The weather forecast this week was rains, rains and more rains. I was a bit worried because today I was going to have the launch of my latest initiative, the Navigator Library Access Project, to mark the golden anniversary of NSW Seniors' Week.
The Navigator is a community based project aimed at increasing the quality of life and independence for people with Macular Degeneration. This project was organised in partnership with the Macular Degeneration Foundation (http://www.mdfoundation.com.au/) and funded by the Friends of Liverpool Library. The Navigator is a product of Audio-Read Pty, Limited (http://www.audio-read.com.au/ ).
And why was I worried? Considering that my target group for this event were all seniors, I thought that with the rains, they would rather stay home. It was raining cats and dogs when I came to work last Monday. And yesterday, Tuesday, was no different. It rained all day long! And so last night and early this morning, I prayed really hard that God would not let it rain today, at least not until 11:00 am when my audience would have arrived in the Library. And God heard my prayers! It was really a bright, sunny morning. And the rains did not come down until after 11:00 am!
The program of THE day included: the Traditional Welcome by Glennys Norton, Coordinator, Customer Services, followed by a warm welcome by our library manager, Paul Scully, and talks by Nerida Edwards, president of the Friends of Liverpool Library group, Tony Blackwood, Managing Director of Audio-Read, and Lyn Ifedioranma, Liverpool Council's community worker for the aged and disability services. Launching officer was Julie Heraghty, MDF Chief Executive Officer. In a separate blog, I will be downloading their speeches.
Julie gave me the biggest compliment during the social part of the program. She said that I should have been a wedding planner, seeing how organised and successful the day was.
Indeed, there was an opportunity for me to videotape the proceedings and upload this to You Tube, Google Video or podcast. That is, if only we have the right equipment to do so. However, I took photos with our digital camera and will upload this to Flickr, then to this weblog. And maybe later, make a CD or DVD of the occasion. We'll see...
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Monday, April 7, 2008
Catching Up
Now that I have finished the modules, I've started catching up with what other participants have been blogging. And boy! What a revelation! I'm learning so much from their weblogs as well, not only about what they have been doing or have done in their own libraries but also the many websites they refer us to which are not included in the lessons. Very interesting!
Friday, April 4, 2008
Social Networks
Social networking will especially be useful to me in promoting my programs, projects and events.
I can also see possibilities here for marketing our services and collections. This is one good opportunity to raise the library's profile with the community. I do hope that we will be given encouragement, help (with IT issues), time and support by our Libray Management to engage in social networking. I consider it high priority for our Library Management to get our IT department to allow us unlimited access to online tools, such as YouTube, Google Video, Google Maps, Facebook, MySpace, etc., so we can implement what we have learned here. ACCESS will also mean being able to read/listen to/watch/view, and replicate if relevant, what others are doing. Why re-invent the wheel?
I can also see possibilities here for marketing our services and collections. This is one good opportunity to raise the library's profile with the community. I do hope that we will be given encouragement, help (with IT issues), time and support by our Libray Management to engage in social networking. I consider it high priority for our Library Management to get our IT department to allow us unlimited access to online tools, such as YouTube, Google Video, Google Maps, Facebook, MySpace, etc., so we can implement what we have learned here. ACCESS will also mean being able to read/listen to/watch/view, and replicate if relevant, what others are doing. Why re-invent the wheel?
Podcasts and Audio
OCLS Podcasts: I chose the podcast on Big Read's presentation of Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird." The video featured four people of different ages and gender talking about how much they or a member of their family love this book. It also mentioned all activities connected with this event, such as a question/answer portion, book review, dramatic reading, book discussion and the screening of the movie itself. All these were to take place (and did take place) at the Orlando Public Library in March 2008.
LibVibe: Wow, you can listen to an eight or nine-minute newscast anytime. And the news are quite interesting!
Denver Public Library: I sampled the following podcasts - Beatrix Potter books, nursery rhymes, storytime favourites and interviews (Harry and the Potters).
British Library: From their 2007 Podcasts archive, I chose "Saving St
Catherine's Monastery Library." The audio itself was titled "Preserving Mt Sinai's Library." The talk was given by Nicholas Pickwood at the British Library on 4 September 2007. This Greek Orthodox Monastery was situated at the foot of Mt Sinai where Moses received the Ten Commandments. And their library houses the world's oldest Bible, the Codex Sinaiticus.
ABC: Subject options included Arts & Entertainment, Community & Lifestyles, Education, Health, Kids, News & Analysis, Religion, Science and Sport. Immediately following Podcasting is Video Podcasting. I clicked this one and was rewarded by several online videos. But the one I chose to watch was "The Chaser's War on Everything Online : If life were a musical."
Library Success Wiki: I checked out all the public libraries listed in this wiki and discovered a common denomination for most of them, which is that they provide teen webcasts and podcasts for children's stories and nursery rhymes. Others include book reviews, poetry reading, author talks, information and entertainment, interviews with interesting people and library news. Surely, in time our library can offer the same sort of podcasts to our customers as well as to our colleagues in the library profession.
Online Education Database: I listened to "Historical Jesus" (Stanford) and "Time, money and love in the age of technology" (UC Berkeley). There are many other interesting topics from this database. When I get more time, I will get back to this.
When this audio podcasting (and video podcasting) becomes a 'must have' technology in library services provision, I do hope that our library will be amongst the frontrunners.
LibVibe: Wow, you can listen to an eight or nine-minute newscast anytime. And the news are quite interesting!
Denver Public Library: I sampled the following podcasts - Beatrix Potter books, nursery rhymes, storytime favourites and interviews (Harry and the Potters).
British Library: From their 2007 Podcasts archive, I chose "Saving St
Catherine's Monastery Library." The audio itself was titled "Preserving Mt Sinai's Library." The talk was given by Nicholas Pickwood at the British Library on 4 September 2007. This Greek Orthodox Monastery was situated at the foot of Mt Sinai where Moses received the Ten Commandments. And their library houses the world's oldest Bible, the Codex Sinaiticus.
ABC: Subject options included Arts & Entertainment, Community & Lifestyles, Education, Health, Kids, News & Analysis, Religion, Science and Sport. Immediately following Podcasting is Video Podcasting. I clicked this one and was rewarded by several online videos. But the one I chose to watch was "The Chaser's War on Everything Online : If life were a musical."
Library Success Wiki: I checked out all the public libraries listed in this wiki and discovered a common denomination for most of them, which is that they provide teen webcasts and podcasts for children's stories and nursery rhymes. Others include book reviews, poetry reading, author talks, information and entertainment, interviews with interesting people and library news. Surely, in time our library can offer the same sort of podcasts to our customers as well as to our colleagues in the library profession.
Online Education Database: I listened to "Historical Jesus" (Stanford) and "Time, money and love in the age of technology" (UC Berkeley). There are many other interesting topics from this database. When I get more time, I will get back to this.
When this audio podcasting (and video podcasting) becomes a 'must have' technology in library services provision, I do hope that our library will be amongst the frontrunners.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Zoho wins my heart!
I find that Zoho is much better than Google Docs. The former has much more features, such as skins, superscript, subscript, DigiSign, emoticons, and special character, just to mention a few. You can even write a document in the following languages: Japanese, Dutch, Danish, Russian, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish and Chinese. And ... Zoho can do spellcheck for each language. And there's more! You can go offline!
Our library has had computer virus problems caused by our customers using their USBs and floppy disks. For the moment, they are not allowed to use these devices but I don't think we can hold them back forever. Already, the customers are howling: How on earth are we gonna print out our documents if you don't allow us to download these from our USBs? These online word processors could be the answer. We just have to make these known to them in one of our DO YOU KNOW THAT... awareness programs which can take the form of posters, bookmarks, talks and other awareness strategies. It will take some time but we have to start somewhere.
These online word processors will be VERY useful to me personally when writing articles, reports and other written communications. I often write articles (for our Library News and PLB News) when I'm on my annual leave or home. When I finish drafting the document, I attach it to my email (personal email account) and send this to my office outlook. As soon as I get back to work, I save the document in my TRIM folder and work from there. Last time, I used my USB to save my writing and uploaded this document to my office pc when I got back to work. But with Google Docs or Zoho, it will be a different ball game. These online word processors will definitely change the way I deal with documents from now on. Imagine being able to access my documents anytime, anywhere!
Our library has had computer virus problems caused by our customers using their USBs and floppy disks. For the moment, they are not allowed to use these devices but I don't think we can hold them back forever. Already, the customers are howling: How on earth are we gonna print out our documents if you don't allow us to download these from our USBs? These online word processors could be the answer. We just have to make these known to them in one of our DO YOU KNOW THAT... awareness programs which can take the form of posters, bookmarks, talks and other awareness strategies. It will take some time but we have to start somewhere.
These online word processors will be VERY useful to me personally when writing articles, reports and other written communications. I often write articles (for our Library News and PLB News) when I'm on my annual leave or home. When I finish drafting the document, I attach it to my email (personal email account) and send this to my office outlook. As soon as I get back to work, I save the document in my TRIM folder and work from there. Last time, I used my USB to save my writing and uploaded this document to my office pc when I got back to work. But with Google Docs or Zoho, it will be a different ball game. These online word processors will definitely change the way I deal with documents from now on. Imagine being able to access my documents anytime, anywhere!
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