Thing #20 YouTube

Librarians Gathering: Live in Second Life
I tried out the search "Library 2.0" on YouTube, which returned 4 results, including this one which is embedded in my blog. This small hit list initially surprised me, but perhaps it is a reflection that the library profession is not using YouTube (as yet) as a means for promoting Library 2.0 ideas. It made me wonder if one day we may be including content from YouTube - or other online video sharing sites - on our library catalogues. We already incorporate digital content but potentially this can be extended to video content. Who knows, this may not be very far off in the future.

Thing #19 Discovering Web 2.0 tools

During the last few months I have been creating wiki articles and learning new ways of displaying and formatting information using MediaWiki software, which is a popular wiki software package also used by Wikipedia and its associated enterprises. I was therefore very interested in exploring Wetpaint which received the first prize for hosted wikis in the 2007 Web 2.0 awards.

Wetpaint offers an 'Easy edit toolbar' with familiar word processing toolbar functionality - tables, hyperlinks, spellcheck - as well as the ability to add images just like in Blogger. All this without needing to understand syntax or minimal html as required with MediaWiki, particularly in the time consuming task of creating even basic tables which require knowledge of html. It was very easy to add a widget to a page in the Sandbox - I inserted a YouTube video featuring a 'Mr Bean in the library' clip. All up, Wetpaint allows the novice user to start creating wiki content very quickly and very easily.

Thing #18 Web-based applications

I was attempting to launch ZohoWriter using the Safari web browser and found that it does not support this browser so I switched over to Mozilla's Firefox web browser.

I created a Zoho userid and tried out some of the offerings including the word processing package which looks and feels as familiar as MS Word, so I would use this type of web based application in future for sharing documents.

Thing #17 Playing around with PBWiki

I added Friday's Child to the plcmclearning Favorite Blogs list and included a post about my favourite Australian author, Peter Carey and my best loved selection of works such as Oscar and Lucinda, Illywacker and the True History of the Kelly Gang.

I have been using wikis for a while now, although my experience with editing has been mainly with wikis utilising MediaWiki software, which is the same software running Wikipedia. I found that PBWiki has some additional editing functionality, but what it lacked was the ability to create different heading styles and therefore auto-generate a table of contents.

Thing # 16 Wikis

Wikis are the ultimate collaborative workspace - whether created by the worldwide online community for mass collaboration or whether utilised by workplace colleagues to develop and share corporate knowledge behind a firewall. I believe that "wikinomics" is the new work paradigm of the future. In our own particular environment, the valuable content we rely on contained in Libnet could easily be migrated to a workplace wiki accessibile by LIS staff. Information can be very easily searched, quickly updated and seamlessly maintained by all in the network. All versions of documents are available via the 'History' functionality of the wiki, so an authoritative archive of content is ensured. Discussion of issues relating to a particular wiki article can be carried out on the wiki itself without the necessity for circulating numerous emails containing documents which need to be saved to be viewed by recipients. Once consensus is reached on the wiki 'Discussion' section, updates are made to the wiki article which is now available for all in the group to see.

Thing #15 On Library 2.0 & Web 2.0 ...

From initially just reading about web 2.0 innovations and now really using these emerging technologies, I see the potential application they have in our own special library network,. I am realising how much of the way we work is based on collecting for the 'just in case' library - whether in print, or in electronic format (ie. inhouse databases). Our clients demand web based content but we continue to do what we have always done......

The "Away for the icebergs" article really brought home to me how we extend the "just in case" approach to client skilling as well - expecting people to attend a traditional training session - yet there may not be an immediate application for that learning in the real world back in the business line. Let's be the experts who provide access to information content that clients can easily access but also interact with and enrich with their knowledge and experiences, rather than being 'gophers' of information and 'preachers' for learning.

Thing #14 Technorati

I created a Technorati account and added the bookmarklet to my browser's toolbar, so that whenever I see a blog I want to keep up with, I can easily add it to my Technorati Favorites. I posted a few favourite blogs, including several of my colleagues from the ATOLearning Online list. I viewed the online video linked from the 'Learning 23 things' discovery resources which discusses the new and upgraded version of Technorati and I particularly like the search feature which separates results by using different tabs.