Week 16

I think that keeping track of what people are saying about your organisation via google alerts could be quite useful. I haven't set myself for any of the evaluation tools but did go through and read all about the different tools and thought the statistics could also be useful however this is an area I really haven't worked with and I'm not sure if I would be required to. It's something I could play around with with my private blog and twitter account when time permits.

Week 14

I have an account with Twitter. I like the idea of writing something in just 140 characters - just makes you think very carefully about how you want to say something. I found the search on Twitter was very unfriendly. I was trying to find 'public libraries australia' and the result was totally unsuccessful. The search facility is poorly implemented.

Using Twitter in the workplace could be quite useful in promoting events such as author visits, young adult activity. Also good for Tweeting about an event once it has occured.

Week 15

I've been using Delicious for about a year now and have found it quite helpful. My tags relate mostly to children's services however I do have some personal tags for banking. It's easy for me to check on my Delicious tags at work but also at home or from my laptop wherever I may be. I also share some of my tags with a work collegue.

Week 13

Have refreshed my Blog by changing the design using a 'template' found on Blogger. I've changed the colour of my blog as well.
Also included a Gadget called 'Daily Puppy' I will probably include the Twitter gadget once I'm more familiar with using Twitter. Lots of fun Gadgets to use!

Social Networking

Facebook is something I had begun using a few months ago privately and have found that it is extremely time wasting! I can understand that some libraries will use it for particular promotions and it is another way for libraries to showcase and market themselves to those who may be prefer to use this technology. I actually prefer using blogs.
MySpace is something I just haven't tried or wish to. It just seems so bizarre to me that people live in 'another' life when there's one right here in the real world. That's not to say that it's not worthwhile, I just don't understand it and probably don't appreciate it. We are all different and we have different tastes in reading material so technologies are probably no different.
With the different technologies available though it really is up to the library staff to discuss, consider and select the technologies that would best suit their needs as far as staff time goes and also which technologies would most likely be used by library clients.

The 2.0 training course has been a fantastic opportunity for me to work through even though it has taken until now to complete. I've really enjoyed it and found the whole experience enlightening and very worthwhile. There is so much technology out there and keeping up with it for librarians is a challenge but one we must all try to do even though we may not be using the technology ourselves it's important that library staff working with the public are at least familiar with the technology so that if library clients were to ask or mention mashup or rss feeds for example the library staff would at least know what these were.
I must say though that when I have been working on 2.0 or simply spending time on the Internet at home the thing I enjoy most when I logoff is to go outside for a walk or fresh air and saying hello to the neighbours. You still can't beat the good outdoors and I still prefer the face to face contact with humans.

Online Applications and tools

Set up Google Docs and shared with State Library. Can see the benefits of using this technology. We were able to use Google Docs when we were having planning meetings in regards to our Public Libraries Country NSW Conference in Tamworth. For those who would have had to travel a long distance to our meetings we were able to use Google Docs to share our ideas and have peoples comments & suggestions available in real time.

Mashups

Love the Mashups. We could create a library calendar of storytime dates and other fun ways to use photos to promote the library.

Google map is amazing. We used Google Maps when hosting our Public Libraries NSW Country 2008 Conference to show visitors where the most convenient motels and restaurants were in relation to the location of the conference.
We are often asked where our local War Memorials are. It would be really offer people the answer via Google Maps