The dark side of the web

I have had the misfortune of being the target of a phising scam. I think everyone gets the occaisional fake email from a bank, and I find these completely obvious... Your bank will never email you to confirm your details!
But I did receive an email from Ebay a few years back that stated that they would no longer be contacting me via this email address that they would contact me via the new address specified in my account. I knew straight away it was a scam, someone had managed to hack my Ebay account. So i jumped straight onto Ebay to change my password. Once I had reset my password, I realised that they send a temporary password to your nominated email address... FAIL! Now the hacker had my password. So I picked up the phone and called the Help and Support centre and they retreived my account, and helped me change everything. The sad thing is, I knew what had happened, I thought I had done the right thing by changing the password to fix it, but that was exactly what they needed.

Twitter and Mashups still slightly confuse me, but that is purely because I don't understand how they work, I can't just accept that they do work and move on :)

Mashups Revisited

I imagine that most libraries have the same idea about Mashups that I do. I would love to see google maps combined with Flickr photos of the Local History Collection mashed so that people can view the townships in either map, satellite or street view and then have the option of viewing the local history images of that location.
I still find mashups slightly confusing. I understand what they do, but don't necessarily understand how they work.
The other idea for a mashup is to create a Facebook Page and link it to our own website. That way when updates are made on the website, they are reflected on Facebook. I would also love to see a Catalogue and Database search tool used on a Facebook page. Very convenient!

The Instant Messaging Phenomenon

This weeks course was great! Mainly because these are all technologies that I have used very regularly for many years. Instant Messaging was first introduced to me in high school, everyone had MSN Messenger and it was a great way to keep us entertained and in touch.
There are huge possibilities for libraries to use IM to complete reference enquiries... or any other enquiries for that matter. Working out who would be responsibile (or multiple people to be responsibile) for the conversations, ensuring enquiries get answered in a timely matter, and generally when a branch is busy, and the enquiry is not in your face, ie. a person at the counter, or a phone ringing; the enquiry may end up being neglected. To combat this, IM enquiries could be dealt with at a Head Office level, but there are still times in each day, and whole days where limited staff are available.
Skype. I can see the potential in eliminating our current phone system all together and merging to Skype. Calls and messages could be fielded by a receptionist and passed onto the appropriate staff member (taking into account that the functionality would need to be available in skype for business). The potential is certainly there. Realistically since we are linked with our council's phone system, unless they change, then our library service will not change. But I will continue to dream of such a world where we function over IP.

Google Docs, Rocks!

The first one to really stand out at me was the tracking of who read the document and when. I find myself often frustrated when I don't get the input required from some staff, and I know that they open their emails, but whether they go to the extent of actually looking at the documents, I'm not sure - contributing is a whole other level. I can see this feature being very useful.

...And the always handy availability of past versions. I try and save all of my work in versions, but not even having to think about it is definitely a bonus!

Tips to share (other than those posted above)...
Allowing people to sign in and edit a document without actually having a google account. Very handy! I tend to have that many accounts and passwords that i start to lose track of which one goes where. So i can imagine the frustration for staff when I want to start collaborating with Google Docs and the response I get is "But I don't wanna have a gmail account" - This feature does open up potential security risks with outside parties possibly contributing in a destructive rather then constructive manner.

Organisation is the key

i-Google is so easy to use, it reminds me of using tools like MSN Messenger, but with much more diversity. The customisation is wonderful and is a great way to get more people interested. Plus more importantly to stay interested!

I had never seen Ping before and was really impressed. I have been deterred from migrating to Facebook on a professional level because it would mean another website to update, and also the limitations that others have mentioned of having Twitter users that don't want to be on Facebook being restricted. Ping is a great solution to all of those problems.

Ping would also allow us to update our Youth Blog at the same time as we update Facebook and Twitter pages.

My fear is that once we make the move into these social networking sites are the users going to pack up and leave? There is a trend where people move away from the information that they once deemed important, but now see as "boring".

Event Management

I created accounts for the 3 activities in this weeks lesson. I was happy with Doodle, but for the meetings that I attend it is probably not necessary and neither was Google Calendar. I love Event Brite! It is on my list of things to do to get the staff here more interested in running online bookings. It would save tremendous hassels with Computer Bookings, Storytime and School Holiday Bookings! These activities are always busy for us and by eliminating the staff time involved in taking these bookings we are going to be a lot better off.
The issue other staff members see is with the restriction for those without the internet. But participants can still contact the branch, and the staff member can make the booking for them whilst they are on the phone. Great lesson this week, I really look forward to seeing how well Event Brite will work for us.

Keeping RSS Simple!

To be completely honest I have only looked at my RSS feeds a few times since I set them up. It is handy if I am trolling through endless information and suddenly remember to check if something new has been written that my RSS Feeds may have notified me about, but that happens very rarely.

Although I do not use my RSS Feeds regularly, they are extremely organised, I cannot survive with the mess! But then what point is there being organised if you're not using them :/

Beyond my laziness, for those using RSS feeds regularly, having them organised would be of great benefit. I am considering signing up for 'FeedMyInbox' to see if emailing the Feeds would be more beneficial, but it will possibly be just like all the other Email alerts I receive that once I see where the email has come from, I just delete it because I either don't have the time, or the care factor right at that moment.

On a personal level, Having my feeds stream into say Twitter or Facebook Accounts would be highly beneficial. The history will be there when you need it (rather than deleting the email) and there is the opportunity to look at it, only when you really feel like it, you can skim past the post if you don't have time. definitely something to consider, but not really acceptable on a work level.

Slideshows, slideshows everywhere

I've watched so many of these online Slideshows, more of the Tutorial style ones, and have found them extremely useful. My only qualm is that the quality of them is not amazing. The images are too small to see at normal size and at Full Screen they are very poor quality making it just as hard to read.

the ones I have found that are more images have been wonderful and have helped me out of many a pickle. I have not considered using them within our library service at this point in time. Possibly if we move into online tutorials on using our Catalogue or Online Services at a later date then I will explore them further.

Nings - - - - - ->

Nings are a great form of collaborative information sharing. Although I personally wasn't overly impressed with the sites that I explored, I have experienced Nings before, and they are extremely useful for sharing information between people with similar interests. I do tend to find these sites are more of a phase that people go through and don't end up being a long term committment to monitor and contribute information too.

Bookmarks are... Delicious?

I have been using Delicious regularly since the Learning 2.0 Course. I find it incredibly helpful to Bookmark Websites and Blogs that I like to visit. Bundling the tags into Categories like Storytime, Rhymetime, Lapsit, Design, Marketing are all very handy so that I can find the resources I need easily without having to remember the name of a website to return to it.
Like most things I probably should use it more, there are definitely sites that I will need to use again that I haven't Bookmarked with Delicious, hopefully this weeks session will force me to use them a little bit more :)

This weeks lesson was great!

Tweet It!

Social Networking appeals to me definitely on a personal level, it makes keeping in contact with friends and family very easy.
Professionally I am still trying to decide whether or not our Library is prepared to join the social networking craze. I fear we will become one of the libraries that is using the technology for the sake of using technology and that it will start to deteriorate and not be done well.
I also feel the line between personal and professional posts can at times become blurred and I read things on other Libraries Facebook and Twitter Pages that I don't believe is professionally relevant.
Then I look at the other side of the coin and realise that it is a way to tap into audiences that we have not been able to secure previously... and then the internal debate starts and i wonder if by trying to tap into these markets that don't want to be penetrated are we making their social networking services effectively "uncool"???

So many questions to ask, and they are some that I will discuss with other members of staff and come to a decision on whether we continue to piggy back on the Dubbo City Council Blog and Facebook Page (Dubbo Youth) or whether we develop our own.

Learning 2.1 Begins

I haven't touched my Blog since the completion of Learning 2.0, but tend to have a few work associated and personal blogs that I follow on a regular basis.
As most people have already said, I should blog more, but never have time, etc, etc... but I enjoy blogging, it tends to be a release of stress and whatever is on your mind at the time... most personal blogs tend to be like a public, online diary... has good and bad sides, but some people tend to reveal too much about themselves.
A lot of the blogs I visit for work purposes are:
http://storytimepreschooltoddlers.blogspot.com/ and http://preschoolstorytimeoutlines.blogspot.com
I love Lisa's blog, there are lots of very interesting rhymes and stories availabe, my only qualm is that there is no Search option! Blogs must be able to be searched. Thus the inclusion of a Search bar in the new look for my Blog :)