#15 Future Libraries

"Away from the Icebergs" makes interesting reading. I agree that "libraries are poorly equipped and insufficiently staffed" to fulfil teaching roles well; if people can't use our services we need to fix our services rather than offer training in how to use them: but if the physical collection of print materials is no longer a priority, because users want everything available digitally, I'd be concerned about several things. First, the way people use print materials is very different to how they use them online; the serendipity of finding by browsing is lost; second, how do users find out about what's available, and what is quality? As Wendy Schultz points out in ""To a Temporary Space in Time" tags offer "diverse connections, not focussed expertise". Online providers may charge for what used to be free; they may link to sponsored results which slant the accuracy of searches or bibliographies. The quality of art prints is lost in the digital world; the look of a beautiful reference book is lost too. Maybe improvements in technology will improve those complaints; but even the OH&S implications of using pcs and laptops rather than reading a book need to be considered. Every physio will tell you of the epidemic of neck and head related problems because of prolonged computer use; apparently laptops are much worse than standard pcs so today's students will be in for some trouble.

I really liked Wendy Schultz's concept of Library 4.0: "The library as aesthetic experience will have space for all the library’s incarnations: storage (archives, treasures); data retrieval (networks—reference rooms); and commentary and annotation (salon). Sounds good to me.

#14 Technorati

I had a look at Technorati and did the exercise of searching for Learning 2.0 in the Advanced Search - I found 6,265 entries by a keyword search; 618 by a tag search and 728 by a directory search. So nearly 100 people with a directory entry don't have a tag for "Learning 2.0".
I can see how useful Technorati is for finding subject specialised blogs; but it's a bit dispiriting to see the most popular tags and search terms. Britney Spears (couldn't that girl's parents spell?), royal blackmail, celebrity gossip....Boing Boing, listed as the "Top Blog", features a promo for a "decapitated doll's head pencil sharpener": you put the pencil in her eye and the shavings come out the mouth. It all seems a bit low rent - rather like the "News of the World' online (ex-Poms will understand).
Then I cheered myself up by finding some really interesting blogs - like the wonderful "Brit Lit Blog" and wasted several hours swanning around there. The blog "The Scottish Patient" has info about the latest Alasdair Gray novel "Old Men in Love" AND photos of him enjoying a refreshment in an Edinburgh bar. His novel "Lanark" is astonishing - highly recommended.

Rollyo exercise # 12

I've done this back to front in the Learning 2.0 training process: Today I went back and stepped through the process of registering and creating a search roll: I put in newspaper and online news sites and then did a search on various topics. It's ok but...you still get sponsored results. I read some articles about Rollyo, and one of them points out that Rollyo uses Yahoo to search, and that if you nominate a site, say the BBC, you can't just get Rollyo to search only the "News" page there: it will search the whole of the BBC site. But I can see that it could be useful to have the capacity to search a group of favourite, quality sites; more useful for broad topic searches than specific ones, I think.

Delicious #13

I've subscribed to Delicious and have successfully imported my bookmarks from my work pc; I've also added some new ones, and deleted quite a few imported ones which I'd added a while ago, and have never used since, so it's been a "cleaning up" and "tagging" exercise.
It will be very useful to have my "work" favourites at home and vice versa; quite often the two areas do cross over and it's infuriating to have to search for a site you know you've bookmarked elsewhere.
I've taken the chance to bookmark quite a few of the participants' blogs as I'm learning a lot from keeping up with them; I agree with Jewinda that it's hard to work out what a website it from the title alone; and once again I'm struck by the time so many people have to spare! By the time you keep up with Bloglines, add more books and tags to Library Thing, keep an eye on your blog etc and fit in little things like going to work, there's no time left to wash the cat or keep up with my ukelele lessons.

Library Thing

Today I've been discovering more of the glories of Library Thing. I think I should make up a song along the lines of "Wild Thing"

Library Thing, I Think I love you...
Library Thing, you make my heart sing...

Well, ok, that's overstating it a bit, but isn't it fun? There are actually some other people out there who read the same book as me - and know that the Daily Telegraph Book of Obituaries is one of the funniest books in the world.
The tagging makes such a lot of sense; incorporating the tags in library catalogues can add another dimension to making them accessible to users. It makes the whole process so participative and co-operative; readers become involved in the "cataloguing" and tagging rather than having to follow prescriptive rules.
I've added a random list of my books from "Library Thing" as part of the Learning 2.0 process.

#7 (Image generators) I flunked image generators first time round, but have had another go - this was a famous piece of graffiti which was on a wall in North Fitzroy for many years, and made its way into some anthologies of graffiti. Nobody knows who the "Desert rat" was! I wonder if he or she ever got their heart back.
I've put it into a Paris Metro sign - the sentiments are international, after all!
I have begun to enjoy the fun side of all this, after thinking it was a hugely vain waste of time: I can see how we could use this in library promotions, and for livening up emails to family and friends.
One thing I still find tricky is resizing photos - some of the ones I tried out with the image generators got very "pixilated" (when I was young, pixilated was a euphemism for being drunk). I'll have to spend some time working it out.

With Bloglines, I have found it very useful for monitoring the various blogs I like; it's especially handy being able to import RSS feeds into Outlook (thanks Pearl Bay).

Summertime and the living is easy...

My creation
Originally uploaded by Marta

(#5 Flickr) I've been having Flickr fun with making posters from photos: I loved this photo; it was
New Year's Day - 105 in the shade - just the weather for a pipe band in full regalia. The bandsmen were all so very very hot; the Maryborough pubs did big business that day hosing them down with cold beer.

Using Flickr

I've been using Flickr - and I'm surprised how many photos of really obscure places there are online! I have looked up some places with a population of 3 and a cat and there are lots of photos of them; I also like the mapping option for planning future travels.
Now I've discovered how to turn photos into posters and have added one taken at the Maryborough Highland Games one very hot New Year's Day!! Let's hope this works out.

I've just added a few feeds to my bloglines account - who'da thought I'd ever have know what that meant, but I do now, and am knee deep in up to the minute news.
But back in the slow lane, I have just re-read a wonderful book which I can highly recommend, if it sounds like your sort of thing. Tom Clancy fans, stop reading here.
It's called "Aristocrats" by Stella Tillyard and tells the true story of four sisters, Caroline, Emily, Louise and Sarah Lennox who lived in England in the 18th century. They were aristocrats, moving in political and regal circles but were also truly remarkable women; for instance, Emily married the richest man in Ireland, had nineteen children, and then ran off with their tutor and had three more! They have left vivid letters, diaries, and household accounts, and the book makes their lives and times absolutely fascinating.

Too much information?

I'm feeling a bit jaundiced about all the volume of information that people are putting up on the web, whether it's blogs, RSS feeds or personal web pages. Is all this stuff worth saying? Or worth reading? Are we creating a monster which needs to be fed constantly with trivia?
It makes me realise that I'm a "book person" - I prefer the slow lane; or is it a generational thing? Perhaps it will change in the next few weeks - we'll see.