Social Bookmarking in Plain English

This videoclip gave a very clear presentation on the subject of social bookmarking. So easy to understand! In summary, there are only three things that one needs to do to start bookmarking socially. First, sign-up with delicious.com and add two buttons to the browser: My del.icio.us button and Tag this button. Secondly, start bookmarking sites and tagging. Thirdly, be social. By default, everything posted to Del.icio.us is able to be viewed publicly. However, a user can mark specific bookmarks as private... which defeats the very purpose of social bookmarking. After all, the focus is not on having a private list of bookmarked sites but a shared one.

Promoting Reading

Videos online

I found the video "Olive Riley Returns to Broken Hill" very interesting and the star of the video inspiring. It is a fine example of a live oral history. There's no reason why our library can't make a similar video featuring our residents ...long-term, newly arrived and those who have given so much to the community.

Maybe we can also have something similar to "We love our NJ libraries". Or we can focus on a specific library service, say the Special library services which deliver books, DVDs, etc. to nursing homes, retirement villages and housebound customers. But the video on "New Employee Orientation", I find boring. And I didn't like that video on "Reference and Research Assistance" because it claimed that this section or service is the heart of the library and the first place to visit for information. I would argue that it all depends on the information you're looking for.

Just out of curiousity I searched for Mosman Library in YouTube and, of course, didn't find any. But when I typed in Mosman, there were several videos available starting with "Chaser's War on everything: Mosman Mosque". As I was sure this was going to be funny, I watched it. Mosman Library was mentioned in passing - that the Mosman Mosque would be built close to the library.

Then I went to Google Video and searched for Mosman Library. There I found several videos of their author speakers. I watched Noeline Brown (because I remember her being a contestant in Channel Seven's Dancing with the Stars). She gave a funny anecdote on how she applied for a job as Assistant Librarian at Marrickville Library at the age of 15 and was instead offered a job as Library Assistant. That was classic!

I also had a glimpse at James Valentine's (he of Channel 7's It takes two fame) video but the sound didn't come out alright. I also watched Caroline Jones' video only because I've read her book about the "Search for Meaning" a long time ago...so long that I can't remember what THE meaning is!

Well, this sure is good. As long as you have a computer. But if you don't have access to one, then you miss out on these wonderful talks (unless you were physically present at these events). I guess the library could also have produced a DVD featuring all these author speakers and make the DVD available for loan or be able to be watched at the library.

Adventuring into Liverpool, NSW wiki

Editing the entry on Liverpool, New South Wales, was easy. You don't even have to sign in. The last time this page was modified was on 24 February 2008 at 9.18 am.

Yesterday, I edited this page and added three more schools: Macarthur Community College, Liverpool U3A: School for Seniors and University of Wetern Sydney English Language Centre. And voila! Three three items showed up under Schools.

Wakey...wakey...wakey... it's time to do a Wiki

I've heard about WIKIs a long time ago and visited the website twice maybe in the past. But I never gave it so much thought, much less of what use it can be in a library environment. Having gone through all the links in this lesson, I realised that there's so much potential 'hidden' there.

The Wisconsin Heritage Wiki and the Montana History Wiki will be very useful guides for our own Local Studies and Historical Society, if and when they decide to create their own wikis.

In checking out the Library Services: A Best Practice Wiki, I found out that there's nothing for Adult Literacy. There's a section for Information Literacy but this is different from Adult Literacy or ESL. I also checked out the Blogging Libraries WIKI and found only one NSW public library listed: Mosman Library. Good on you, Mosman Library.

Perhaps the NSW Public Libraries Literacy Working Group can have this "setting up or contributing a section on Literacy" in Library Services: A Best Practice Wiki as a project.

I can see that the Wiki can be another powerful tool for promoting our library services, programs and events. But this is going to be a collaborative effort for the library team. After we (the staff) finish this lesson, I can see us working on our areas individually and putting all these together under the library wiki.

Bloglines, Feeds and Google Alerts

I must admit that it took me a while to do this exercise.

I was able to set up a Blogline account using my gmail address. And started subscribing to other blogs and adding these to my feeds. But I realised that the two options given in Blogline (Bloglines and RSS) gave me different results. When I chose Bloglines, the selected blogs will appear in my Blogline account. When I chose RSS, the blogs go to the FEEDS next to Favourites in my computer's internet site. I also used Google Blog search and all alerts went to my gmail. Bloglines, RSS and Google alerts do the same function, notifying you of what's new in your chosen topics.

The good thing about the feeds is that one is kept informed of the latest development in one's area of specialty or topics of interest. Beautiful!

An inspirational, spiritual book trolley

An inspirational, spiritual book trolley, originally uploaded by Jalen22.

I did it again! This is the second photo that I've blogged from Flckr. I guess I should do it more often to get the hang of it. And I will be blogging the ones from other participants that I that've taken fancy to (as long as there are no copyright issues and the like). Boy, this is so much fun!