out before I posted anything. After my shift, I tried to go back to my blog but wasn't sure how (and I had forgotten to write down the address). After going back and forth several times, I went back to the learning 2.0 site and continued to read all the way to the bottom. Thank God there was "How do do you get back to your blog" and here I am.
I have heard about blogs, youtube and the rest, but I didn't really know what it is about. I hope Learning 2.0 will teach about all these things and that I will be able to use these to help promote our library service. I must say I am impressed with the Sutherland Library blog - just by viewing it I learnt there was new technology in Audio books available, which I have of course forgotten the name of, but it is on their blog, and had a link to their Library catalogue. This made me think that it might be possible to put booklists of new items on Library blogs and have links to library catalogue records. Hooray to learning something new.