#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!!