Flickr and NZ 2.0

Interesting to see how National Library, Te Ara etc have a presence on Flickr while others NZ History net are going their own way it appears. There are advantages for piggybacking on the success of Flickr - the technology platform is already their so no need to develop afresh; users already have some familiarity with the Flickr interface which can only add to its appeal and usage. I quite like the upfront approach by Te Ara - it's presence on Flickr is stated loud and clear - the link to the Te Ara flickr page is on the Te Ara homepage.

social networking (again)

Continue to have my doubts about the usefulness and relevance of social networking especially for public libraries. The impression that sticks is that a lot of people join and then lose interest and their involvement drops off.

Social networking - Facebook

Created a Facebook account - easily done, no real issues to report. Disappointed with the search features for finding groups. Gives the ability to browse broad categories or do a simple keyword search but it is difficult to refine searches. Joined several groups - Library 2.0 was one of the groups I attached myself to - had hoped to find some interesting gems but sadly it was a rather underwhelming experience: recent posts on the discussion board included an open invite to a workshop in Oklaholma and a link to a full text article on Library 2.0/ Web 2.0 in Arabic.

RSS feeds

Finding it interesting about the varying rates of success I've had in subscribing to RSS feeds from different sites. Metacritic (one of my all time faves for music, movie and tv reviews) provides RSS feeds for each category - you don't even have to leave the Metacritic site when you are doing this for Google reader. Really Simple Subscribing. Didn't have too much success using the RSS feeds available on some of the Premium databases or websites on the CCL website.. Ebsco, OED, Press Display... none of the feeds were accepted by the Google reader.

If anyone can tell me how to change the time setting for the posts I'd be most grateful.

RSS Feeds

I think its great that CCL has embraced RSS - its so useful for subscribing to new titles feeds. I'm looking forward to how CCL creates new RSS feeds - lots of potential for development.

Colr Pickr

Colr pickr is an interesting application ... allows you to click a colour from a wide colour spectrum and images from Flickr are retrieved which are predominately in that colour hue. On the downside you can't keyword search.

Colour my library

New library
Originally uploaded by Craft & Creativity

Some pictures just don't require words...

and here's my screenshot of my netvibes page - complete with widgets reflecting some of my interests

Gridlock

Haven't been able to make much progress. Netvibes keeps on freezing on me at various stages. Wasted a lot of time trying to log in etc...

Widgets and Gadgets

Impression #1: There really is an astonishing range of widgets and gadgets - far more than I ever imagined!

I think the Librarything widget has great potential - imagine if this could be embedded into the library catalogue in some form. Customers could add comments to items held which I think many of our customers would love.

University of Auckland Library catalogue search didn't work for me - my patience ran out after about a minute of waiting for results to appear. Blame it on the weather?

Had a quick look at the University of Texas library widgets - many of these would likely appeal to students for research projects.

Backgrounder

and just in case you wanted more information about Beaker ...

Welcome!!!

Welcome to the library toolbox! The library toolbox will show you a range of information tools that you may find useful when helping customers with information needs.

But lets not get too serious... occasionally I'll be throwing in the odd thing or two which has nothing to do with the above just because I find it amusing. Like this for example.