Exercise 23

I have really enjoyed doing this programme. The absolute highlight has been Bloglines. I have various feeds that in the evening I regularly click on. I know there are many more on this subject so I'm trying not to add them or less time for my study! I would recommend Frugal Hacks, Stacking Pennies, Working for Rachel. Plenty more if you want to know. So -finding these blogs I guess has meant there is an online community that I am now part of but yet to contribute to. Librarything is great to and maybe in the summer I will have time to put all my books in there. So - what a great experience it has been and hopefully my increased knowledge will add to others increased knowledge.

Social Networking

I enjoyed reading "Your space or my space." I think its good to target the students through MySpace. I think the writer makes an important point though that it is more than just giving out information. It's about responding to the questions asked and reading between the lines when doing this. So, finding out what it is that the student wants to know. I also think the "paralysis by analysis" comment has some truth to it. Yes, there are risks with libraries social networking but there are enormous gains to be had.

Exercise 21

I enjoyed looking at Bebo. Particlarly the Rotorua and Auckland sites. All the comments and friends and funny photos. It was good to see Auckland City Libraries are a friend of Rotorua Public library. In Facebook I typed in peoples names but it brought up hundreds. In myspace Matt Damon versus Sarah Palin was interesting and also looking at celebrity sites. I like myspace and Bebo best. They seemed immediately accesible and looked like a fun way to spend some time.

ebooks

On Project Gutenberg I found an ebook of Jane Eyre. It wasn't difficult to find and the print was easy to read. On Google Book search I found extracts from Pilgrims Progress. The book looked very old with illustrations. On Librivox the audio of Jane Eyre I found . I did find the voice a bit boring. I was surprised how many free ebooks are available.

Podcasts

I found these podcast sites quite hard to get into. Many required a membership. Podcastpickle was the easiest to access. It was good for children's podcasts. I listened for a short time to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. I have added this podcast feed to my Bloglines account
http://feeds.thisamericanlife.org/talpodcast

YouTube

I have looked on videos alot at YouTube, particularly music ones. I've looked at Paula Yate's old ones with the Big Breakfast show. Also a recent interview with Slash, ex Guns and Roses. Some videos aon the site are quite grainy and of course there is the slowness of the upload but well worth it. It would be fun to put some of the library ones on our website as customers might enjoy the humour.

Craigslist

This is a popular site. I enjoyed Craigslist which was foirst place in classified and directory. It covers different states in America as well as other places like London. I mainly looked at New York- whats for sale, for rent, and up for discussion. I had heard of this site from a friend in NY who raved about it. I think this is extremely useful especially if you were new in a place. Lots of courses as well advertised. As for the Library a great place to advertise library services, vacancies, events!