#23 Summary

"Fireworks" by Magdzia s (from Flickr)

Well I never quite thought I'd get here when I first started this journey!

Venturing off into cyberspace was a bit scary at first, particularly the whole idea of having to keep an online diary in the form of a blog. Never having been a diary type of person, and particularly the idea that anything I publish on my blog is open for others to view, caused me a bit of concern to start with. However I think I've got used to blogging now.

Some of my favourite activities were signing up with LibraryThing and creating my own library catalogue of favourite titles, and also Bloglines. Finding the time to keep checking for my latest RSS feeds will probably be a bit hard in future, but I'll definitely try to make time to check my favourite one which comes from a blog called Dessertaholic! (Some really luscious recipes keep appearing so it was definitely worth finding). Even dinosaurs need to eat dessert sometimes!!

I think the program has been good from a lifelong learning point of view as it has definitely pushed me way out of my comfort zone with technology/Internet use, and exposed me to lots of new concepts that I had no idea even existed on the Web.

It has also improved my internet skills, such as adding hyperlinks to my blogs, adding images, etc. I guess the only difficulty I had was sometimes finding the time to work through the program, as I sometimes felt I needed more than our allocated time to fully understand some of the different activities.

I'm not sure whether I'll continue to blog, as I may not have anything much to blog about in future, but who knows-stay tuned for future musings of Techno-dinosaur!

#22 Downloadable audio books

"Audiobooks" by Redwood City Public Library (from Flickr)

Seems like this may be the way of the future for lots of libraries. I had a look at both 'NetLibrary' and 'Overdrive' and this new technology seems like a good idea, allowing customers to access audiobooks to listen to on their MP3 players, PC'S, etc.

Also had a browse around the 'World EBook Fair' site-interesting lists of Top 100 titles, and Top 100 authors, etc. Some of the items I selected however were obviously part of the subscription service, as access was denied to me to proceed any further.

I still think the standard audiobook formats currently held by the library will still be pretty popular for some time to come though.

#21 Podcasts

("Podcasts" by Taniwhaiti, from Flickr)

I have looked at the suggested Podcast directories, but haven't really had much success with this activity. Each time I've tried searching for a podcast of interest, the results listed won't actually play when selected. (Evidently they require extra software that we currently don't have installed, even though we have been able to listen to the Web 2.0 podcasts).

I didn't manage to even find a podcast that had the RSS feed icon listed, so that I could try to link it back to my blog. Perhaps I need to spend a bit more time familiarising myself with these sites.

#20 YouTube

YouTube certainly has some interesting videos-worth more time to browse.
Couldn't find any dinosaurs videos that I liked, so went with my next favourite topic of cats.
Thought the following video was kind of cute!

#19 Discovering web 2.0 tools

"Tools of the trade" by Mike Dahat (from Flickr)

Had a bit of a browse through the winners lists-really liked the travel site http://www.kayak.com/- think this could be useful for future holiday plans.
Also had a look at http://www.onesentence.org/ interesting items people have contributed.
I'm sure there is probably heaps of useful other winning sites which could be relevant from a library point of view, but ran out of time to check very many today.

#18 Zoho Writer

I had a bit of fun playing around creating a Zoho Writer account, and then using one of their templates I created a membership certificate for Techno-Dinosaur and the Web 2.0 Learning program. Only problem was I got a bit lost trying to then figure out how to publish it to my blog. (I think I accidentally exported the template back to Zoho Writer, but I can't even find it there, so perhaps it's floating around in cyberspace somewhere!!)
Oh well, better luck next time.

#17 Sandbox Wiki

( "Sandbox Village #2" by Eric K) from Flickr
A colleague saved me a lot of mucking around, by running me through adding my blog to the Wiki. Apparently he had experienced problems earlier, but was able to show me how to do it very quickly and easily, so I really appreciated that.

It was interesting to have a quick flick around looking at people's favourite things, and I could probably spend a bit more time browsing later, but I'm a bit short of time today, so I just voted for my favourite animal-cows! (Lovely gentle creatures, who bat their long eyelashes at you, and enjoy the simple things in life like a paddock of green grass, some fresh hay or simply sitting in the sun chewing their cud).

#16 Wikis

Wikis seem like a good way of allowing people to create shared sites with common information that can constantly be updated and edited as required.
I really liked the SJCPL Subject Guides wiki-I think something along these lines is a great library resource. The fact that it had website links, library resources and direct links back to the library catalogue is really great-I also liked the book covers that were included, similar to LibraryThing.
I guess the main thing we need to remember is that anyone can edit the material on Wikis, so it may not always be authoritative.

#15 Library 2.0 & Web 2.0

Rapidly changing technology is certainly going to have major impacts on the traditional library services as we know them. While people are relying more heavily on online based resources, and some of the Library 2.0 links suggested that print-based collections will gradually decrease, I believe that a lot of people will still be looking for a good old-fashioned book to relax and enjoy. Taking your laptop to bed to read an e-book, doesn't quite have the same comforting feeling as curling up under the covers with a good book.

Perhaps the non fiction print resources may gradually decrease, in favour of online up to date research tools, but I think print based fiction and magazines will still have a place in most people's hearts. Taking your laptop to the beach isn't quite the same as a trashy romance paperback that a bit of sand in the cover won't hurt.

Even though young children of today are growing up with computers and online internet use, judging by the attendances at storytime sessions, lots of kids still enjoy reading picture books with their parents, and it is probably an important bonding time for them, which sharing a computer terminal just wouldn't be.

# 14 Technorati

An interesting site to browse around. I had a play with different search techniques as suggested in the discovery exercises, although several searches I tried must have been less popular blog topics, as they didn't return many useful results. The popular blogs were fun to browse through, and get a feel for the current favourite topics people enjoy blogging about.

#13 Del.icio.us

I found this site a bit confusing at first, to understand exactly what I was viewing in the way of bookmarks and tags. After watching the YouTube video, that explained this in a very clear, concise way and I think I now understand the concept better. Not sure that I'll actually go ahead at this stage and sign up for an account, but useful to keep in mind. Could come in handy from a research point of view later on.

'Inside-Out-German Chocolate Cake' by Ulterior epicure (from Flickr) Delicious!!

#12 Rollyo

A potentially useful search tool, to be able to customise some of the more commonly used sites into a handy ready reference tool. Still finding my way around the Rollyo site and related links, and will probably need more time to fully understand all of its benefits.

#11 Library Thing

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/Techno-dinosaur


This was very interesting to be able to create a catalogue of some of my favourite books, and I'm sure I'll add more down the track when time permits.
I like the way the catalogue displays on LibraryThing, with images of book covers which makes it more visually appealing.
One of my colleagues at work helped me with adding the hyperlink to my blog-it was pretty exciting to get it to actually work first time.
Who knows-I might end up with hyperlinks here, hyperlinks there, hyperlinks everywhere!

#10 Image Generators

There's nothing like advertising to the world how incompetent I'm starting to feel with some of this web 2.0 stuff!!

(courtesy of the image generator GlassGiant.com)

http://www.glassgiant.com

#9 Newsfeeds

It took me a while to find my way around the various RSS feed links. Ultimately I ended up searching for some cookery feeds via Bloglines, and found them the easiest to locate. Feedster was also interesting to look at. I found some of the other links listed a bit more confusing-the screen seemed very busy and hard to identify your results easily. I still don't feel that I really understand all the ins and outs of searching for feeds, but maybe a bit more practice will help.
(I found a great site about old chistmas pudding recipes, but managed to lose it while trying to subscribe!) Oh well, back to the standard pudding recipe for Christmas this year!!

#8 RSS Feeds

I'm still getting my heard around RSS feeds at present. After setting up my Bloglines newsreader account, I had a play and subscribed to the required number of feeds. I've since logged back in and browsed through some of the latest feeds-some interesting stuff.
I guess the news feeds would be a practical way of keeping up to the minute with world events for research purposes/customer assistance, although finding the time to log in and browse regularly may be a problem sometimes. Once more staff are familiar with this newer technology the ability to subscribe to shared feeds could be beneficial for information sharing.
I think it will still take me a little while to fully understand and utilise news feeds properly.

#7 Technology

Remember when...........
-Wireless......was the large cabinet in the corner of the loungeroom that the family gathered around to hear the latest world news.
-Chat Room.........a roomful of ladies catching up with the latest gossip over a cuppa and a sandwich
-Blackberry.........those luscious berries scavenged from roadsides and made into delicious jam
-Spam............something from a can that was used as a sandwich filling.

Mention these terms today and they have a completely different connotation related to technology. Even though I often feel like a complete dinosaur where technology is concerned these days (hence the blog name), whether we like it or not it has certainly had a big impact on life as we know it today. From my day to day work point of view, computers and the internet have probably had the biggest impact, allowing us as library staff to deal with customer queries, etc in a fast, professional way.
(Doesn't it feel strange when the computer software crashes, and we have to revert to pen and paper to record customer transactions!)

#6 Mashups, etc

I've explored the various links related to this activity, but I'm not really sure that I'm any the wiser as to exactly what these are! The wikipedia definition gave me some basic overview, but having looked at the various links, I still don't really understand what these are basically used for. Some seem to be game related, and others give mapping info, etc, while yet others seem to have lots of people's own personal photos and some blogging info.
Who knows, maybe it will make more sense after I continue with other activities in the weeks to come!

#5 Flickr

Well after lots of trial and error I finally managed to save this image of a Beanie Dinosaur By fimble, which I thought was kind of cute and found on Flickr.