Interview with Richard Dawkins

Loved this!

No Particular Reason Link: Nebula Awards

Patting myself on the back...

Discovering interesting links was probably my favourite part of the Web 2.0 experience. I'm an information junkie. I have a recurring daydream where my 'essence' is broken down into a mathematical formula and programmed into the net, to wander for eternity through the world's computer systems and ultimately reaching 42 through my own calculations. I've been reading too much science fiction and cyberpunk.

I have thoroughly enjoyed this programme, it reaffirmed my love of the internet and the role it plays in our lives. I am more convinced than ever of the increasing role and importance of technology in the future of libraries.

This was fun. Looking forward to Web 3.0....

Added Later: Popping in to link to a shocking report on iPhone abuse.

Oxbridge Lectures play on iTunes. Oxford and Cambridge University are to make lectures by leading academics available through iTunes, and will include the work of Nobel prize-winning academics as well as "150 hours of video and audio material of lectures and ideas from "world-leading thinkers"."

Social Networking

Right now Facebook is beating MySpace, according to ComScore. Social Networking is very much a part of life these days, and while older networking sites may have to make way for the latest cool site, networking itself is here to stay.

I do believe that a library presence in the place where our younger patrons spend a lot of their time can only be a good thing, as long as it is done correctly. I agree with Meredith Farkas that one of the most important ingredients would be user feedback and ideas.

There is even a virtual library in the virtual world, Second Life, where it is being used to promote librarianship and reading.

Facebook

I created a special Facebook membership as Lizzy Reader and friended North Shore Libraries. Facebook is an easy way of keeping in touch, and even finding, family and friends who have moved around the globe, or even just to another town.

I am not a huge fan of MySpace. I object to having someone elses taste in music assault my ears when I open a webpage. I cancelled my membership there after a brief visit.

Library news from abroad: Copac has added Cheltenham's library catalogue. Chetham's Library is the oldest public library in the English-speaking world.

eBooks

eBooks are the real revolution that will impact on libraries more than any other technology. As the products of this technology become more portable and easier to operate, such as the kindle, and even the iPhone is now a book reader, most books will be replaced by these devices.

Convenience, affordability (downloads are cheaper) and the fact that one can carry umpteen books on a small portable device offering one an amazing selection of reads for any occasion. People who say that there is nothing that can replace the tactile quality of a book, or that magical new book smell, will lose out to the younger generation as they become our tax paying patrons. A plus is the saving in space, no bookshelves required, and time saving, no dusting necessary - just gently wipe that little device and your 'books' are dust free... bonus for all asthma sufferers.

The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius is freely available at Project Gutenberg.

More on the iPhone as book reader.

Podcasts.

I subscribe to a number of podcasts through my iTunes as it is so convenient. However I subscribed to Groks Science Radio Show and Podcast with Bloglines as instructed. It is another wonderful technology that gets the information that interests people to them in a format that almost everyone can enjoy, even non-readers.

Interested in science?

Vegetarian's Nightmare

What's not to like about YouTube? Did you miss the US presidential debate? Go to YouTube. You like Arrogant Worms... I'll bet they're up on YouTube, persecuting vegetarians.



While there are a lot of egomaniacs posting boring tripe, YouTube provides some excellent tutorials on various subjects, as well as online lectures broken up into easily downloadable sized chunks. I vote it to be both educational and highly entertaining.

Member of the Blog Press

I used a generator to become an Official Press Person. This should get me interviews!

The latest update of the Oxford DNB is online, with a special focus on First World War lives.

Web 2.0 Awards

There are a number of Web 2.0 Awards sites in this list that I actually frequent. I love...

• Digg because it's fun and brings interesting sites/news to my attention that I might not otherwise have read about, such as Toxel.com an interesting design site.
• Twitter, too (in a round about way), provides me with great links to various sites and information.
• I have bought a book from Lulu.
• and who has not used Google maps at some point.
• I have a Last FM page, and it's linked to my Facebook.
  

I will be interested to see which sites make next years list.

In other news: NationMaster is a useful site that incorporates data from CIA World Factbook, UN, and OECD, and makes it possible to graphically compare nations. Worth exploring.

Completing Wiki Exploration...

I explored NSL Learning 2.0 Wiki Sandbox very thoroughly, and posted comments and a link to my site at Favourite Blogs.

ReadWriteWeb reports that Microsoft has launched its Live Search Cashback rebate program. Basically this means that if you search for an item on live.com and then buy it from a participating store you receive a certain amount of money back. Still no threat to Google.

I was also very interested to see an advert for a Web 3.0 conference. We'll be doing web 3.0 blogs next. It never stops!

Wikis

I love the concept of wikis, the idea of making use of the knowledge and expertise 'out there', although I do acknowledge the drawbacks, i.e. of the lack of control over content publication and the potential for abuse by spammers and others of similar ilk. Still, wikis such as Library Success: A best practises wiki illustrate the usefulness of this format. I also feel that the more specialised the wiki, the less likely it will be of interest to trolls and spammers.

Free online access to the award winning Sage Journals Online till 31 October 2008.

Library 2.0

Being of a naturally curious disposition I am in love with Web 2.0 and all that it offers. These exercises we are doing are a wonderful excuse to spend even more time on my computer. I can say to my family - "It's work!"

I'm constantly amazed at the imagination and creativeness of the people coming up with vital web applications that I didn't know I needed until I discovered them. Firefox now has so many add-ons that really can simplify one's browsing experience, as well as add to the enjoyment.

As Rick Anderson said in his blog, and I must say that I agree with him, that I believe our patrons will expect, and have the right to expect, access to all 'emerging' technologies, digital collections of journals, books, blogs, podcasts, etc.. They are never 'emerging' for very long, but quickly become part of our patron's daily lives, especially the curious and the young.

Random thought: I would just like to make a suggestion to whoever designs library catalogues. Please add that famous Google 'did you mean' feature...

..to all library catalogues. You will be loved forever!

Smileys don't publish from Zoho...

That outlined 'laughing' was a cute smiley... darn!!

Exploring Zoho...

This is my Zoho Writer exercise...   As you can see I'm starting out with an optimistic smile, and I'm going to attempt to export this page to my blog.  Let's hope the smile doesn't slip. 

I'm including a link to an interesting bit of news, I think, to test the web link insert 'thingy'... British Library acquires Dering Roll

LibraryThing and Rollyo

Interesting and fun. My LibraryThing page link. I added titles and checked the recommendations to see what was added as my list grew. Interesting and not a bad selection. When I clicked gallery I got pictures of a number the authors I'd read, and I hadn't known what quite a few of them looked like... so now I do. And then I hit a snag. The site suddenly could not find a single book I entered. I got "No results found for "Slaughterhouse-Five", etc. for every book I entered?! Hmmm. The end of that for now. I'll have to try again later.

My Rollyo Seachroll. I only added 4 sites, so it is rather limited, but I get the idea. I found the Rollyo site's instructions clear and easy to follow. An interesting exercise.

"Can you see a potential for tools like this?" Possibly, but I find that a good old Google search suffices for my purposes. Obviously including good quality personally selected sites for specific searches could be very useful for frequently asked questions.

Today's link: authonomy, a site for writers, readers and publishers. The authonomy blog.

Technorati...

This exercise should have been completed ages ago. So a handy cheat is to click 'post options' on the bottom left, and alter the date. Done! (It may not fool anyone, but it makes me happy.)

Right... I joined Technorati and added, and became a fan of, my blog. Hey, no one else was going to do it...

I found the site easy to use. I added a few favourites. I'm not so sure I would use this site on a regular basis, but I do appreciate the way it tracks and rates blogs. Perhaps if I had more time for blog browsing... Nah.

Creative Commons...

7 Things you should know about Creative Commons.

A video explanation...




Link to Playing Around

Sc.rump.tious...

Okay, so what do I think of del.icio.us?

Well, I transferred all my bookmarks to delicious and got the shock of my life. There were admittedly only 10 per page, but 109 pages worth of bookmarks!! A bit much, so the sensible thing to do is change the number to 25 bookmarks per page... only 44 pages... much better.

I do like the way the flat hierarchy makes my links more readily accessible, as well as reminding me of all the interesting links I had meant to pursue, but somehow never got back to... and I like the way delicious synchronizes my bookmarks, and makes them available from any computer.

My post has been tagged delicious and could confuse someone looking for a delicious meal, a bit of semantic confusion, but generally tags are helpful.

Today's link: 100 Extensive University Libraries from Around the World that Anyone Can Access

So much information.

It's everywhere, and it can be a problem to keep track of all the news, sports, weather and blogs you follow. This is where RSS, a web feed, can help by checking your subscribed feeds for any updates, and downloading them automatically to your reader or email.


Google Reader is a good example of a feed reader. I have found it easy to use and organise.

I created a Bloglines account and subscribed to a number of feeds, but I must say that while similar to my Google Reader, I prefer the latter. Ease of use, and perhaps familiarity, influenced my choice. I also joined Technorati and favourited (modern internet terminology, really...) a few blogs, and have added a link button on my page that would enable browsers, the human variety, to add my blog to their feeds.

Interesting...
2008 National Book Festival Podcasts include interviews with R.L.Stine,Sharon M. Draper, Arthur Frommer and Pauline Frommer, and others.

Talking Tech, briefly...

iTunes is one of my favourite technological tools, although more of an application I suppose. It is a media player and a form of web feed in that it can be used to subscribe to both video and audio podcasts which are updated on a regular basis. These are free, and include Times Online Book Podcast (audio) which has interviews with authors such as Jodi Picoult, Stephen King and Richard Dawkins to name but a few, as well as TEDtalks and Cranky Geeks which are video podcasts.

So I'm sure that this would probably be my favourite new technology, if I could afford it. It is growing in popularity. One of the main reasons I would love to own one is that, after the initial expense, books become so much cheaper. It would pay for itself in no time!

Mashups

as we usually think of them are like FlickrVision, however there are some more serious uses for them.

The Chicago Police Department uses a mashup to integrate the department’s database of reported crimes with Google Maps. This helps to stop crime in areas and warn citizens of areas where the crime rate is high.

MapLight.org is another more serious use for mashups as it ...
"brings together campaign contributions and how legislators vote, providing an unprecedented window into the connections between money and politics. We currently cover the California Legislature and U.S. Congress."

A Wired article on the subject.

Cuil

Cuil is the latest search engine. It has a very cool GUI, but the search doesn't match up to Google... yet. They're new, so lets wait and see. Click on the images for an enlarged view.



I made a button link!

This will make it a lot easier to see what to do next!

I also made an image link to one of my favourite cartoons from 2005...

This Genie can tell your gender. Apparently I'm male...

ECB library

ECB library
Originally uploaded by Elle431

Posted from flickr. I am a long time flickr, shutterchance and photobucket user. (Free sites) This is the first time I have used the "blog this" button to post a picture to my blog though, as I generally upload photos directly from my computer.


Unless I'm posting to a forum, in which case I just use photobucket, and use the appropriate html that is generated for me shown in the box below.


Monday's educational link: Astrology is hooey.

Google in Maori

I know (now) that various other news sources carried this story, but I only just came across it on Geekzone. Excellent!

Friday's Interesting Link: The Codex Sinaiticus Project is an international collaboration to reunite the entire manuscript containing the Christian Bible in Greek, as well as the oldest complete copy of the New Testament, in digital form and make it accessible to a global audience for the first time.

Baldwin Street

I mentioned The Best Article Every day as having some interesting articles. Well their recent article features Baldwin Street, the steepest street in the world. There are some good pictures.

The World's Twenty-Five Most Modern Libraries

Who are you?

And it is now possible anyone with a few spare minutes, and the inclination, to discover which Jane Austin character they would be...

Apparently I am Elinor Dashwood of Sense & Sensibility! "You are practical, circumspect, and discreet. Though you are tremendously sensible and allow your head to rule, you have a deep, emotional side that few people often see." You think?!?

Interesting link

Congratulations!

Philip Pullman's book Northern Lights has been awarded the highly prized Carnegie Medal. "Unlike other literary awards, which seek submissions from publishers, the Carnegie takes its nominations from librarians."
Times Online



And in other news the “World Book Capital 2010” is none other than Ljubljana, that town we all know so well. It’s in Slovenia for any ignoramuses ...like me, who have never heard of it.

Today is the day...

I was rather over-hasty with my blogging. Today is the official beginning of the web 2.0 experience for North Shore Libraries. This is my first official post, and any other posts on this page are just figments of your imagination.

Interesting link of the day.

Exploring the web...

A site that often has interesting information is The Best Article Every day. Worth browsing.

Anyone interested in science will probably enjoy ScienceBlogs. One of my favourites is Pharyngula, the blog by PZ Myers - a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, and an outspoken atheist.

Why pay?

Of all the sites offering a range of alternative free software that can be used instead of MS Office, Google Docs is probably the most well known, but there are others...

• Zoho Show 2.0 is an excellent option for people who don't have Microsoft Office. I love their UI (user interface), and all the more complicated applications include video demonstrations. It is a site well worth exploring!
  

• SlideRocket is another alternative. This is only available as a private beta at the moment, although it is possible to sign up at the SlideRocket registration page and receive an invitation when it becomes available to the public. There will be a free version.

Another interesting beta is Evernote which can be available on both your computer and mobile phone as it works on recognition technology. It looks simple and easy to use if the overview video is anything to go by, but I have not tried it out myself yet.

Remembering George...

I am a huge fan of George Carlin's work and was saddened to hear of his death.

Some Carlin quotes:

* "Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday."
* "Atheism is a non-prophet organization."
* "Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity."
* "If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little."
* "I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death."
* "One can never know for sure what a deserted area looks like."

The World Digital Library

And the future is looking good...

Moving on...

Right, I am now a member of NetLibrary! I shall proceed to take a look at the audiobook titles as requested, and make a selection for my listening pleasure.

Adding a link to 100 awesome youtube vids for librarians

So far this has been nothing but fun!

In The Beginning...

programmers created web 2.0 for our edification. The adventure begins!