Well I finally made it. It's been nearly a year but I did it. It's not that I wasn't interested, it was just finding the time and dealing with the frustration of the technology not fully working at times in our library.
At the moment I have a Reference Blog, maintain a tag Cloud on our website and contribute to the new Regional Wiki! I'm sure there's more change and adventures to come!
Monday, December 8, 2008
Online Applications
Well there are certainly a number of free online software packages available. I think I might find the file converter and google docs helpful in the future. My only problem is remembering all the different logins and passwords. I already have 2 pages of my diary filled with usernames and passwords for various applications!
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Mashups
Gee that was easy! Makes you want to do more. I can see many possible applications in libraries.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Podcasts
Unfortunately I have been unable to access any podcasts on my work computer. (Ditto Superchicken 77's comment).
I can imagine that podcasts could be interesting on our library website particularly on our youth pages. They may be more likely to engage our younger library members. I think I'll move on to next week's topic.
I can imagine that podcasts could be interesting on our library website particularly on our youth pages. They may be more likely to engage our younger library members. I think I'll move on to next week's topic.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Answer Boards
This exercise was fun and quite addictive. However, at this stage I cannot see a role for our library in slamming the boards, apart from practice in answering reference questions. I think it would be great if there was a question site that was Australian as a lot of the questions that I read seemed to be focussed on America. It's great to have been introduced to this type of website as Reference work will probably head more in this direction in the future. I think having an answering service of some kind on our library websites is definitely the way to go. I've noticed that some libraries link to Ask a Librarian. Currently on our website questions are entered online and are automatically emailed to the Reference desk.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Delicious, Technorati & Library Thing
Well I finally made it to Week 7. It's taken quite a while to get here. I had forgotten the frustration of not being able to view the videos introducing each weeks lesson.
I absolutely love tag clouds. They are so useful for reference work. When I started in my current position at the library there was already a tag cloud set up on our website. Click here to have a look at it http://www.wagga.nsw.gov.au/www/html/1301-tag-cloud.asp?Thankyou=1
One of my jobs is to maintain the tag cloud i.e add new websites and delete ones that no longer work. As you can see from our site the tag cloud is no longer displaying correctly. The tags are scrunched together making it difficult to use. This is a fairly recent development which our IT guys have not been able to fix, as yet. So I would have to say that displaying a tag cloud on your website is a bit of a risk. For well over a year the tag cloud displayed fine but the problems occurred when del.icio.us upgraded their software.
Another drawback is that non functioning websites are not automatically checked and removed. This can be an issue depending on the number of bookmarks that you have. You can imagine trying to check a few hundred bookmarks on a regular basis. One last issue that we had was the number of tags. As our tag cloud grew it became more unmanageable and would no longer fit on our website in the space allowed so we decided to limit our tags and limit the number of bookmarks within each tag. It's still a work in progress and once the display is corrected we are hoping to place the tag cloud in a more accessible position on our website to highlight this great tool.
Technorati didn't do much for me and the suggested search for nswpln2008 didn't work. I think it highlights that for many of us, if something does not work the first time we never use it again. Something to be aware of with our own library websites. As for Library Thing what a great thing! Would you believe that I have even had a query at the reference desk from someone wanting books on Dewey so that they could classify their own home library. Whilst at that stage I had not tried it out myself I had heard of it and recommended it to the client. Hopefully they found it as great as I just did. Certainly a better option than Dewey, with added social options. I've put a widget at the side of this blog with a random selection of books from my library that I just created. Unfortunately they didn't display as expected but in this case near enough is good enough.
I absolutely love tag clouds. They are so useful for reference work. When I started in my current position at the library there was already a tag cloud set up on our website. Click here to have a look at it http://www.wagga.nsw.gov.au/www/html/1301-tag-cloud.asp?Thankyou=1
One of my jobs is to maintain the tag cloud i.e add new websites and delete ones that no longer work. As you can see from our site the tag cloud is no longer displaying correctly. The tags are scrunched together making it difficult to use. This is a fairly recent development which our IT guys have not been able to fix, as yet. So I would have to say that displaying a tag cloud on your website is a bit of a risk. For well over a year the tag cloud displayed fine but the problems occurred when del.icio.us upgraded their software.
Another drawback is that non functioning websites are not automatically checked and removed. This can be an issue depending on the number of bookmarks that you have. You can imagine trying to check a few hundred bookmarks on a regular basis. One last issue that we had was the number of tags. As our tag cloud grew it became more unmanageable and would no longer fit on our website in the space allowed so we decided to limit our tags and limit the number of bookmarks within each tag. It's still a work in progress and once the display is corrected we are hoping to place the tag cloud in a more accessible position on our website to highlight this great tool.
Technorati didn't do much for me and the suggested search for nswpln2008 didn't work. I think it highlights that for many of us, if something does not work the first time we never use it again. Something to be aware of with our own library websites. As for Library Thing what a great thing! Would you believe that I have even had a query at the reference desk from someone wanting books on Dewey so that they could classify their own home library. Whilst at that stage I had not tried it out myself I had heard of it and recommended it to the client. Hopefully they found it as great as I just did. Certainly a better option than Dewey, with added social options. I've put a widget at the side of this blog with a random selection of books from my library that I just created. Unfortunately they didn't display as expected but in this case near enough is good enough.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Videos Online
U tube is no longer accessible in our library which is quite frustrating as I receive quite a few links to utube via emails. I'm interested in how libraries promote via utube. One thing it was interesting to note is that there is a google version! I should have known being the huge google fan that I am but I didn't know it existed. I knew about google images which are fantastic for answering some of the Reference queries that I receive. Maybe it's because our computers are too slow to successfully view any videos.
I think I'll move on to the next week's topic!
I think I'll move on to the next week's topic!
Wikis
Finished exploring Wikis some time ago but haven't found the time to blog again til now.
I sometimes use Wikipedia on the Reference desk as it is occasionally the only source available. I've used it for info on electronics and circuits as this is something we do not hold in our library. The client was happy with what I found but I emphasised that this was a 'free' encyclopaedia that anyone could contribute to and that I could not guarantee the accuracy of the info.
One area where Wikipedia is really good is entertainment. For film and movie buffs there is quite extensive info on actors including all their roles. It is also great to answer questions such as how many seasons are there of Star Trek, Stargate etc.
I like the idea of using Wikis for procedure manuals. It would be good where the contributors were quite distant to each other. At our library we have a shared network drive and this really works for us, so I don't see a Wiki as being of use to us. But it could be useful for our region where everyone has a different computer system as we have several member councils.
That's all for now.
I sometimes use Wikipedia on the Reference desk as it is occasionally the only source available. I've used it for info on electronics and circuits as this is something we do not hold in our library. The client was happy with what I found but I emphasised that this was a 'free' encyclopaedia that anyone could contribute to and that I could not guarantee the accuracy of the info.
One area where Wikipedia is really good is entertainment. For film and movie buffs there is quite extensive info on actors including all their roles. It is also great to answer questions such as how many seasons are there of Star Trek, Stargate etc.
I like the idea of using Wikis for procedure manuals. It would be good where the contributors were quite distant to each other. At our library we have a shared network drive and this really works for us, so I don't see a Wiki as being of use to us. But it could be useful for our region where everyone has a different computer system as we have several member councils.
That's all for now.
Monday, April 7, 2008
RSS Feeds
Well, I finally was able to add 5 feeds to my bloglines account but I doubt that I will ever look at them again. Mainly because I didn't find any sites that were of interest to me and was just so relieved that I could finally complete a task!
I am, however, interested in online databases and I connected an RSS feed to my blog which came from Consumer Health Complete. I chose to search for information relating to asthma. This feature would be useful to researchers and academics.
Whilst I found Flickr very frustrating I was able to add a feed to my blog from Flickr. You will see the links to the photos by P. Brunt on the right hand side of my blog.
I am, however, interested in online databases and I connected an RSS feed to my blog which came from Consumer Health Complete. I chose to search for information relating to asthma. This feature would be useful to researchers and academics.
Whilst I found Flickr very frustrating I was able to add a feed to my blog from Flickr. You will see the links to the photos by P. Brunt on the right hand side of my blog.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Cocker Spaniels Take 3
Just can't seem to get any photos to come up. Very frustrating. At least in the second one if you click on the title it takes you to the photo page.Thursday, March 27, 2008
Monday, March 10, 2008
Just Starting
This is my second blog. Have recently set up a blog for Reference Desk Staff to keep everyone up to date with the happenings on the Information Desk. On the Reference Blog we post hints and tips for searching for information and post assignment questions from schools with our search results of resources which can be located in the library and relevant web sites. We have found it quite helpful. Our only difficulty is getting all the Reference staff signed up as authors, as our computer system blocks the electronic invites. We have overcome this by sending the invite to home email addresses.
I recently discovered a web site counter which I added to our Reference Blog to see if it was actually used by staff. I was surprised by the number of hits. I do have to keep in mind that the counter records every hit to the page so in one session I can increase the hits by 5 by simply going back and forth between pages. I'll try and remember how I did it and add it to this blog.
Looking forward to learning about the other technologies as I am nearly blogged out.
I recently discovered a web site counter which I added to our Reference Blog to see if it was actually used by staff. I was surprised by the number of hits. I do have to keep in mind that the counter records every hit to the page so in one session I can increase the hits by 5 by simply going back and forth between pages. I'll try and remember how I did it and add it to this blog.
Looking forward to learning about the other technologies as I am nearly blogged out.
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