Woohoo - #17 and Week 7

Yay, on the final leg of Library 2.0. We've been asked to check out the bebo page that was set up by Auckland City Libraries Bebo and to send a request to be a friend, as well as a link to that Bebo. In order to do this I had to set up 2 bebo accounts, Hikurangi Waiapu and Ataahua Sunshine Bebo. (Both can be accessed through the above link). The first bebo was set up so that I could access the ACL bebo and the second one I set up because I wanted another account to be able to comment on the first account, and not only that, I couldn't turn down the name of Ataahua (beautiful) sunshine. My sense of humour came out to play, considering we've had about 2 days of sunshine in the past 3 weeks, ok, ok, I'm exaggerating...4 days. I have also left a message on the Hennepin-County-Library facebook.

I joined MySpace.com - Hikurangi and this was a site that I haven't visited before, I liked this site, after putting in Bic Runga's name, her page came up with a blog. Bic's babies name is Joseph, she writes that she was worried that he still didn't have a name at 4 months. Bic's site also has some of her recordings which I added onto my page. The purpose of Face Book - Hikurangi ,is to meet people that have been in your life, such as people that you have worked with or people that you have been to school with. I think this is a moot point because I had a non-de-plume, and knew no-one. I can see the value in having a face book page if I would want to catch up with others, and I guess it is the more 'mature' page, However, I have a personal bebo account, which I have to keep in touch with whanau that live overseas or back home. Bebo, unlike blogging or some other sites can be made into a private site, and I can choose who 'visits' my bebo page.

We've been asked what we've discovered and learnt. Well, so much, in such a small amount of time, I wish that we had more time to fully discover all of the different sites and much more. I am really excited about what I've learnt in the past month, considering, that I didn't even know how to do a blog in JUNE. Incredible, I have leant so much.

Now what frustrated me? Where do I start? (1) The problems with our staff pc's not being able to access some of the sites. As well, I would have done a fair amount of work and then it would all disappear?? Where?? I wouldn't know until I got home and checked it out on my own pc, (2) working at home. (3) All of the different sites we had to sign up for, at last count, I have opened 20 different accounts, and those are only the ones, I've remembered, as well as trying to remember the passwords. (4) And finally, another biggie, not being able to take photos of people!!! I had to be really inventive as to how to take photos of people without taking photos of their faces (unless I had their permission). But then that was part of the challenge, and it was really great to be able to find 'one beautiful thing' to photograph each day. Sometimes, I just couldn't choose out of the many photos taken, and those were the days when I would put two (or more) photos on the page.

I have already mentioned the social networking site that I prefer, which is Bebo, it is the site that I know, and because a lot more of my whanau are on Bebo. Where to from here? I would like to spend more time on sites such as Flickr - Hikurangi and MySpace as well as the toys (generators) and any of the sites that are relevant to photography, as well as learning much more about Library 2.0.

I found it easier to understand all of these different Library 2.0 concepts via video rather than reading the instructions, in particular the Common craft videos, that are at the bottom of my page. As well as those videos, Meredith Farkas, in her video, offered some really great suggestions, about Library 2.0:

• to embed services where customers are
• to meet changing user needs
  
• blogs: to communicate in an informal way and to get back comments, where guidelines had been set.
• Flickr; highlighting collections
• RSS: get messages via txt, via bloglines
• Wiki: share/collect knowledge to put our stuff out there and make it attractive
• Social bookmarking: tags; sharing info with other libraries/library staff.
  

At this time, I'm looking forward to all of the tools that are becoming available for those of us who work in libraries. I don't see it as a 'threat' to our books, or collections. I see it as another area, an area we would all be wise to look into.

Te Rā Pare - Thursday 31 July

YES!! More of the wet stuff!!
Last day of the month and just a wrap up of July. Most of the required exercises I had done and wrote about on July 13, however, there were others that I had added to my Link List and I hadn't mentioned. I've added Manukau Public Libraries;which is a RSS; Tagnautica this is a really fun application which puts words together in a fun way; Unshelved a comic based on a library and librarians, it also is interesting to see the many series; LibraryThing where a few of my chosen books are on a slide show; fd's Flickr Toys I could have (and did) spend ages playing with the many applications, Bubblr was one where I put together a series of photos (from Flickr) to create a slide show, this is at the bottom of my blog, Hocknerizer is what I used to do my blog header; Flickr: Hikurangi's Photostream I have a 'stream' of photos with Flickr, but I found Picasa Web Albums easier to use, especially when it came to my slide show at the top of the page. I also found a site called , Bravenet which was another site for more applications, I liked the idea that I could have a counter on my blog, but more so I could see at what time I had visits. I added the Technorati side show a while ago, I think it was because I'm a Matrix fan and I liked the black and green colour scheme. I have now joined Technorati Profile so that I could access heaps of info including 'the most popular blogs,' that I might one day require. A mashup that I liked was twittervision, it was a combination of Twitter, Facebook and 3D earth, it was cool to see people on the net, writing in different languages in short sentences, as it happened. Joining RADIO.BLOG.CLUB I got to choose different songs that can be played at home, but not on our work pc's. I liked searching different sites that were enjoyable and informative as well as being free. My major problem was that I had to join so many different sites and remember all of the passwords.

Te Rā Tapu - Sunday 13 July

I have been having so much fun with this blogging. However, with my daily photo journal I find it hard to chose just ONE photograph per day. I am also conscious of the fact that these photographs are on the net, therefore, if the photos have people in them, I will get their (or their caregivers) permission to use them. Failing that I would try to take photos of people in a crowd. Other than all of the many different accounts that I have set up, another challenge I am having, is that I end up surfing all over the place and trying out heaps of things, of which I have put only a few of them on here. I think that the fun in all of it was finding and playing on the sites. It is really awesome.

Oh the places I have been,
and the things I have seen.

We were asked to set up a couple of internet feeds and a RSS feed. As I am a news seeker I added NZ Herald and Ataahua Māori I also have an interest in photography, so I added i heart photograph and Richard Estes. Cooking with Amy was added for that reason as well, for interest value. I wouldn't want to suggest that I am an expert in either area...yet. A couple of RSS feeds were Technorati and My Blogline the intructions on both of them were easy to follow. Our libraries could use the RSS to get up to date information and show patrons how this could be done. Then I met up again with a friend and remembered that he plays beautiful music, so added his link as well. The Broken Heartbreakers Online Also thought that I'd add another blog by some one in the music industry. Scratch Dat!

The generators were awesome. I had a play with Word clouds, Wordle - Ngati Porou all I had to do was add some words and the generator would put it all together in which ever way or whatever colours I wanted.

I tried many of the generators, some of which included the following:

The 8 ball was created with the imageGenerator , I also created a 'clippy,' that was so much fun. Words could be inserted in much the same way as 'the yeah right' slogans. I mosified Ben Bratts head on another’s body with Moosify he is such a prettiful man, especially in one of my favorite movies, Miss Congeniality with Sandra Bullock, another great actor. Magnigraph and Warholizer was where I coloured a photo in different colours, as shown above. Photos could be aged with old style and Cover Browser was when I could type words into speech bubbles of comic books.
It was lovely with an 'edge of vanity' to put myself on the front of a magazine or to be on a movie poster Be on TV Guide however, I think I missed my 'calling.'

After joining Flickr: Hikurangi's Photostream I found I could do a lot of great things with my photos through this link. fd's Flickr Toys One of which was called ‘Motivator,' I was meant to put some 'inspiration words' within the frame as well but the picture and title 'Papa Kainga' (home) alone, done it for me.

I also used fd's Flickr Toys so that I could play around with all of my photos and make my side show. I'm still not satisfied with it, so I'll play around with it and tweek it here and there, til I get it right. OK, OK it still isn't up to my satisfaction so I've ended up using a Picasa slide show.

LibraryThing The library thing was great to have a play in. The few books that I chose were only for the benefit of having to chose some books. I think if I actually had to put books on 'the shelf,' there would not be enough room. I've also put on the side bar Unshelved which is a library comic that I found interesting, our Manukau Public Libraries which needs no explanation, as well as Rollyo: Hikurangi which is a list of specified websites that I have chosen. I really think that Rollo is a great addition for the sake of accumulating relevant information in one place. As well as the previous feeds, I also added Technorati slide show, I found everything easy enough to join up and use most of the feeds, it was just trying to remember all of my user names and passwords.

Okay, that's enough of all of these words. Thank goodness a new week has started and I can go back to photographs. There should also be a rule that "one cannot fix and re-fix and re-fix and ....one's blog. hehe. That's the perfectionist in me.