busy times

Have just been reading Zann's blog. Great travel blog. Things are getting very hectic here in downtown Portland. I gatecrashed year 10/12 formal celebrations last night and annoyed all and sundry by taking pictures. Will upload some to facebook tomorrow. I was supposed to go to library Christmas tea at the Talisman tonight but sat on loungechair and fell sound asleep. Didn't wake up till Terry got home from work and wondered why I was still at home. Too late then. There is lots to do and I don't feel like doing any of it - feeling very Bah Humbug at the moment. I am waiting for the mood to strike. It's hard to feel Christmassy when the weather is grey. After 3 whole days of stinking heat and hot wind we are back to normal drabness. Only to be expected because it is the 50th celebrations for the Pool tomorrow.

computer assignment

For my school computer assignment I have created a web page. It is fairly basic & there are a couple of things I need to work on but here is the link if anyone wants to look at it.
http://www.geocities.com/krazykat_aus/mypage.html

I'm still here

I haven't posted since August - where did the time go? Despite a sunny start to spring true natives of Portland were not fooled or surprised by the fact that it snowed today. The footy season is over and it was a successful one for the Portland Colts winning the grand final against Oberon. If anyone wants to look at pictures then check out facebook

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2003221&l=0b292&id=1434905115
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2003223&l=c6b95&id=1434905115
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2003220&l=012d2&id=1434905115
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2003217&l=8474d&id=1434905115

I will try to post more but it seems as though I am the only one reading this lol.

time flies

I received a certificate for finishing Learning 2. I was beginning to think that I had not actually finished the course or had missed some vital part of it, but our main library had the certificates and called Di and I in to have a little presentation and have our photo taken. Very nice. It is some time since I posted but here I am at last. Work is busy as usual and on the fifth of September I will be going to our 2 local schools to judge their book week character parades. I am off work for a week as I will not be able to have bulk time off because my relief worker is heading for Europe for 2 months. Lucky girl. Well I must go and do some housework as I promised not to waste the time off. I may head for Canberra later in the week for a couple of days.

The End of Learning 2.0

No I don't think so - I might even do it all over again just to review what I have done. There are so many things I only just touched on that I will continue to explore for a long while to come. I will be looking for ideas to incorporate into the small branch I work at and I would like to introduce customers to things such as online applications because I can see great possibilities there. I might even be able to offer discovery tours (online) to wonderful museums and libraries and their resources.

more about social networking

I was very impressed with the museums and their presentations of their collections and services. The Boston Museum of Contemporary Art is excellent and I really like the fact that people are encouraged to upload their photos of the museum and exhibits to flickr and share them with everyone. It truly makes the people feel that the museum belongs to all of them.There was so much information on some of the sites it is hard to know where to begin. There were Friends of libraries donations guidelines, codes of practice, advertising of services by libraries like Renfrewshire and so much more. Every site had many ideas that could be adapted by other libraries whatever their size. The British library was on Facebook but I was more impressed with Rotorua Library which used Bebo.
The Coshocton Public Library has a very specific club for animanga and I imagine that this use really appeals to young people. Not only do they target a specific group of customers but they use a medium that is particularly appealing to younger people to contact them and advertise activities etc. They offer information about meeting times and times for such things as drawing workshops etc.
Libraries (no matter how small) could use social networking to reach a much larger group of clients, in particular young, computer savvy customers. In our small library group (main & 2 branches) there are large numbers of people that are not being reached by what we are currently offering and it would be good to expand our advertising of services etc to explore whether that would increase patronage. There are author interviews available, book reviews, ideas for games and contests, and it would be an ideal way to keep up with trends in other libraries. A more modern approach hopefully would interest younger users and help them get past the idea that libraries are just for reading books or doing homework. On the other hand lots of older people are not even aware that libraries offer more than books and are missing out on opportunities to learn to use technology in a meaningful way. The occasional introductory computer class could be expanded to cover such things as social networking, blogs, flickr, youtube, online applications, podcasts etc. I had no real idea of the vast resources available and have enjoyed challenging myself to go beyond the boundaries of the way I normally use computers. I feel that I would like to offer small classes at the branch I work at to cover individual topics like flickr etc. Time constraints are always a problem in a one staff member branch but small windows of opportunity exist and have to be made use of more efficiently in order to reach more people.

week 12

I have passed on the web address to the free commoncraft presentations to a couple of teachers at the local school. I am doing a computer course via the school and the department of education's server blocks lots of sites even though they are harmless. The commoncraft videos actually work, so the teachers can use them for ordinary school computer classes as well.
I have enjoyed looking at this weeks subjects.
to be continued

online applications

Well, you just can't trust computers. I made a slide presentation in both google docs and zoho and after trying to save zoho and thinking I had failed and lost my 2 slides, I checked today and there it is as large as life. Beats me why it said it couldn't save. I had no trouble with google docs - it uploaded a picture that failed to upload on zoho (even though I had pared the size down drastically from the original). I liked the prettiness of zoho but google docs is very functional and user friendly. I was totally unaware of all the applications available online. I will be encouraging customers to use things like google docs as out of 5 public internet access computers in my small branch there are only 3 with office capabilities. I find that there is a heavy demand for the best performing computer and once a customer has backed up their work to the hard drive then that is the computer that they want each time they come to the library. Using online apps will mean an end to that heavy demand and make all computers useful for work processing, presentations etc. It will also mean that customers can go to any of the 3 libraries in our system and be able to access their work anywhere. Our libraries have a very restricted budget and can't run to expensive computer application programs for all our computers so this is a way of customers not missing out on any features without the cost to us. For children it will mean that they can collaborate on assignments by sharing docs and that they can all contribute at different times from either the library or at home. If one child forgets to come to the library at an appointed time then another child has access to the work already done. I will be exploring these online applications further to better inform the customers of what is available.

catch up notes

week 7 - Technorati search for bookmobile resulted in 527 answers. A search in advanced for all the words had 293 responses, 323 answers for at least one of the words and exact phrase had 689. A search for nswpln2008 returned 1 answer initially over a week ago but 8 blogs tonight. There are more than 22 pages of photos from the search.

week 9 - podcasts was a very interesting topic. I have been listening to podcasts for ages through a couple of yahoo groups I belong to but hadn't really explored the wealth of other things available. I listened to a lecture from Stanford university on Hannibal the early years (will return and listen to the other parts of the lecture). This lecture must have been recorded in mono sound as it only came through one side of my headphones while all the other things I listened to were in stereo. I had only html script or something on some of the links which probably meant that I didn't have the correct program to open it. I had better luck at home as Itunes is installed on it but not at work. The library wiki had so much on it. There were online catalogues, local author interviews, staff training, broadcasts for booklovers groups and such things as poet Sandra Beauchamp reading and discussing her poetry. Ohio University had numerous podcasts (52x1 minute episodes) on all aspects of their services such as hours of opening, how many volumes etc. The British Library podcasts were initially hard to figure out. Most of the initial podcasts used windows media but Itunes came into play with the British Library and I had never used it before. I only had it installed because my sons use my computer when they are home. After a few false starts I worked some things out and listened to a fascinating recording of Graham Greene discussing books based on his films. I listened to some of a podcast on Birds of Madagascar which had a sample of sounds and a review of the recording which was available through the library. I also listened to one lecture (48 minutes) on old English poetry - fascinating. There are about 10 other lectures by this professor available and I will eventually catch up with them all as well as some other ones that I saw on the lists that looked good. I think I may be too scared to do a search via yahoo podcasts !! (As if I need to spend even more time on the computer than I do now lol).
I can see numerous applications for using podcasts in the library (staff meetings where everyone can hear exactly what has been discussed, training sessions, book reviews etc) but I think that I would like to hold podcast search sessions for customers so that they can be introduced to this wonderful resource. Listening to an author discuss their own book in their own words (like Graham Greene) is an experience not to be missed. I think that it would be an excellent idea for the local/family history group who work in conjunction with our local library to explore the idea of recording senior citizens and podcasting their stories for everyone to hear. (oral history has not been much utilised in our local area and we are losing too many of our older residents whose stories are untold)

what about week 9

hey I wanted to play with mashups so I skipped week 9 but will complete it in the next day or 2.
mashups are fun !

here is a link to my version of a trading card game card - based on a Magic card & yes she's my relief worker and she's definitely Magic

http://flickr.com/photos/krazykat_aus/2451580367/?addedcomment=1#comment72157604792984536

better quit now as it's 2.15 am and I have to go to work today

week 8 - slamming the boards

well, maybe I looked at the wrong sites for examples of questions (wikianswers and yahoo 7). I'm afraid I put most of the questions from these 2 sites in the same category as chat sites. An almost total waste of time. (Only time I went on chat forum it was full of computer speak 'where u from, asl etc' same thing over and over. I have observed children in my little branch library lie about everything in order to disguise their real age etc so I don't feel that you would have any confidence in anything that was said. I did answer a question from each of these 2 sites ' a flower starting with a' and the name of an athlete starting with 'u'. It amazes me that instead of typing questions into the search engine, that anyone would waste their time posting a frivolous question to a question board (example 'What is the best excersice to get a 2 pack stomach?' and 'How much money will you need for a trip across the US? ' or even 'How do you get phone numbers from boys?' or' Dog breads that start with the letter U?' or ' What is the structure of tetraiodobistriphenylphosphinetinIV? ' or Is David Beckham Happy in The USA?'. I thought that the librarians wiki was interesting but they must have searched really hard to find decent questions to answer. A better use of time would be to teach people better search techniques so that they can do research for themselves.
I think that it would be good to have a non technical version in the local library. A corkboard and blank cards where questions of interest can be posted along with their answers (subject to a moderator vetting posted questions) could provide a whimsical note of interest. When the librarians find an answer in a book, that book could be featured.

week 7 - Tagging, folksonomies, del.icio.us & LibraryThing

Just a short post will add more tomorrow as I left my notes at work (not that I had time to do anything at work - but I took the notes out of my wallet and sat them on my counter and that was it). Just added a widget for librarything search and a link to my librarything catalogue. Tried to add the widget yesterday but it didn't work. I must have clicked on the right thing today as it is there now. Maybe I am learning things! My school computer course is progressing well, although I didn't get anything done in the school holidays because I was concentrating on my library computer course lol. It took what little spare time I had to work my way through week 7. It seems as though week 8 will not be as taxing. Just as well because now my brother in law (B-I-L) is in hospital as well and has traded places with M-I-L. She has come back to Lithgow hospital and B-I-L is has gone to intensive care at Nepean. They literally traded places in the ambulance.

testing 123 -

just thought the plain old text was a bit bland & having been inspired by Di - here is my attempt at something different -

except that the image uploader is having problems and therefore there is no added picture.

Here is the link to my delicious account http://del.icio.us/krazykat_aus
I uploaded my favourites from my computer and deleted generic Windows links etc until it was just my own faves. I bundle tagged Family history links which were all in a sub folder in my favourites and created a new bundle for Taekwondo topics.

I have been exploring delicious tonight. I've set up an account and exported and edited my favourites from my computer onto delicious. I have tagged a couple of taekwondo sites and set up 2 bundles. I think creating a link tonight is a bit much lol. It is 1 am and I am going to visit MIL in Nepean in the morning so that is enough homework for now. She has had what amounts to an artificial shoulder joint replacement as the damage to her arm was too great to heal on it's own. I will be in Kingswood Thursday, Ingleburn Friday for my daughter's birthday and Dapto Saturday for a memorial service for my Aunty Heather. In between I will be returning to home with 2 or 3 hours travelling time each way. Last Sunday was my oldest son's birthday and Tuesday was my niece's birthday. Thursday is also my sister's 32nd wedding anniversary (she got married the same year as I did) - hope I remember to ring her. My colleague/friend Di has been playing with mashups and I hope to catch up to her soon as it looks like a ton of fun.

week 6 videos

It's taken me a while to get to this but only because I have had absolutely no spare time. Last Wednesday my M-I-L fell and broke her humerus just below the ball socket on her right (dominant arm). She is 88 and waiting at Nepean for the go ahead for an op to pin it in place (or risk losing the use of the arm)
I enjoyed using youtube and google video. I have been using youtube for some time but not in any organised way - mainly when my sons recommend some funny sites to look at. The CNNN crew have some verrry interrresting questions that they asked Americans (such as name a country starting with the letter U). I have had very little use of Google videos and will admit to only just using the Google images feature (I am now a convert to images). I usually use a search engine called anzwers.com.au at work rather than Google. Had a look at all the places such as Kogarah that were recommended in the week 6 blurb. Beats me why someone would put a video of Haseeb from Kogarah (vacuuming) on the site but I may have missed the joke as the language spoken was not English. I enjoyed such videos as Olive Riley returns to Broken Hill and the book reviews by some of the kids. Some of the puppet videos were bland - too much of the puppet movements were the same thing over and over. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to a couple of author presentations from Mosman and will undoubtedly return and watch some more. I watched half Tim Bowden's talk and all of Peter Moore's talk. I have been a fan of Peter's since reading Vroom with a View. I would dearly love to emulate him and ride a Vespa throughout the countryside but instead of Italy/Tuscany I would love to explore more of Australia that way.
I have embedded a video of OK Go on their treadmills - very clever. I have edited twice because I tried ticking a box for most watched videos and the featured thumbnails of the top 4 videos keep changing. I may be doing this incorrectly but will keep playing with it until it does what I want.
I can see a use for video clips of such things as staff training and perhaps it would be good to present clips of the mini exhibitions that are held in the local history section of the main library. Book reviews would be ok but it would be easier given our limited time & resources to simply link to reviews produced by other libraries. If our library had a blog then featuring links or embedding videos would be a most useful tool.

my contribution to learning 2 wiki

I edited a page by adding a little story about a mouse in the 100 year old building that I work in. It is on a page that was added by someone else and is titled animals in the library. I am pleased to see that others have had interesting animals visit them in their libraries as I was feeling very country cousin. It is great to read of other's experiences and makes me feel more a part of a community of library staff who all experience such different things.

wikis

I edited some typos in a wiki about the town I live and work in. Added some capital letters where needed. I found the Montana history wiki very interesting. There are only 9 disasters listed for Montana and in comparison to some of the American disasters that have made the news in the last couple of years they seem not quite on the same monumental scale, although I'm sure bad enough for the people involved. I enjoyed reading about things such as the 1st automobile in Butte, the first electric light and the cost of the first typewriter ($235 in 1885).
The book lovers wiki was most interesting and a good resource for reading book reviews - I've already discovered a couple of books I'd like to read. The Library Success wiki was a source of some great ideas for Adult Programming - and I especially liked the idea for the Cookie Swap/Tasting with a prize of a $20 gift voucher from a local bakery for the winner of best cookie (the winner of the best choc chip cookie's secret ingredient was bourbon!!). Other ideas were an altered book workshop (something to do with all those leftover unsold book fair books!), selling your library, technology, services for specific groups and access to links for training.
I can see benefits to having a closed wiki (with passworded access for staff) to allow access to training data and standard operating instructions and policies etc. Our library has 2 separate drives on their server with all sorts of documents on but they are not accessible to branch library staff. A wiki on someone else's server would get around those access problems really well and allow acess at any time not just when in the main library.

links from rss feeds

Well I have been exploring some of my rss feeds. I have deleted some that I initially had. I actually subscribed to them by category rather than individual sites and some were just a waste of space. I can see benefits to some libraries who have the time to devote to maintaining relevance, but in a small one person branch there just never seems to be enough time. I will probably search out some sites which will keep me in touch with library doings and which I can check out at home. Small branches tend to be a little isolating and insular. I regularly keep in touch with my co branch worker at Wang library and more recently we both work one shift a week at our main library which allows us to be more in touch with stock, staff and all other comings and goings.
I am finding that coming out of my computer comfort zone is generating lots of ideas. As well as Learning 2.0 I am studying computers at our local high school. I have finished yr 11 and am currently working on yr 12 and computers for business studies.

The links below are from 2 of my rss feeds and I'm sure I'll find lots more. Check out the talent on the envelopes on the 1st link.

http://chronicle.com/free/v54/i26/26b01401.htm - this link is to a very interesting 'back-of-the-envelope' contest for a George W Bush library - some very clever 'tongue-in-cheek' entries.

http://13c4.wordpress.com/2007/02/24/50-reasons-not-to-change/ - an interesting word document using callouts with 50 reasons not to change

happy easter

it seems a while since I last posted. I had trouble finding time and concentration for week 4 (rss feeds) and I promised myself I'd look at it this weekend. I actually started week 5 (wikis) without finishing week 4 so I hope that as long as all weeks are completed by the end that it doesn't matter if they are done slightly out of order. The easter weekend is flying by and it's Sunday already. I have both my boys home (1 from Canberra and the other just back from 2 years in Canada). I will go to Campbelltown on Monday to visit my daughter and that's the end of the weekend. Tuesday night is my school computer class as well. I have finished Year 11 computers and am currently working on Year 12 as well as Computers for business. Hope to find more time this week for homework, but I doubt it lol.

bike flip

awkward moment - bike crash caught in action shot
http://www.flickr.com/photos/charliel/290496276/

glad it wasn't one of my kids

flickr possum link

Hope this works - here is a link to one of my flickr photos of a possum on top of my bookshelf at home. He came in through the cat door looking for a way back into the roof of our house.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/krazykat_aus/2307781880/

krazykat

I have uploaded an image of my cat (Krazykat). As you can see he has a tale to tell. The short version is that he got up inside the motor of my 4wd Maverick on a cold winter's day. A nasty sounding crunch and a trip to the vet resulted in half a tail. I use his name as my online persona because it's easy to remember. I had to resize the image as the first time I tried it was too large and took too much time. My camera saves images at 10 megapixels so I used paint and reduced the image until it was only 167 kb in size.

Last night for leap year some of the staff from our regional library met for dinner at our local Chinese restaurant and followed that up with a visit to the Portland Art Purchase Show. There were some interesting works on display, with the trend of recent years being towards realism. Previous years had a fair proportion of abstract works, but in a small country town the realistic works obviously sell better.

unknown terrirtory

Well - my first post to a blog. Despite working with computers all day in the branch library and working my way through year 11 computers at a night class last year, as well as having just updated my personal computer at home - I've managed to avoid almost all things like blogs, facebook, myspace etc lol. I am an avid user of skype (1 child in Canada for 2 years, 1 at Campbelltown and the 3rd in Canberra) meant that unless I used skype my phone bills would be awfully expensive. I have managed to cut my quarterly landline/mobile combination accounts by $100 per bill. I had a brief experience with myspace when a cousin posted photos of her 6 month work stint in Canada on myspace. I was able to capture her photos and print them off for my 88 year old mother in law.
I watched Stephen Fry with interest, but because I had just watched a whole dvd of 'A little bit of Fry & Laurie' I found it hard to concentrate on the more serious nature of his chat. I kept looking for the underlying humour and not finding it. As Stephen said it's fantastic to be able recapture lost episodes of tv shows and fill in the gaps. It's amazing how we remember all these years later missing out on a particular part of a show. We missed out on a lot of shows because we had only the abc and one local channel. We read the tv show guides and really wanted to watch some of the shows we saw advertised in the Sydney region.

that's it for now
bye