davidfleggsunanonymousnocutenameblog

#18 Final thoughts

2007-11-30T22:37:00.000-08:00

I was a bit skeptical at the start but though the whole experience I have learned about some of the new technologies that are out there.

Some have little or no bearing on what I do at the moment, some do not necessarily float my boat but others do interest me and I have already incorporated them into both my professional and personal life.

What is good is that I know about them and if circumstances change or I want to embark on something I will be aware of additional resources that may be useful.

I will also be aware of many of these new technologies if a user of the library drops them into a question.

Overall it has been a worthwhile experience and one that I may not have undertaken were it not for the Learning 2.0 exercises.

#17 Library 2.0

2007-11-28T23:16:00.000-08:00

It seems to me that Library 2.0 is just the next step on the technology evolution trail. Libraries have embraced technology - albeit sometimes slowly - from Gutenburg's Day on and will no doubt take this latest change on board and adapt it to its best devices.

Already those energetic go-getting librarians are leading the way with great adaptations and thinking, theorising, postulating and letting us all know their thoughts (well, those who read library related blogs anyway)

We are about information, collecting it, organising it, disseminating it and preserving it. Library 2.0 is just another way of going about it. It provides advantages, challenges and opportunities as every other change has.

The world will go on (for a while anyway), Web/Lib 2.0 will morph into the next big thing (and we will probably all lose our Flickr photographs) and we will all adjust to that and move on....

the more things change the more they stay the same....

#16 Podcasts

2007-11-27T20:25:00.000-08:00

Love my ACC country countdown pod cast with Kix Brooks every week... too bad the whole thing isn't on...

LOC has some great podcasts.. recently Ken Burns spoke at the national book festival on his new work... I really like the way LOC have done things with webcasts etc... great way to get the word out about what they do their building etc...

#15 You tube et al

2007-11-26T19:37:00.000-08:00

Teacher tube is excellent... I finally understand the theory of relativity (http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=e619d49b8e0dfdc14aff)

Perhaps we need to post some how to use the SLV or SLV marketing here..might get through to a different audience..

You tube is terrific.. you can relive your youth (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3wzV7rGVwM&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UydKeV26SbM) ... watch your friends misfortune (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PovwSJ6CIQ) ....

or program your own country music TV program...

#14 Web 2.0 Awards

2007-11-25T22:34:00.000-08:00

More evidence of lots of creative people.

Love the stuff that individualises your web site. Thought I would use a widget to add my favourite music videos to the blog but none of those on offer did quite what I wanted - one specific video only that I can change easily at leisure.

Turns out Blogger provides just what I wanted as a page element so I decided to use that. Neat.

#13 Technology

2007-11-21T21:21:00.000-08:00

Mostly I like technology in the library.

I like the access to a vast range of information it gives to people so that they can follow their interests. On-line CD-ROMS, books, microform allow the vast range of human knowlege to be transmitted.

At times I find the contents ghastly, vastly uninteresting and simply wonder how or why some of the people who vegetate in front of screens watching You tube all day and chatting but then I realise that they would probably think the same about me and my interests... anyway it is just an extension of what we did (and still do) with books anyhow....

The flexibility that keyword searching has bought to reference work is perhaps the greatest boon... remember looking up the printed journal indexes. Only 1 or 2 access points inability to combine concepts...

Speedy communications with researchers and resources over vast distances is also fantastic whether by chat, or telephone or e-mail....

At the moment I don't see a whole lot of use for much of the Web 2.0 advances (!) in reference work (ie what I do) however in other aspects of the library such as education, marketing and promotion. It might be of particular use in the public library environment.

Tagging though, and its applications within library catalogues and the like that allow for additional pathways to information is a useful reference work 2.0 application.

#12 Whistle at war - published via Zoho

2007-11-20T22:15:00.000-08:00

Posted via Zoho writer - very clever - just like using the real thing. Opened from USB device (even recognised the highlighter) did some editing and published.

Great if you don't have access to a word processor but do have access to the WWW. But, really where in the world would EVER have a combination like that!!!!

Whistle at war

When Umpires’ Association members in the armed forces corresponded with Lindsay Lancaster during the Second World War inevitably in their letter they made the point that, due to censorship restrictions, they were unable to give much detail about where they were and what they were doing militarily. In fact one letter from Ken Creighton (B) must have crossed the line as a paragraph has been neatly cut out by the censor.What they could convey though was their general conditions and, more particularly their umpiring experiences.

#11 Three clicks and the randomness of flesh

2007-11-15T22:11:00.000-08:00

I love the randomness of the random 'third party Flickr' applications.

Every random selection I tried (that produced more than 1 image per page) I found naked or swim-suit clad flesh after not more than three consecutive clicks - boys and girls so there is something for all tastes :-).

Of course thats not to mention 'Girls on Flickr' which contains many less 'racy' images. It was number 3 on the list of applications so why go further.

Quite clever and obviously using the tagging facilities of Flickr which can lead to some interesting images being retrieved as female.

Better though was the Web 2.0 drinking game that I came across while investigating mash-ups. Check out http://blog.scifi.com/tech/archives/2006/09/28/shift_the_web_2_1.html

Image courtesy Matt Krueger......well not really but hopefully this acknowlegement will assuage any copyright enforcement tendencies.. Thanks Matt

#10 Disappointed... give it the Flick (r)

2007-11-13T21:24:00.000-08:00

Had a look through Flickr... some really great photography and images... managed to locate some material from one of the young goal umpires that might get mailed around to his embarrassment... still, if you put it up you must want people to see it!!!.. particularly your mates!!!!

Speaking of wanting people to see your stuff why would you put up out of focus, poorly composed work, no one wants to see that.

Great!! Found a photograph of my favourite piece of art on Flickr....Not so great, went to post it to my blog using the blogger tool but it seems this is not easily possible using the slvlearning account... oh well... thats OK... more than one way to cook a sausage... found a copy elsewhere and have posted it through the blog software... I like its simplicity, its clean lines and sense of forboding.. having said that it is much better to see it live and perhaps a photograph does not do it justice...

I like the way he took the mick out of art as well.. he was a great satirist... good article about him in NYT on 2003 if you are interested.

Rather than posting to Flickr I have posted some of my more recent photographs on my other blog /web site - click here

#9 57 channels and nothing on

2007-11-11T23:59:00.000-08:00

Popular.... sat in RB with scroller running... 15 mins monitoring.... 2 posts of interest to click on... bad luck for Britney.... still kids can be a drag....

Good to see our blogs are being picked up....

Guessed incorrectly about what WTF meant... thought it might have stood for 'What the [expletive deleted]' but 'where's the fire' is just as nifty I suppose......

Apparently October 4 is International Bloggers Day for Burma.. I was encouraged to vote for a free Burma. Thought that was a good deal so I did... hopefully I will receive mine in the post soon (no pun intended)...

Claimed my blog (well at least I claim it is a blog).... set up some Watchlists... you never know... cast your net wide they say!!!

Added a cute little green button at the bottom for any tragics that want to make me a favourite.

#8 TAG, you're it

2007-11-07T23:26:00.000-08:00

Dear diary,
Visited delicious today...very tasty.....

The more complex your needs or the more sites you visit regularly the more useful it would be.

Would be good resource for Invisible web site organisation rather than sites that are subject to open search engines.

Now that I have an account I will use it for any interesting IWS I come across. Regulation bookmarks and JIT searching will suffice for other needs.

#7 Getting a meal

2007-11-05T17:17:00.000-08:00

News flash... there is an awful lot of cr*p on the WWW version 1.0, version 2.0 or version 3.0 with sprinkles... and a lot of people duplicating text by posting whole articles from news sites on their blogs... why not just make a link, people might be interested on other things at the source site anyway....

Using an RSS feed search tool just gives you a series of possibly interesting articles on blogs etc but an individual blogger may rant and range over multiple topics

What I find more useful is Google Alerts search which runs a specific search each day or week over news, blogs etc and then e-mails me any changes ie new news which I can then link to for my other blogs. I target specific news eg umpires and football, umpires and VFL, digital reference, MFHDs etc. from a huge range of sources.

Topix offers this as well (without the e-mail) and I have set up an RSS feed for digital reference

At the start of the 2006 football season I created an account on Ebsco host and have it do the same thing each week across that database. Saves scanning the papers and journals, easy to get bib. data for citations, great way to summarise the news.

#6 Pain in the RSS

2007-11-04T23:16:00.000-08:00

Prior to this exercise I subscribed to the following feeds

Cricinfo, afl.com.au

Mega sites just to keep up with the sports I am intersted in and possible stories to link to on the blogs/websites I maintain.

Victorian Football Umpires Association and Williamstown CYMS CC

Feed from sites I run so that I know things are working

Australian War Memorial - Employment

I am waiting for that 12 month job at my second favourite research institution

Nevertheless I have subscribed to the Ex-libris RSS feeds to keep right up to date with Voyager news (that's the ILMS not the spacecraft although.......),

#5 Playing around with your wiki (and not going blind)

2007-10-29T22:43:00.000-07:00

Wow ! That was easy. Added a page to the SLV AID wiki about docx conversion.

#4 Wikis

2007-10-22T22:14:00.000-07:00

Interesting to note St.Joseph's County has a population of 266,431 and their public library wiki has 84 000 hits on their subject guide since 2005. Most of them probably from AID bloggers in the last 6 months.

Because it is so easy to update it does keep things fresh and indulges staff specialities that might not normally gain free expression.

Of course as the victim of pirated (non-library related) information that has turned up in various wikis in various formats I can attest to the ease with which information can be transferred from source to source. Is this information constantly updated when the original source changes - seemingly not.

At least with library wikis referencing and order and content control leads to confidence.

Annual leave

2007-10-02T21:08:00.000-07:00

I will be on annual leave until 28 October.

See you then