Twitter2

I've signed up and tweeted for the first time. Can't say I feel any differently. It's not easy to compose a tweet in 140 characters as other have remarked.

Twitter

I think I'm slowly warming to Twitter. I can't imagine anyone would be interested in my random personal 140 character ramblings but I can see plenty of uses for our library. I also didn't realise that you can link to other things in yout tweet which makes it much more useful.

The patchwork is slowly coming along. I have a library client who comes in to teach me how to quilt one I started some time ago. It's not as easy as one might think.

Refreshing your blog

What do you think about my new look blog? Rather an overwhelming choice of templates. As for blogging itself I'm yet to be a devotee. I don't mind reading the blogs of others occassionally but composing posts myself is a challenge. So I've decided to blog about something in particular ( apart from my 2.1 learning experience). I've decided to blog about the patchwork quilt that I plan to make for my daughter. It has always been my intention to make quilts for each of my children (fortunately I only have two). When I expressed this again recently my daughter reminded me that I had better get cracking as she will be leaving home soon. I ordered $200 worth of Kaffe Fassett material online which arrived the other day. I've borrowed numerous books and I'm about to start. I really am.

Wikis

Could have sworn I have blogged about Wikis somewhere, but where I for the life of me I can't see where so here goes. I rather like editing an entry in Wikipedia. I updated the population of my town which satisfied my inner Reference Librarian (which isn't so inner). I'll bet there are people who traul Wikipedia looking for things to contribute and update. I a work envoronment I can see Wikis as being very useful for manuals, minutes etc.

Blogging

This is a bit belated but in a way it helps me to consolidate what I've learnt along the way. The thing I like about blogs and blogging is, like other forms of social networking, it connects you with people of similar interests to your own. What I don't like about it is that it can be a tad self indulgent. That said, I've been surprised how often I have gone off on a tangent, commenting on other people's blogs and generally exploring. This probably partly explains why my Learning 2.0 posts are rather haphazard. I can see numerous uses in the library. We could have a Book Group blog where the members that physically attend could discuss books with others who cannot attend. I think that writing for a client audience calls for a certain style or flavour of writing. I'm certainly not someone who can tolerate much laxity when it comes to grammar and punctuation etc, but I do think blogging should be informal and conversational because, after all, to some extent it is replacing actual in person interaction.

Social networking

It will be interesting to see how public libraries use social networking and web 2.0 tools in general. We have already started to see some really exciting, interactive things happening that should take us out of dark ages but I think we have to be careful with what we decide to use as too many bells and whistles can sometimes perhaps get in the way of what we are really trying to achieve.

Online Applications, file sharing, Google Docs

The number and variety of online applications is amazing and the idea of using software as a one off without the issues associated with downloading is appealing. Once library clients really start to latch on to some of these things we will really need to be on the ball as they will be expecting us to be.