Social networking

Oh dear! I think I am going against the trend here.

It is quite astonishing to realize how many people are going on one or more of these social networking websites. I can clearly see the benefits when it comest to audience research, greater insight into what borrowers/consumers want or don't want. It is also amazing to see the technical side of it i.e. being able to track who referred who to the website.

Marketing opportunities are great for libraries. We can promote our services, and especially events and create "virtual communities of visitors", track their responses and get other users to comment on other users' comments or answer their questions.

It would probably be most useful when dealing with teens and attracting them to what we do. I might be mistaken, as there are obviously millions of older users as well who frequent the networks.

One of the articles mentions that "people meeting people is still the basic principle that drives networking, online or off". I have no problem whatsoever with marketing businesses (including libraries) or sharing professional information but I have very strong opposition to sharing personal information and that's what's behind the whole thing, isn't it? I can't possibly imagine wanting to share my interests with hundreds of other people or having virtual strangers (no pun intended) looking through my list of friends. I know you only publish what you want other people to see, but quite often it creates another personality. I suppose we all make our decisions and if great numbers of people love using the social networking websites, than the libraries should join in and make the most of it!

Online applications and tools

This morning, just before doing the Online applications and tools activities on your website, I created a document - an orange roster for Sunday soccer games. I emailed it to everybody on the team list, but could not ask people to add their names as nobody would know what had already been added in the meantime. The solution was to bring the printed copy, get the people to add their names and then go home, enter all information and email to everybody. How much easier it would be if I could send just a link to everybody and all people could see the changes in real time. It would be time saving for everybody. And here, we are talking about the simplest of lists. The benefits would be much greater in the workplace - in any situation where draft copies are required.

I did find it a bit tricky to do the editing, but I suppose that is because I am not familiar where the commands are (apart from the obvious ones).

I actually found Zoho easier to navigate than Google Docs.

Converting files on Zamzar was simple. However, in the case of pdf files, if you want to view it, you still need Acrobat. I expect the benefits would be much greater with some other types of files.

Mashups

This was fun. All the photos of the flowers were taken during a family holiday in the Snowy Mountains at Christmas time, the spider photo was taken late one night in our garden.

I played around with Warholizer, Palette Generator, Bead Art and a few others.
Any mashup with local maps combined with numerous other information would find its use in the library. One thing I liked the most was Voicethread - both for personal and library collections. Wouldn't it be marvelous if we could hear all those stories, especially if it is from the people themselves.
Links to virtual tourism sites could come useful at the reference desk. However, there are quite a few websites promoting tourist destinations, and it would be up to the users and librarians to choose the best ones.

Podcasts

My child has learnt how to podcast in her primary school - time to catch up!

I've listened to podcasts several times in the past and found them a really easy concept to understand. As there is so much on offer these days in the media, and so little time to browse all of them, I guess podcasting is a great tool for filtering the material if you know what you are looking for in the first place.

Some people suggested in their blogs that this would be a usefull tool for author talks. However, I am a little ambivalent about this. Some things should stay face to face and an author talk in the library should stay just that - a talk in the library.

On the other hand, I see podcasts as a great training tool - to save time and repetition, especially in larger libraries. It could be a great marketing tool - there are so many events that could be promoted this way. We just need to know our target market. Borrowers are different even in areas that are geographically close.

Podcasts will be great for distance learning of any sort.

Answer boards

I have never paid much attention to the answer boards mentioned this week, but I did use smaller ones, e.g. one of the numerous sites regarding guinea pigs and received the answer I was looking for.

Slamming the board sounds like a good marketing tool - anything that attracts new people to the library is positive and it should be explored. Needs to be followed up somehow to see if it's working - or just attracting people who would use the library anyway.

Personally, I find answer boards time consuming as trawling through the answers takes forever and you are never sure what you are going to find. I suppose if you ask a specific question, the situation is different.

Library Thing

This is great. People who like the same books are the best ones to recommend a new one to you. With so many books being published every day, it is really difficult to choose what to read even for us who are "informed" and surrounded by books all the time. I can see myself becoming a regular user of Library Thing.

One thing that is difficult in general is remembering all these user names and passwords...

Also a bit worrying is our reliance on computers... We can't completely replace a face to face conversation so my hope is that these are only additional tools and that library staff will be around for a while yet.

Del.icio.us

This is one interesting topic I did not know much about before tonight. I've noticed the peculiar name/button on some websites but never explored it further.

The link to my delicious account is http://del.icio.us/sgashi.

(By the way, does anybody know why the icon "Insert link" does not work. I have tried inserting link using this button in my previous post as well and after viewing it I can only see a blank space rather than what has been typed in.)

I can see the huge potential for its use in the libraries, particularly in the reference area. It is always good to see what other people have found as we are all so time poor and the demand for the instant information is high. However, I am a little ambivalent at the same time. Learning how to use these might be easier for the people who do not have training in the structured world of LCSHs which is still my preference. I might change my mind. After all it is all down to familiarity as it brings speed along.