SMacQ's

SJ's Personal Rant

2010-05-29T18:02:00.000-07:00

SJ's Personal Rant
Once upon a time books were chained to the shelves of libraries and only the select few were able to view them .Librarians held the key to the book and to finding the3 right book. Now we live in an age where information surrounds us and shapes our very being. Libraries still hold the key to that information, through the training of the staff and the social networks created around their spaces , both digital and physical. The key help by libraries no longer opens a few hundred books . but billions of bits of information. The chain is no longer on the book , but is on the knowledge of how to find the right information to suit the purpose.
May the Google-fu be with you.

Facebook

2010-05-29T16:48:00.000-07:00

Have been on facebook for a LONG time. Find it a good way to keep in touch with friends and family I would otherwise only contact on my rare occasion of motivation. Also an addicted to some of the stupid games like Hatchlings. One of the things I love is the range of people and groups you can friend. Some of my friends have some fantastic discussions through their facebook ( e.g. Dylan Horrocks) others share little things, the type of things friends talk about. other times it is just the silly posts and prizes from the different games. As far as Privacy goes . there are things I post and things I don't . If photo's are posted I seldom attach tags . Those to whom such photo's are important will know.
Manukau Libraries on Facebook.. Well Yeah!!!!!! I said before that there were some friends and groups I follow more than others. and a lot of it is to do with what I am interested in. For people who love books , what bettr friend to have than a library. The chance to share and be part of a local reading community. As we become more digitized in society , social network sites are becoming a greater part of our lives. We find andf make friends with similar interests from all over the world. how wonderful to have the opportunity to find people with the same interests in our own city. To know what other people are reading and have enjoyed. This is much more casual than doing book reviews for my library, and promotes open and friendly discussion . I really enjoyed sharing these things and loved reading what others are doing.
Search for Libraries and the results are massive. This is fantastic . I even found a little gem
http://www.facebook.com/geekthelibrary . It is good to see Rodney and Dunedin were right at the very top if my search results. Went to Christchurch's facebook page .. and found they had only one person who 'liked' it :(

Music and Open source and schtuff

2010-05-29T16:06:00.000-07:00

Well the range of sites offering free MP3's is huge . I looked at most of them and each was different . Some I found visually confusing and others were easily navigated. I liked the layout of ArtistServer.com finding it easy to navigate . But the selection was extremely limited. ( 1 children's song) http://betterpropaganda.com had a newsletter format that I found confusing( must be my calcifying brain) . http://www.ez-tracks.com/ seemed to be the one that I felt would have the best appeal to our young people , as it had more modern music. I seemed easy to navigate . But the one that caught my attention was http://freealbums.blogsome.com/.... Classical music galore alternative , Jazz hmmm. Not the easiest to initially navigate , I found myself ready to get lost in here for ages .... well actually I did, managing to find some wonderful little gems that I now have hidden away. Garage band , Jamendo and CC mixer looked interesting but I did not look too hard . Fantastic was for artists to share their music . Last FM was not found . MP3.com did not load . and when it finally did the login and password , put me off too much further exploration as I had already used my time in exploring freealbums. maybe on another day.
MM this was a great exercise and I discovered a cache of some real gems. Most of the sites seemed to offer a range of music , much of it not found in other places. The range and variety shows that Open source can really work. Unfortunately , the music that most of the customers I know want is not open source, and human modern human nature means they want it free and they demand it now . But I digress and am getting dragged aside by the copyright issues.

MP3's are available free. there is a fantastic range. Each of these sites had a bountiful offereing and all were aimed at perhaps different audiences. I found the home page of each site was the key to what drew me in. Was it easy and was it clear. if it wasn't I immediately moved on to the next .. I think that has got to be the key to website design. If it doesn't catch you immediately then you have lost the patron in the first few seconds. If it takes too long to load , again I move on .

Gorgeous Goodreads

2010-05-14T19:37:00.000-07:00

Wow.. I am completely blown away. I have been on Social network sites such as Facebook for quite a while , BUT this is mind blowing . Books , Books and more Books. Book reviews , book suggestions, Book discussion ...... Book Heaven. Was fantastic just to look through some of the lists and see what I have and havn't read . Soo many Books!!
This is fantastic readers advisory tool . This site is a must for everyone into Books . Finding reviews about obscure books I read ages ago.
Simple to use , You don't have to give heaps of personal information so I felt quite secure with what I shared, and who doesn't like to share those little reading gems with others.
Hmm what book list do I want to look at now ...

Twittering Tweets .. two

2010-05-12T17:35:00.000-07:00

Well managed to post my first Tweet. excellent way to get up to date things , especially good for events if there are any last minute changes ( e.g time or date , weather etc.) Have managed to find a surprising number of people on this ... I know what you did last weekend ...
Although I am quite sure I want people to know that my kitten is trying to surgically implant himself in my leg at this very second.

Twittering Tweets

2010-05-11T23:06:00.000-07:00

Have just signed up for Twitter. Looks like fun to explore. but I think it is going to take me more than the few minutes at the end of the day to look around. Wow there are all sorts of things to find here. Well I am off to play , will report back when I have tweeted.

Zipping and Zapping through Zamzar

2010-05-10T21:54:00.000-07:00

Well after several Failed attempts I finally managed to get Zamzar to work. Woohoo. I was really simple to use once it actually loaded. I had 2 attempts on the Learn.net and one attempt on a work pc with no success. But today.. it took next to no time.
Very simple to use . just follow the instructions. Very user friendly.
The uses for this application are wide and varied. Particularly for documents formatted on a different version of Word , or pictures that need to be saved to a different format for emailing.
Cons: Well I had to have several attempts to get this going. It seems to work better at log lag times and is difficult at peak times. I found this really frustrating when I had limited time. It emails the document , which means that patrons have to a) have an email account andb) pay to access their ermail account.

The verdict: Yes I would use this and yes I would recommend it to patron, but I would also advise that it can be slow . It would be perfect for someone who was formatting a doc to email.

Web 2.0 2010 - The Adventure Continues

2010-04-19T19:11:00.000-07:00

Well back again for 2010.
Hoping to get is all finished this time.
Expectations - That I will finish this time . That the resources used will be of relevence to the library ... or our patrons.
Fears - Not having enough time to be able to complete activities. Not being able to actually access resources at work due to council restrictions.
Uses for Blogs - record thoughts and feelings, advertise events, promoting discussions regarding opinions and viewpoints over different books /resources. Book reviews. Newsletter. keeping in contact with patrons who cannot always get into the library. Forum for Questions and sharing information. Website reviews. Photo's of events. Promoting Library services to people who may not be aware of the fantastic services we offer. Top 5 lists etc. creating networks through the library of people with similar or differeinmg interests. Catching the interest of the generation of 'Digital Natives'.
Promoting the Blog - through Learn.net users ( having it as a favorite. with new Members (Part of membership plans. Web 2.0 training for the public. Links through other 2.0 tools (eg Facebook

Wikis

2009-04-01T14:37:00.000-07:00

Uses for Wikis

The uses are never ending ,Book reviews and reccommended reads is one that immediately comes to mind. Community event , easy to update and add changes, if the venue is changing due to weather , can be immediate, no need to make the decision the day before. What about online Poetry. A while back I took part in an online poem. Each person involved was to add a line to the last person's poem. a fun idea with some surprising results.

Flickr and images

2009-04-01T14:27:00.000-07:00

Was great to see other people images on Flickr and to be able to try different things. I was Impressed to find a photo of a street in Hungary a friend of Mine lived on 20 years ago , and see a modern photo . Nothing much had changed. I played with the colour Picker and it was great to see the images relating to the colour spectrum.
Rollyo ... wow fantastic , I have put all my Children's craft links in one place, so I can look at then from home and work without having to save links .

Back into it

2009-03-06T14:41:00.000-08:00

Well I have gotten back into this. I have been repeating all the lessons again and finishing off some things I had not Completed. Week 3 Had another look at Rollyo and understood it more. Created a search with all my fav children's craft sites. hopefully this will help when planning activities.

Time ticks away

2008-07-30T15:11:00.000-07:00

Well , school holidays and then a weeks leave sure do carve away a lot of time. Realized I had not added my bloglines link.
http://www.bloglines.com/blog/SmacQ
I put one of my poems through a word generator and came up with this .
http://wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/97700/Sanctuary

Playing around with Library thing
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/smacq

WHEW ,

2008-07-16T16:38:00.000-07:00

Time Keeps running away from us all and getting time to work on this is not always easy. Rss feeds took a while to get my head around at first but once I understood what was happening it was not too hard.

Pictures

2008-06-28T16:47:00.001-07:00

Had to add some of my pictures for everyone to see. One is a photo I took at Cossey Lake and I have also added a Picture from Second Life.

2008-06-28T16:18:00.000-07:00

So this is my new blog. It has been fairly simple to set up, just follow the instructions.