Thing #45: Flowcharts & Mindmaps

Using Bubbl.us, I have created a representation of the integrated components of the eLibrary.








As I am renovating at the moment, the floorplan option on Gliffy.com is an excellent opportunity to create a visual representation which will help me with purchasing fittings and fixtures for my proposed new bathroom and laundry.

Thing #39: Animoto

Thing #44: Nag yourself

The Jott concept is an interesting one - and there are many occasions when I would love to be able to access just this type of service.

Thing #42: Google Groups / Usenet

Using Google Groups today reminded why I was not particularly interested in Usenet in the past.

Searching for different activities, hobbies or even current issues tends to bring up a motley collection of discussions (including a lot of adult content) and I have not had a "serendipitous" find as yet. Perhaps this is for niche interests???

Thing #35: Mini or micro blogging

It was a simple process to set up an account, post my first tweet and follow a few "twitterers". While there is a lot of hype about the potential of Twitter most of the postings I found were either mundane or inscrutable.

In the end I searched for a well known librarian blogger and after reading some of his musings, it seemed slightly voyeuristic......... Perhaps the future potential for Twitter is not so much in recording the "boring bits" in life, but as with the best blogs, recording insights and sharing the "good bits"

Thing #32: Online file storage

For this exercise I signed up for a "Lite" Box.net account and created a folder where I uploaded a document and an image file - using the "drag and drop" applet.


Selecting the image uploaded to Box.net, I edited a photo using Picnik -playing with colour saturation and contrast as well as cropping the image, and the results are displayed here.

Overall, I was rather surprised that these photo editing tools are freely available online and are very similar in functionality to the proprietary applications produced by software companies.

Thing #31: Get organised with Plaxo

For me, Plaxo appears to be a combination of services like Outlook (Calendar), Facebook (Connections), Twitter (Pulse Stream) etc.

It was a simple process to sign up for an account and create a number of events for separate calendars, task lists and contribute a status update. While the exercise has been useful in learning about other free online services available, I think Plaxo would only be of value if I had a network of friends and associates using it to communicate and interact with.

Thing #29: Scrapblog

Using some of the photos I saved to an album on Photobucket, I produced this small tribute for an all time favourite book.

While I have compiled similar productions using the iPhoto feature in my Mac Book, I have to confess I was impressed with the range of features available. I inserted several stickers, rotating and adjusting size and orientation to my liking and I was able to apply different tonality such as sepia, black & white and other enhancements to the pictures.

Thing #27: Photobucket

Using Photobucket on a standalone PC was a frustrating exercise in futility. Once I got going using my home connection though, the process of selecting and saving images to an album and then remixing using the "inferno" theme was incredibly straightforward and very quick to complete.

My own Mac computer offers superior options, but Photobucket is absolutely terrific as it enables me to design and produce interesting presentations any time I need them at work. Here are the results of my handiwork Wuthering Heights

Thing #26: Widgets

I already have a customised iGoogle page, with many widgets and applications inserted on the desktop, which makes access to regularly used applications very quick and easy. The YourMinis website was easy to use and I created a widget for weather in Melbourne.

After this, I was fascinated with how easy it was to make up album cover images from a couple of my favourite singers.

I located a few more widget sites and look forward to trying these ones out in the future. - Best widgets for free and Hot widgets

Thing #25 Letterpop

Using the Letterpop.com site to start a newsletter was posing difficulties, so I abandoned this approach and created a free account. From there it was plain sailing and I have attached my creation - a newsletter about the garden planted by Friday's child.

While I can see that Letterpop.com does not have any direct application at present for LIS, it has been a worthwhile exercise in learning how quick and easy it is to design polished and professional looking communication tools.

Thing #24 Zamzar

How easy was this!!

Just a few mouse clicks and hey presto a converted file appears without the usual hassles of trying to locate a colleague who has file conversion software and asking them to do my job. Converting a PDF file back to Word is just too easy!! This is definitely a time saving tool!!

Thing #23 Final thoughts about "Learning 23 things"

My 'Learning 23 things' travels are now over, but I can't wait to discover new Web 2.0 adventures. I had some general knowledge from my professional reading about emerging technologies and social networking tools and I was surprised with how much more challenging the experience of creating and participating in the new web has been.

I enjoyed learning about LibraryThing, using Techorati and wikis, establishing RSS feeds for information and podcasts and of course exploring the YouTube phenomenon.

Also, I just loved using online image generators and 'decorating' my blog with lots of images. This activity in particular has re-ignited a long dormant interest in visual design and I have begun to immerse myself in multi-media content creation and I want to develop this much further.

Thanks to all my colleagues who have shared their ideas and enthusiasm for the 'Learning 23 things' program and to those who have supported and fostered a great learning opportunity which has helped me understand so many new things. Finally, thank you Helene Blowers for your generosity in bringing the program to all of us at ATO Online Learning.

Thing #22 Audiobooks

NetLibrary eAudiobooks is described as the world's premier provider of electronic books, but I was unable to progress as I use an Apple computer which is incompatible with Netlibrary content. I was determined to find some free and accessible audiobooks content so I ran a Google search and found the following free options.


The best of the lot is the Gutenberg Project, which appeals particularly to my librarian sensibilities - bibliographic records and multiple source locations. I selected diverse works such as The Iliad by Homer, The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci and just out of curiosity, the Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period by Paul Lacroix.

Free downloadable audiobooks have the capacity to extend the circulation of great works of literature with this low cost electronic option.

Thing #21 Podcasts

I checked out several podcasting directories including Podcast.net, Podcastalley.com as well as Yahoo Podcasts but the one I liked using best is iTunes, particularly as I use an Apple Mac computer which includes this software.

iTunes allows for searching by title, author, description, category or even language. The results set offers some brief description about each podcast, and I elected to subscribe to 'Bookcast' after searching for podcasts covering books.



Interestingly, an earlier podcast episode from the Bookcast was about the 2007 American Library Association (ALA)conference, which attracted over 21,000 librarians to Washington, DC for the annual conference. My previous blog post included a YouTube video from this same conference, and it is a somewhat synchronistic event to find this podcast, particularly as I was using different search terms in each situation.

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.