Dark Side of the Web

We have been warned about phishing emails and what to look for and that helps. I think this second course was good as a refresher for some of the things we looked at in the first course.

Mashups

I found the Flickr Interestingness site 'interesting' and had a look at Weatherbonk. When I searched for mashup tools via google most of the sites were for music or video mashups which I found a bit frustrating.

Instant Communication

The university I am currently doing my studies with has a chat facility available which I think is a nice way to get to know your fellow classmates when studying via distance. I tried the chat facility through the Library 2.0 Ning but there was no one available at the time.

Google Docs

Google docs is a bit like having a personal limited wiki where those in the group working together can all edit the document online. It reduces it to one document instead of multiple docs. I liked the facility where more than one person can work on and edit the document at the same time, with a chat window where you can see who is making what changes. You could live a thousand miles apart but feel like you were in the same room. A virtual work environment.

Event Management

I like both Doodle and Google calendar, it is too early to tell whether I prefer one over the other. Great scheduler for very busy people!. I am attending a seminar at the State Library next month which was organized through Eventbrite so it was pretty cool to log on and access my tickets that way. I sent an invite to nswpln via Doodle so I am hoping it worked.

RSS Feeds

I switched from Bloglines to Wildgrape Newsdesk for my RSS feeds. This was one that was suggested by ALIA on their website. I love the look and layout of it. Then I have filtered the Euro News feed using Feed Sifter to filter the feed by a certain country that I am currently researching. I have used Google alert before but have set another one to receive updates on a particular author. Both these are easy to use and set up.

Slideshow, Screencasting and Digital Storytelling

I could have a lot of fun with animated slideshows, particularly with sound effects. I could see this being useful for advertising library programs, author talks etc. We used something similar for an author talk - we borrowed it off the publishers website (with their permission) and put it up on the website. Lots of bolts and lightning with sound effects would be quite spectacular.

I particularly like the idea of online screencasting as tutorials for reserving items online and using the inter library loan facility . Enjoyed the Academic Search screencast but the other link didn't work.

Absolutely loved the digital storytelling - there's so much knowledge that people keep in their heads, whether it be personal knowledge of events or situations or for the local history buffs - local knowledge. Loved it!

Nings

I liked the Mosman readers ning, it is a bit like a cross between a mini website and a blog. It seems easy to navigate and I think it seems well suited for book reviews and reader's advisory pages. I joined the Library 2.0 Ning

Survey Monkey

I created a short survey on reading habits using Survey Monkey. I have received surveys as email links before so I elected to put this one on my blog to be different. However next time I wouldn't have it exit to the Survey Monkey account page as it takes it away from my blog and it does not seem to me a very graceful exit. Live and learn! While you are here please feel free to take this survey.

Feedburner

I now have a Feedburner account to track my blog usage. We already use Google analytics on our website but I think reading the stats can sometimes be confusing. I am particularly interested in knowing how often our author talk podcasts are accessed.

Google Alerts

I had tried out Google Alerts previously to keep track of the media coverage our library received. I had two alerts set up but removed one as I received alerts whenever our catalogue was searched via Libraries Australia. The other one, which is branch specific works well for letting me know the publicity we are receiving.

Twitter and Delicious

I joined Twitter but when I went to set it to private I found the page was down due to maintenance. Will try again tomorrow. Twitter would be useful for advertising upcoming events, titles of particular interest or letting people know about new products or resources. My twitter address is http://twitter.com/stephm333

I also shared my delicious bookmarks with my twitter account. I don't use delicious that much but the thing I like about it most is finding other people with common interests.