Go with the flow

I often wondered where the IT boffins in our department found those nifty diagrams for servers, patch panels and routers ... they all probably subscribe to Gliffy.com. The site was intuitive and easy to use, a note to self to visit Gliffy when we are doing our next SWOT analysis for the library team,, a neat flow chart is available for online collaboration in real time. The floor plans are good too. I can see the value of flow charts in assisting with the graphic representation of complex relationships, it would find a place in the tool kit library managers use.

I played with Bubbl.us and got into an awful muddle, it was not easy to use and to me was hardly intuitive. I believe a mind map is a personal aid in studying, best done with a paper and pen - a visual representation to link various concepts of a topic. A doodling aid with a more serious intention. I know it is touted as an aid to brainstorming ideas. however I experienced a degree of frustation with this electronic version of it, maybe I am just old-fashioned.

del.icio.us!

I have spent time going through my favourite websites and book marking them in del.icio.us. This has enabled me to store and access bookmarks from any computer and to share them with colleagues. Also opened up other possibilities by browsing other library users' tags, the ones tagged by Bibliothèques de l'Université Paris-Sorbonne (Paris-IV) for instance listed some useful sites, not all were French. This application can be utilised as a reference tool, as has been demonstrated by public libraries; it facilitates collaboration and research can be shared. I explored the tags, the comments were useful, and where there are lots of tags the concept of 'tag clouds' takes shape. One could go on discovering ad infinitum ..... better get back to work now.

Podcasts

Certainly podcasting is a convenient way of automatically downloading audio files to an MP3 player, many ABC broadcasts are available this way, especially when one is not able to listen while at work (the Book Show for instance, aired at 10am weekdays). While checking out the Educational Podcast Network site I came across a useful site to learn French, I can see niche audiences are well catered for. There is a lot of free stuff available as podcasts for research and pleasure. From the number of people on the tram and train with white strings from their ears, podcasting has certainly taken off in a big way. I passed on learning how to podcast - perusing the 'how to create a podcast' notes it seems to be fairly simple, free of tech-speak and user friendly. I guess it can be applied to various situations in the Library scene - for example tutorials on how to use library databases for our remote clients.

eBooks

The World eBook Fair was a bit tricky to use, one had to register and pay a fee. I expected to find a copy of 'The Canterbury Tales' free to view on the web, but it was not so, I had to pay up first. A bit more luck with the Internet Archive - I found a copy of 'If this is a man' by Primo Levi published in 1959, all 226 pages of it (.pdf format) complete with date due slip attached with dates stamped from 27 December 1960. Understandably it took a few minutes to load, but it was remarkable to get a copy of it 'free' on the web. I can see the value of these eBook repositories for out of print material or hard to get classics. It can act as an adjunct to university and public libraries. Even so, I find it hard to read texts online and I wonder how authors would react to their work being available to millions free of charge. At times it may be of value for scholars to be able to be able to actually handle these old texts for study purposes, I am thinking of Melbourne University downsizing its collection of classic and ancient texts at the Parkville campus thus making it harder to consult them. But I digress ... there is certainly value in being able to access older publications so easily and I applaud the online repositories of these resources.

Week 14 already

Letterpop was easy and intuitive to use. By now the login/password creation are in generic mode so it was not much of a bother to register. It was easy to get into the templates that I wanted to look at, I liked the clean and unfussy look of the business selection. The application could be useful in the library context, newsletters can be created and stored easily, updates in a similar format reproduced. Also for school and sports committees outside the workplace, a newsletter with a corporate look and feel could be produced without recourse to too much technical knowhow. The main advantage is the low cost production of a sleek looking product.

You Tube

On a quiet afternoon, I had a quick squizz at You Tube to check out what othe librarians had done with this application. I liked ,the Librarians 2.0 manifesto, the test will be to see if I can embed it successfully in my blog. Fingers crossed. I also viewed the Chasers' video of John Howard; it is a bit dated now but those boys are terribly clever.

I'm not sure how YouTube can be applied in our corporate library environment with its myriad restrictions on introducing new applications. I may be pleasantly surprised by one of the funky young librarians on our team making a video to publicise the library's physical space.