Podcasts

This one has really got me thinking about its use in a local Library. Yes, we could give a virtual tour but would anyone look at it. We could video our Law Week talks and podcast them, or just an audio of it. Over the years I suppose we could build up a good resource - but then information may become out of date and the Solicitors may not agree. I found the author talk podcasts interesting They would be a useful tool to choose the author you wished to talk as well - some authors are really good speakers and others not as good.

Overall very interesting and useful in a large Library or a Library with a large budget but of much more limited use in a small Library. Other Libraries podcasts could be a useful tool and those on, for example, the ABC site could be of interest to patrons.

Answer Boards

All those people out there who don't know where to go for answers, who can't search for themselves is absolutely amazing. There is obviously a lot of scope for professional library help BUT how on earth would we sell it to Council? How would we keep the obligatory stats? Justify the fact that most of the questions answered would be for people not living in the Council area? Even if your Library set up its own Answer Board it would be open to the whole world whereas the physical placement of the Library building means the majority of users are locals.

Slam the Boards is great if you have a spare half hour (lucky you!) otherwise it is an "in your own time" activity. If you had an Answer Board just for your own Library I guess patrons would have to sign in with their Library card to use it.

There, I guess I have answered my own fears and objections. Bring on the Answer Boards, I am all for them.

Technorati and LibraryThing

Have just finished trying Technorati and can think of no use for it really. Mind you I am not a fan of talkback radio and a lot of blogs seem to be along those lines, there are some good ones but not many. I suppose if for some reason you were looking for something specific it would be useful.
LibraryThing on the other hand is terrific. Highly recommended for bookclubs.
What a lot of things you can do if you have the time.

Tagging

What a fantastic tool Delicious is. Loved Sutherland's site but how much staff time must it have takn to get it up and going - do they have staff who do not need to stand in front of the public all day. Much as I love my work there is no time to do fancy stuff or even stop and think about it - that has to be done at home.
In my dream Library this would be a fantastic tool, a great adjunct to the Library catalogue, it would give the patron access to books, periodicals, audio visual, databases and internet resources.I checked out Sutherlans's genealogy page and was impressed and will be showing this to those asking for family history help.

Youtube

Well, this was even more fun. The excitement increased when daughter comes in, leans over and types in "stupid girls" and 2 or 3 entries down, there she is with a friend doing some weird dance. The things they get up to that you have no idea. Quite scary really. Computer geek walks through "if I knew you were going on that I would disconnect the wireless. I don't want viruses on my computer". Ho hum.
Can't see much point in putting the Library on there except maybe for major events and mainly for posterity. Fairly boring to look at now but probably interesting in 20 years time. Maybe if building a new Library some good ideas could be found.
Verdict - good fun but limited professional use. I will have to read other people's blogs to see if they have come up with useful ideas.

Wiki wonderland

That was interesting. What a lot of uses there are for wikis. I can see them being useful between staff or to keep clients up-to-date. I loved the school wiki where there were the subject headings taking you to different information and especially the homework helper pages, this was marvellous. I haven't actually edited a wiki yet as I am waiting for my invite key but in the mean time I can think about what to say.

I have fallen a little behind with this due to Easter and the extraordinarily busy week at work. I am afraid I have just got home and conked out from exhaustion. Anybody who thinks Libraries are dead should come to our place sometime. I shall now carry on to the next week's work and come back to this when I have had a go.

RSS feeds

Oh, wow. That was painful, I knew we would come up against all those initials and funny words where my brain turns off, and we just did. Having been married to an IT guy for many many years I have an automatic close down when initials and such like are mentioned and a polite smile comes to my face. This was a large hurdle to overcome and I am not sure I managed it.

Personally I can see no use for this in my private life but for Library purposes it could be a great information tool for the public. All those book reviews and local news you could put to a feed. Why are IT people so obsessed with protecting their systems? Even the one at home blocked Messenger so teenage daughter could not use it -mind you, teenage daughter got round it. This of course could be the answer, get teenage daughters to work in public libraries and confound IT departments - mine has actually gone to work in a special library where I am sure her skills will be wasted.

Hopefully I will cope better with Wikis next week. It wasn't the actual doing of RSS feeds that got to me it was all the jargon.