Dark Side of the Web

It's easy to think that only the gullible can get caught out with internet scams and malicious software. Not long ago I accessed my daughter's bank details while she was overseas ( with her permission) so I wasn't surprised when I checked her emails (that was OK too) and found one asking her to confirm the details. I quickly realised it was on the nose but it was close.
Recently we have had a few people in our library using the PCs to answer emails announcing a huge lottery win overseas. I can be very difficult advising them that what looks too good to be true probably is especially if you have never heard of the lottery in question.

Mashups

I've come to the conclusion that just about everything is a mashup of one sort or another these days. It is obviously a rapidly growing area. When I look at the apps on my ipad a lot of them are map based mashups - Histprypin, LiveTraffic, Domain. I rather like the Arts on a Map mashup. It reminds me of a link we have on our library's CWA Country of Study website for Timor Leste. This is a Google Earth based site that maps all of the cultural sites and institutions. http://www.timorlesteculturemap.org/videos-images-audios-descriptions-timor-leste-culture-map/

Slideshows

Slideshare presentations from Public Library Services events are often a handy way to recall a particular speaker. It is also good to be able to the comments posted by others. Digital storytelling would definitely have local history possibilites in a public library for oral/visual history.

I had a go at doing a simple promotional slideshow of our library using Prezi. The non-linear format makes it more visually appealing than gool old Powerpoint however I'm not sure that all the 'zooming' wouldn't make some a little seasick.

So here it is:

http://prezi.com/pbylz9xzimnk/present/?auth_key=vqtz5qb&follow=_j4yuptim3ml&kw=present-pbylz9xzimnk&rc=ref-24681829

Nings

A Ning seems like a good way off pulling together various 2.0 type tools to serve a particular purpose. Mosman's Ning, for instance, does a brilliant job with their readers advisory type services.

I joined Library 2.0 and a couple of the groups therein but I must say I was a bit disappointed that there doesn't seem to be much action of late. I tried adding the Library2.0 badge to my blog but for the life of me I couldn't get it to happen. Did however manage to add a couple of other gadgets - some very calming animated goldfish and a calender. I shall revisit the badge at a later date.

Instant Communication

The chat features of a lot of the social networking tools are handy. For a lot of people I think that they chat at least as often, if not more than they post on their wall or comment. I can see applications in a library setting although we would need access from our staff PCs which we are currently not permitted. Perhaps it is a way of engaging with time poor clients who want information in real time but who don't come to the library or visit library websites.

Google Docs

Of course this has gone to a whole new level with Google Drive and cloud storage generally. I love some of the collaborative ideas on the Google Drive blog. I've downloaded the Google Drive app for my ipad. I haven't got my head around icloud yet. I was thinking of purchasing Pages but now I'm wondering if Google Docs will do the trick for my ipad word processing needs. Also when library clients don't have a memory stick we usually suggest that they email their documents to themselves but perhaps we should be encouraging them to use Google Drive. Yes, for collaborative group work Google Docs is ideal

Event Management

Doodle is great for those highly annoying situations when you are getting nowhere with a group of people trying to decide when to hold a meeting, dinner, weekend away, whatever. I also played with Anyvite and quite liked its snazzy invitations and the way you can keep track of RSVPs. We share our Outlook Calendars quite a bit at work and find it particularly useful when their are tasks to complete by more than one person.

Productivity RSS

As I am waiting for approval for a couple of Nings and waiting until I can get back to work to grab some work photos to use for a slideshow I'm jumping to RSS. I haven't really used my RSS reader. I'm pretty selective about the sites etc I want to follow but I should start to use it more as I do try to keep up with a few blogs, newletters etc. I found that a lot of the sites for this activity no longer work but I did play with Spoken Text which I imagine could be useful for partially sighted people perhaps. I remember after discovering RSS while doing the last course that I tried to enthuse some HSC students about its benefits for their studies but they weren't interested. I think that for the sorts of courses like Legal Studies, PDHPE etc where they have to keep on top of current legislation, government policy etc that it could be a very useful tool.

Evaluation

I would say that the inbuilt statistics provided with most web 2.0 tools are sufficient for most libraries.

I have found Google Alerts quite handy to use.  Our library compiles a webpage for the Country Womens Association who each year have a different Country of Study. As well as the website we have a Country of Study Facebook page which I update from Google Alerts.

I have also set up Google Alerts for the town where I live as well as our library. There is rarely anything other than what is generated from our promotion of events and services although there was a period when we recieved some negative media attention due to the antics of some local youth who frequent the library.

I have used Surveymonkey to find out what local professionals know about our service and what they use or don't use. I found Surveymonkey great to use especially the analysis of responses which is made painless for the non-statistician like myself.

I have also made some use of Google Analytics for our CWA webpage. It is always heartening to find that one'es efforts have come to the attention of people beyond one's geographical area.

Delicious

I'm more than a little embarassed that I haven't finished Web 2.1 yet. I think I have either used or at least been exposed to most of the tools but haven't blogged about them. I also can't believe that I blogged back in 2010 about $200 worth of patchwork fabric I bought to make a quilt for my daughter before she left home. Well guess what? I don't know where the material is and said daughter has flown the nest.
So Delicious... It always seemed to me like a good idea in theory but I manage to live without it. I think that as far as using it to access websites from multiple computers, for me my work internet use and my home use are quite distinct so I don't see much advantage. On my way to working out how to link my Twitter and Delicious accounts I did however stumble across the Delicious blog which wasn't a bad read. One post suggests about how you can tag your favourite recipe links down to the level of the major ingredients used. Say you have some avocados you want to use up you could search for that as a tag. If you haven't added your own tags yourself there are plenty of others who have.
I checked to see if there is a Delicious ipad app and there is, but sadly it doesn't rate more than 1 star .
All in all, I think I will keep an open mind about Delicious and try to think of ways we could use it in out library. I know when we upgraded our PCs it was a pain having to save bookmarks, many of which we rarely use. The sharing aspect of Delicious is the feature which we should explore more both for our clients as well as for our own use.