23. Thoughts and Actions

Thanks to Sharkey and the Kumara street cartoon.



The online experience ACL Learning 2 has lead me round the world and back again! In the beginning I read the aim of the programme was to allow staff to explore technologies and learn new skills on the internet, to expand minds, empower individuals and enrich our community.
(Did you hear me sniff in derision!) I doubted my own ability to work through 2 or3 tasks, not even considering 23!

But the more exercises I did, the more I gained in confidence, and I began to have fun! First of all the Blog. I liked the Harbour Template and muted colours, then had to find an image which fitted in with rose and page. The idea of inserting pictures (thanks Flickr) might have occurred in the past , but lack of knowledge ensured I stuck to text. Then, there were the cartoons and the ability to add punchlines. Finding other authors' blogs (including two I'd been following with interest for a while) and the joy of a response from Susan Wittig Albert when I pulled her blog into my feeds. Bloglines has been great- I've 26 including RSS feeds and podcasts.... and usually check them daily. Youtube and Beebo etc... I knew vaguely what they were but had little thought to try to access them and use them for fun or education!
LibraryThing,wow! I spend far too much time at home checking , tagging, and reading other peoples' library notes and reviews. (The garden and lawns can wait!) Have my own library up over fifty books now but mainly put in ones I really like or wish to remember.

So thanks ACLLearning team especially Jayne and Jen, and to my friend Willow who encouraged me with advice and help. I'd like to thank Helen Blowers and the 43 Things you should do... (am seriously considering following that up!) and management who set this programme up and all! Next time you see a rainbow think of the giant learning curve we've been on- we've already found the pot (pod) of gold!

21...(Yay for broadband!)

Managed to get some time at work to explore podcasts, as explained in 22 I have dial up at home! I followed the instructions with care but the tutorial would not appear. Gave it up and tried exploring iTunes . I found some music I liked but was scared off by notions of my credit card being attacked if I entered the wrong info.Still it was fun to listen to Apres un Reve and Dolly's garden (would you guess Faure?) and the fractals which appeared as mini videos were dazzling. Decided to look at other sites and had better success on Yahoo's site. Spent some time there but kept being frustrated by my lack of knowledge- I needed the tutorial. Clicked it on again , waited and waited for it to open, then I had to attend elsewhere and on my return it was there -telling me all! Learnt a lesson from that, our equipment is limited by the island's uptake; it had been running at 31 which is even slower than my dialup at home.
Another day I tried Podcast Alley and think I will use the site again as thanks to Willow and the appearance of a search field I could experiment in other areas. I tried "arts" and was impressed with the quick selection and the fact that a click would summarise a site in a few words. Had a play and found all sorts of great possibilities! Put two onto my bloglines and think Time Traveler podcast could be of interest to library users who like short stories and science fiction (new story each week)and then went on to put "Writing" in the search field and found a University of Ohio podcast which discusses writing, so happily "rssed" it onto my bloglines!

The E library (Yes 22 )

Many times when I've been introducing folk to the library website after signing up, I've been surprised how few know of the ACL's investment in digital resources. Some have become regulars on international web journals and newspapers and several have passed pleased comments back on their experiences. But I have been guilty of totally ignoring the net library- mea culpa, I thought it was minimal and not interesting. Today my opinion did a 180 turn....
One of the first surprises was a toddler's delightful counting book- "20 Hungry Piggies". I had no idea little ones' books featured.The next one was a book on creative writing so made that one of my favourites so I can go back to it. (I discovered how easy it was to mark an item as a favourite!) I did try out the search facility after some more study, but rapidly found out I could access more non fiction than otherwise. It would be great if patrons asked for a Frommer's guide to Cuba to tell them thay can read it through librarynet.The number of "How to...," books stopped me in my research-now have a "Simple Bloggers guide" marked as a favourite also.
The login is simple enough with a library card. I have to compliment the webdesigners on the "user friendliness" of the site. The set up showing a search platform is familiar to library users, and the simplicity of scrolling to find books in alphabetical order, plus the click on cover to pop up the relevant book impressed. If I have one moan, it would be that at home I do not have broadband,(hence doing this before Task 21) so I found detailed colour pages of covers or illustrated books, eg. like the superb 20 Hungry Piggies, took a long time to load.

Earlier in the day I had made a few notes through reading Librarything and the paper about the Amazon Kindle so I checked further into that. The thought of being able to load a bestseller in a minute amazes me! The name comes from the wish to "ignite knowledge" which I thought appropriate. The facility to hold 200 digital books and to be able to use the kindle directly without a tether to a pc or wireless hook makes it a word version of an ipod.Unfortunately, there's a hefty price (NZ$528)plus a price for downloading each item from Amazon. It will be interesting to follow that technology. The fact that Dymocks Australia last week launched a website containing 120,000 ebooks could be relevant. I smiled when I saw someone from ACL 2.0 had added the kindle it to our site...my surprise blown!

Task 20 Youtube and Faure!

Faure is a personal favourite- and his requiem is beautiful. I was thrilled that after fooling around with "Winter ski" appalling vanity reports I switched at a colleague's (Willow) suggestion to music, and typed in Faure...with the glorious result embedded below!
Agata Mazurkiewicz conducts the Berne Chamber Orchestra playing Faure's Requiem Agnus Dei.


To my delight other column suggestions on YouTube revealed a Kings College Choir singing Faure"s Pie Jesus and his Agnus Dei. Interesting comparing the music!

Task 19 Pick a Winner! Discrevolt!

After looking through quite a few, the music sites interested me and I clicked on Pandora-but it is out of bounds to countries outside USA so I spent only 20secs there. Discrevolt seemed a likely name so I clicked on it and noticed its colourful first display, noted the easy, search buttons and the logical set up. As not the greatest techno on the block, I was impressed the screen divided into Artists, Fans, and Features. Clicking on search flicked up more possibilities- if you knew the artist's name you could enter that- but if you could only remember the artist's first initial(surname) or the initial of the group, entering it popped up all the artists and band groups with that first letter. I put in U and Discrevolt suggested Umbrella Tree at the top of a list of eight. Further click on their name and I had a short but relevant bio of the group The name of their first release - would you believe "What kind of books do you read?" and the title of the one currently being readied.
To sign up the form is user friendly but I clicked on the "agreement" and found an enormous sheet of legal terms and details which I stopped reading after four minutes. There is another one for Artists and it is clearly designed to protect the owners od Discrevolt from claims etc. As it seemed to be USA based I decided not to go ahead- however anyone can use the site to check up on country, rock, electronic, heavy metal etc. For library staff it would be good to be able to check on popular american groups and their past and current releases.

Task 17 Extra !extra! Finally the link!

Misunderstood directions so thanks for your comment.
Have put in link on requested spot!
(Put it down to pre holiday rush!)

Zoho writer and *******!!!!!

Just a brief comment on Zoho since I've at last succeeded in making my blog comment on my holidays -see earlier blog Rhodos and Reunions .
I had used a word programme in my old computer (pre windows vintage) so many of the commands were the same. My earlier programme was much more simple to operate but then I couldn't insert pictures, I couldn't do bullet points without great messing around with almost every line, and it didn't save automatically! In other words although I was ready to start quoting the double edged dictionary at Zoho writer for quite some time I persisted.
A major part of the problem was the programme appeared with the headings and language entirely in German. As I do not understand the language it was "a Puzzlement" as the king of Siam once said in "The King and I" Earlier at work I'd logged on to a free account with Zoho and it was all in English so I knew it had to be a fault in my home computer. Clearly I'd done something wrong somewhere!
With experimentation I found the language button, switched it to English and Stars and Sunshine, I could understand Zoho! I Played around because I wanted to see if I could insert pictures into text and then publish the lot to my blog. Now feel smugly self satisfied!

Rhodos and Reunions ( migrated from Zoho writer)

Holidays are great! It started off with tension as the taxi never arrived to take me to the ferry, to catch the bus to get to the airport... But a neighbour on her way to the ferry solved my problems and from then, it was joy all the way!

My brother met me and we joined my sister, brother in law, their daughter and her baby for lunch, then drove through flourishing farmland to Feilding. We had an invitation to the Karl Maughan retrospective exhibition that evening and delighted in his meticulous massive paintings, particularly of rhododendrons. One called Cross Hills reminded me of the gardens at Kimbolton I had intended to visit and we agreed to see if we could fit in a tour. (I've just been playing around with Zoho and Google and courtesy of Gow Langsford website and their Gallery have inserted one of Karl Maughan's paintings here by using the zoho).

The next day I was picked up by two schoolmates and we drove to Wanganui for the reunion. Many hadn't met since leaving boarding school so it was fascinating to catch up. The laughter and exchanges of info re families and friends sparkled. I'm so pleased I attended. The reunion should be a whole subject itself-so well organised , from the emails, arrangements, accommodation and the day itself with the get together, the luncheon, the special service and the planting of "our snowball tree"and then a fun dinner. Fantastic!

Back to Feilding and with beautiful weather we saw the pool had heated up so in for a swim! The first of the season but thanks to the solar it was nearly 30 degrees! Another family meal at my sister's (great cook) and we decided that we'd all visit Cross Hills the next day.

What a sight! More than 2000 rhododendrons and azaleas in full colour. We were fortunate in timing our visit just ahead of a couple of bus tours, so were able to take advantage of the Mini cart which drove us over so much of the several hectares.

Made a note of sensational scent in Mi Amore (white rhodo) and the rich red of Beefeater and the unusual apricot/yellow of Buttermint.

The following day it was back to the airport, the bus, the ferry and a taxi and home!

Favourites of the moment and wiki

Favourites change! When I was young I loved green the soft, pale, apple green of new leaves and the hard Hunter's green. I still like Green but my house interior is in a pale murky blue
and as it has lots of windows and bifolds the soft background is great with the sunlight.

Favourite Books-Always changing but the following are near the top. Islands of Silence by Martin Booth; Kiterunner byKhaled Hosseini , Equal Music by Vikram Seth.
Audrey Eagles new volumes of New Zealand Plants- I have the old version but want to update!

Favourite Holiday- Seattle, because that is where my daughter and her husband and family live and the time I spend in that city surrounded by water is magic!

Favourite things -Reading, walking in the garden admiring the flowers, swimming and now,I fear I should add blogging! I have been playing around with the wikis and I managed to enter my blog on the front page, did an entry for favourite holiday and a separate entry on Seattle. Hope thats ok as I'm on holiday for the next few days! (No, not in Seattle!)

Playing around with wikis Task 16

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tutorial

Wikipedia is something I have found myself using at work for the occasional enquiry but until the last couple of days I had not played in their sandboxes or written text! After viewing several wikis including those suggested in the exercise I went back to Wikipedia and did the whole process from Intro to Sandbox(where I played around writing a book review) , To Talk Pages to Formatting (more sandboxes- a good term!) to Copying material for insertion and the requirements and date significance then onto questions. But wait there's more...Wikipedia has Wikinews, Wikiquote, Wikiversity and Wikisource.

Although I am now more aware of the process I think I would have to check any facts before refuting argument, and I doubt whether I would contribute to such a giant. On the other hand I would have been quite ready to contribute to a Book review wiki such as set up by Princeton Public Library. http://booklovers.pbwiki.com/Princeton%20Public%20Library

Maybe Elgar could set up a Book review to which others as well as librarians could contribute. This would have the added advantage of including more NZ and Australian titles which are mostly lacking in wikis and blogs and such based in other countries. I could recommend that whoever sets up such a site takes a long look at the clarity and simplicity of the Princeton Site.

In one of the first wikis I studied I read the Core competencies file - I feel that Elgar again could set up a similar wiki for the introduction and training of staff. This might not only include the type of familiarity with Millenium and Pharos but could also be updated within seconds and all staff could be "on the same page". If the greater Auckland council goes ahead, Elgar is placed to fly!

Perhaps too we could look at the sharing other libraries do. I was interested in the listing of gaming programmes for Junior level as supplied by http://libsuccess.org/index.php?title=Libraries_Hosting_Gaming_Programs With some teens unused to visiting a library this could encourage their attendance and from there, hopefully an awareness of the excitement and joy to be found in a library.

One of my recent discoveries on LibraryThing was the winner of the library catalogues 20millionth addition. His blog is Micketymoc's and he said..."If heaven exists it would look and smell a lot like Rizal Library!"

Yes of course I followed up such a wonderful comment and the library's opening page said

Rizal Library In Line with The Past, Online With The Future!

Task 15 About ACL Learning 2.0 web 2 and more

http://elgar-acllearn.blogspot.com/ In other words thoughts on the Challenge!


The next comment Comes from The lady who started 2.0- Helena Blowers. I read a part of her blog and thought I would include a small section. To be fair I felt like including a whole lot more but you can catch it yourself http://www.librarybytes.com/

Over to HelenB...,
"On Privacy, Trust, Social Networks & Libraries
OCLC's latest report Sharing, Privacy and Trust in Our Network World is must read. I've just skimmed it myself, but the Report Highlights section offers lots to think about. Here's a few that stood out to me ...From On using the Web...
The Web community has migrated from using the Internet to building it. In 2005, just 16% of respondents used blogs; today that number approaches 50%. Approximately a quarter of the general public respondents have created Web pages and used chat rooms and social networking sites. The Internet’s readers are rapidly becoming its authors...."


So as one of the authors now, here are a few of my thoughts on Web2.0. How, Why,When and Where.

In Maori there is a legend which explains how one of the young men was late returning to his village when the sky became dark and finding it difficult to see in the forest as the stars appeared, he veered away to use the sands for his route. As he approached a rock strewn point he thought he heard voices 'The net ! The net here! Quick, the net!" Fearing for his life he
edged round the rocks and peered into the next bay. A few fairy people were in the water but more were on the shore pulling on ropes and dragging in loads of fish which they quickly gathered. The young man was very scared, but he stayed to watch as he had never seen anything like the quantity of fish being gathered so quickly. He realised what a wonderful help it would be to the tribe, so he studied the strange series of ropes all knotted together, each strand supporting and strengthening the whole....

The legend is very old- (check Grey's Polynesian Mythology) but the web has ever since been a succour to the people of the land of Aotearoa. It is not surprising that young kiwis of today have hooked into the www net of computers with the same avidity. Like the first fishing net the structure of the whole is strengthened and enlarged with each strand or input and it continues to grow so our knowledge must be continually extended.

Rick Anderson Of the University of Nevada writes of the importance of the net to the Libraries in his area now and in the future. He cites the 55% drop in circulation over 12 years and questions the whole "collection ethic". His figures should not surprise although they are totally different from our own. He is in an "information" environment in a university where reference points can quickly be accessed on the net and in particular academic journals available through databases. I could perceive this area growing in future.

Our Library functions as part of a community where the greater amount of our work is to enhance the joy of our patrons by supplying books to read- largely for entertainment. Of course, we have to act as a reference point too, so we also supply, books on pruning olive trees, or how to set up a septic system or the latest statistics on health. In this area we have books and the web. Our reference area now takes up less than half the shelves it used to, as we can access so much more information and images on the net. We also supply ebooks (and I think it will grow), but most prefer the "feeling" of a book. In this I find myself nodding approval with Dr. Wendy Schultz in her article on Infinite Futures ..., Libraries are not just collections of documents and books, they are conversations..., convocations of people, ideas and artifacts in dynamic exchange...they are communities"

It is of primary importance to be able to act as a Readers advisory- in the past I have done this largely through my own reading, in the future, I see wikis use in specialist areas eg 8-10year old boys books- which ones encourage them to read; the seniors who want a story with relationships rather than violence; use of sites such as LibraryThing to provide depth and knowledge and reviews of new publishing.

Our Digital Library usage is slowly growing as more are taught how to use it. Just as a child is taught to read and to enjoy books, so children today grow up in an environment where using the i/net, is as taken for granted as reading the paper. Many already do games, blogs, tags, wikis and imaging as part of a school project. It is the adults and seniors of today who have had to upskill, so I am glad that my own use of the web has been extended by the ACL learning programme. As Michael Stephens says in his article "Into a New World of Librarianship" Sharpen those skills for the Librarian2.0 -the user demands and deserves more. The knowledge of and use of available technology is an essential part of customer service, not only for the future but for now.

Task13 / 14. Technorati and Del.icio.us

Changed my mind about Technorati! When I saw the site task I screwed up my face but determined to give it another go... I think I've learnt a lot more about the web and i/net
in the past few weeks! Because although Technorati hadn't changed that much I certainly found myself putting off lunch for a couple of hours while I explored differing sections! I went into the culture vulture european sites, then decided to go for a more hedonistic beauty/fashion site where I learnt I could buy a handbag by a named designer for a mere US$200! I checked out the most popular rankings- No1 is engadget and he makes pronouncements on cellphones and plasma tv reliability, No2 is gizmodo at the moment and he deals in similar items but I found myself (hardly being the cellphone queen) more interested in Number three. I've inserted the link as he talks about a new way to work with Flickr and other edit image sites so could learn more.

http://lifehacker.com/software/image-editing/edit-your-images-online-with-splashup-318367.php

The tag system seems easy enough( is that really me ?) and it sorts out the sheep and the goats
quickly.
Just when I decided it was so European I saw a blog -an American in Auckland- so naturally I had to stop and read her visit to Kerikeri at al! Enjoyed it, Katie from Ohio!

Del.icio.us http://del.icio.us/
This is another huge site with links to EVERYTHING! Like the tags people have put in to make so much clear. I've registered with this site as I am so impressed. I decided to treat it a little like a search roll just for recipes at this stage and have entered some sites and specific recipes just to try out the tagging. I must say having the toolbar access makes it so efficient! And after all that work with recipes I really need lunch! Its now 3pm and the kettle has had to be put onto boil again! Can't believe I've been playing with these two sites for more than three hours!

Task12 Rollyo

I have religiously rollicked and roared around Rollyo -I have tried to create search rolls for recipes and had frustrating difficulties.... so I started again and did an "easy " news search roll and this time thanks to advice from colleagues managed it. Another drum roll please!.....

http://www.rollyo.com/rosenpage/world_news/

Another interesting site! I had used it before and the other day I was checking up on an item re Frank Sargeson, the authors files are useful.

http://www.bookcouncil.org.nz/index.html

http://www.rollyo.com/
I have been looking at Rollyo but so far I have found it difficult to find a subject which is as spell binding as some other sites... I find the principle attractive but the resources limited. Maybe if I was travelling overseas it would be handy to check hotels and cheaper deals - I did an experiment with San Francisco and it gave a couple of ideas. I also tried the rare book site mentioned but was disappointed- I tried two obvious ones but they were not listed. I was also irritated by the commercial setup. I had trouble following the instructions to set up a searchroll (that was fine) but transferring it to my blog problematic!