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be quite useful and saves time - especially if we are looking for current information, but only have books that contain outdated material.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.