social networking

Ah finally something I have had some practice with, having been a member of facebook for some months now.

You can set up any group you like for example. For libraries I can imagine setting up a group or groups to market activities for a particular library, and for library services-wide promotions. We can have discussion groups for anything we want too. It could be pretty cool. It would have to be regularly updated to remain interesting though, and not everyone who is interested in library doings will have a facebook account and want to create one to find library events.

I wonder who of us would manage an official LSB facebook page, and where does Council and media fit in? I'm sure they will want a say in what we do here.

It would be very interesting to have a debate/discussion on which of these new medias would be the best for us to establish a well maintained presence, that gives us the best exposure, but does not commit us to maintaining multiple web presences, which would dilute our efforts.

Plenty of time for that debate!

online applications

That was super simple. I hope my two collaborators will add something in there too, to show how is that is to do to.

we can already do these things in the work context. Although the library and LHQ have different network drive access we can still generally work on the same copy of a document by agreeing where to save it, and can "share" a document so it can be worked on by more than one person at once.
I think there is a real risk with working on sensitive documents in this sort of context (even if access to the document is limited) but I think this would be very valuable to community groups to create documents such as promotional flyers, newsletters, funding applications and more, and they don't have to have a lot of software to create a great range of material to support and manage their group. And very easy to share it with their group to produce it. And they can access these programs free at their local library if they want ;)

Mashups

Well that wasn't too hard. And a bit of fun. I wouldn't mind creating my own calendar for next year, with images that are meaning to me and my family. I saw some interesting ways to personalise blogs, and other things people use.
I liked the mashup of the universe, with movie snippets about different things in our universe and beyond. We could definitely do something like that for our libraries. Maybe not a video, but a map of Brisbane with a popup with information about the library with a picture of the library would be very cool. Should be possible and interesting without punishing those on dial-up :) I don't think I can use the Big Huge Labs one, as they don't even mention Australia in the list! (but will investigate further).
Cheers for now.

podcasts

I can see why podcasts appeal to some people, access and view a program at any time you want, or bits of it, and watch it again without having to use up more bandwidth.
The programs are going to have to be good for me to want to do that again, given the size of the files I downloaded. They will have to be interesting and have a point and not take too long to download - I downloaded one that took 5 minutes on cable - way too long and was disappointing.
I like the idea of having library tours as podcasts and perhaps some events could be podcast - particularly some of our big ticket events, and some of our storytime sessions, which I hear are fantastic - "library wiggles" anyone?
I did find some cool things on the SciFi channel website, so I guess if we provide good content, people may want to download it. I'm not as keen on this as the video streaming. With the video streaming you can stop the video if it's boring and you haven't necessarily wasted time downloading the whole thing to view.

slamming the boards

I think this is a great idea. I love the fact that librarians are keen to share good and factual information with those who seek it, where ever they are! I have read some really rubbishy answers to questions on these sorts of boards sometimes it makes you want to cry. Especially when it's clear that the person answering the question has no idea what they are talking about.

More power to you board-slamming librarians! It would be a good way to expose people to the value of libraries and librarians.

It could be very interesting if LSB customers' reference questions were answered on a board, rather than individually. The bonus would be that customers may not always need to ask a question then, if the question had already been asked and answered. It would certainly keep us on our toes to provide good quality answers. I wonder whether this would increase our profile and the number of questions asked?

Technorati

Hello again, well I searched for bookmobile, and I did get different results when I did a regular and an advanced search. I didn't get anything when I looked for nswpln2008 though - nada - and I searched twice over two days. If anyone can explain this I'd be glad to know, but for now I am moving on to the next puzzle.
I found some interesting and random blogs about "singing" though - many times it was mentioned on the periphery - shows a more specific search would be needed to find content useful to me, same as for any other search.

Well library thing was fun. I added a few more than five books, and happily found a few of Brian Lumley's books I haven't read :) I would like to buy these, he's the only author whose books I just have to buy.

social bookmarking

Hmmm, not sure about this one. It was simple to set up the account, but I doubt I'll use it much for personal use. I don't need my bookmarks following me where ever I go!
I'm not convinced that folksonomies in their basic form is a good way to find good websites - people use such a variety of words to name the same thing so it is perhaps an unreliable or time-consuming way of finding information if you don't think the same way as another person. Also, you can't use two words as a tag (eg 23 things) without making it one word - limitation of the software?

I do like what Cleveland Library has done though, using their professional librarian skills to select good web resources that everyone can make use of - I see the value in that. I am much more likely to look at the links recommended by an expert than a random person who has put links on the web.
Do we do this already? I don't remember seeing that sort of resource laid out like this. Perhaps sharing professional resources links inhouse would be helpful too. Sharing our favourite websites would widen our resource base. It also means we can access them from anywhere, especially if we hotdesk.