The end

I started this Learning 2.0 programme for an mp3 (I have to confess), but gained much more from the whole process. This programme provided me with the opportunity to look at and familiarise myself with lots of new technologies like RSS, wiki, flickr, Library thing, podcasting etc. Some of these technologies I had heard about, but had not bothered to find out more. Whatever profession we are in these days, it is good to keep upto date with the changes. And librarians are expected to know all!! Having all the staff do the exercises together was good, as we could help each other complete the tasks.On the whole, it was a very rewarding experience and I would like to thank the ACL Learning 2.0 team for putting together this programme.

Week 9

#22 NetLibrary

I was under the impression that the books in the Netlibrary are mostly technical. I created a Netlibrary account and searched for eboooks on knitting. I was very surprised to find the ebook- Teach yourself visually knitting by Sharon Turner. This books starts with a very basic introduction to knitting, about different yarns, symbols, needles, accessories and basic techniques. The pictures in the book are clear and I guess it would be a very useful resource for a beginner. I then looked for books on crocheting and found one in the same series - Teach yourself visually crocheting. I added these 2 books into the favourites. I also found books on photoshop, Excel and other computer programs.

I think ebooks will be a good option for someone who wouldn't mind reading from a computer screen. The font of the books that I looked at were big and in Adobe we have the choice to zoom the page for easy reading.But cannot read it in bed!!!

It was interesting to read the BBC news item on Kindle. It says that with Kindle we can read books without a pc. The content arrives wireless (no idea how that works!) According to Amazon it takes less than minute to download a book to the Kindle. There will be lots of technologies and inventions that will come up in the near future to make it easier for people to access and read ebooks. It will be fascinating to see how things shape up in the future.


#21Podcasts

Podcasts are non musical audios or videos distributed over the Internet taking advantage of RSS technology. I had heard about podcasts, but had never tried to find out what they were. I used podcast.net and yahoo podcasts to find podcasts on book reviews and author talks. My search brought up different sorts of podcasts, and both directories were easy to use. I added the RSS feed to Diana Gabaldon author talk to my Bloglines account.
www.randomhouse.com/audio/podcasts/diana_gabaldon_rss.xml

It would be interesting to listen to old news broadcasts and author talks from the library websites.

#20 YouTube

The video that I added - Superlibrarian njlibraries is a great example of how libraries can promote themselves through Youtube. In this age of technology printed materials are not enough to get people, especially the youngsters into the public libraries.

I typed in the search word 'librarian' without expecting to find much.But I found lots of librarian related videos like the ninja librarian, librarian as a vampire, librarian who lays down the rules, angry librarian etc. which was a surprise. Librarians are everywhere!

Super librarian- njlibraries

Week 8 # 19

It was good to learn about the various internet technologies and websites which are gaining popularity. For this discovery exercise, I went to the short list of the Web 2.0 award winners, and looked at a few of them.

Ma.gnolia- a social bookmarking site. can share bookmarks and tags with other people.There is a ma.gnolia community to share and discuss about bookmarks which makes the social side of social bookmarking work better.

Lulu- Lulu offers free book publishing services. One can easily upload digital files, photos or manuscripts and format it the way they want , so that it can be printed and published by Lulu. Lulu ranks first among the self publishing websites. They even make it possible to get an ISBN for the book, so that it can be made available in stores, libraries etc.

Google maps- I loved it. You can turn the earth with your mouse and also zoom into places by double clicking on it. There is the satellite picture of an area available plus the street map and also the hybrid which could be useful.It was amazing.

I also had a look at Digg. Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web.People can submit images, videos or podcasts to digg. Once submitted, other people can see it and Digg what they like best. The contributions that receive most Diggs are put on the front page, so people can find it easily.

Zoho Writer

Zoho Writer revolutionizes the way one works with documents by making it available from any computer at work or at home. It has lots of formatting options and has features which allow the user to shrink or fit a picture into a document, insert border and spacing for the document, add tags and also post to the blog directly. It allows us to add contextual comments, and makes it easier to share documents between people.

I created a document in Zoho Writer and published it in my blog. Somehow the formatting and the font colour kept changing once it was published. So I had to delete and publish the document 4 times! In Zoho Writer, I changed the font and background colour, added a picture from Google Images, gave an alternate text to the picture and also used some emoticons. It was fun, and I am sure there are lots more features in Zoho writer which are useful, and will be exploring them soon.

Week 8- Zoho Writer

Records in history

Human societies from ancient times had an instinct for the preservation of records and memories. Record keeping evolved out of the necessity to prove and support property ownership and commercial activity, but later they started to serve legal, administrative and military purposes. Powerful rulers created archives as monuments of their greatness and also to exercise control over their subjects. After an occupation, the captured archives were incorporated or in some cases destroyed to establish control over the defeated.

Archives perform different functions according to the society in which they exist. In less democratic societies the archives may be made to serve the narrow political, legal and economic objectives of the ruling elite. But in a democratic society, the archives are meant to provide citizens accountability and empower them against corruption by officials. To perform this role the archives must ideally remain independent of political interference and the power to decide what records constitute the archives should be left to the institution and the chief archivist. But most often that is not the case.

Many democratic governments are known for their attempts to suppress crucial information from reaching the public. The US government officials in the 1980’s continually denied accusations about their secret meddling in Iran and Nicaragua. But the details were brought out in the open with the help of the volumes of top-secret government documents.

The records remain as monuments for a government’s actions, and in a democratic society

they are usually used by successive governments for their advantage. In South Africa, secrecy became a justification to prevent the activities of the intelligence services during the apartheid years. They also routinely destroyed public records, and in some cases even the documentation of records, in order to keep their processes secret .The massive destruction of financial records at the US Internal Revenue Service in the 1990’s and the Heiner case in Australia, which involved the destruction of documents gathered by a retired magistrate to cover up the inappropriate and embarrassing details are other examples where governments have meddled with the archival records to hinder justice.

There are some instances in history when records were destroyed to save lives. During the German occupation of Netherlands, civil registration records became records of repression. To prevent the Nazis from using them for identifying people to be sent to concentration camps or into forced labour, supporters of Dutch resistance raided the Amsterdam Central Register of Population, and set fire to all records. During the Nazi regime, it was declared that anyone with four Jewish grandparents was a Jew. So in certain cases, records were faked to prove that one of the grandparent of a person was non Jewish!The records are powerful tools, which can become saviours or tormentors according to the objective of the person who handles them. The records kept by the Nazis to control people and make them accountable are now used for their restitution and reparation. The records kept by the government institutions and church missions in Australia are used to reunite many Aboriginal people with their families.

Instances of records being made illegally to serve the ulterior motives of the powerful are also not uncommon. Pope gives examples of records for phantom roads, schools, and even whole regiments in different countries. Corruption is prevalent in almost all countries, irrespective of they being rich or poor. The archives, which can help inhibit corruption, can also be made to incite it through the creation of wrong records. According to the Auditor General of Commonwealth Australia, ‘poor record keeping attracts corruption like flies to a carcass’.

Technorati Tags Archives,Records

Week 7

#17 PBwiki learning 2.0

PBwiki allows anyone to make their own wiki. I found the PBwiki tips very useful for someone new to all this technology (like me!). I tried playing the video in the PBwiki tour, but the sound did not work well.Still I think having a video is a good thing. I never knew that creating a wiki was so simple. Thanks to the ACL learning 2.0 team for giving me this opportunity to learn wonderful new things.

#16 Wiki

A wiki is a quick to build, easy to edit website , and is a useful tool to exchange ideas and pool knowledge. Knowledge of HTML or any other markup language is not required to add or edit contents of a wiki.

I liked the look of the Booklovers wiki. In this the librarians who have written reviews have identified themselves, and that makes their comments more credible. SJPCL subjectguides wiki and the Librarysuccess wiki have the same look and arrangement as the wikipedia.The Libraryoutreach wiki gives detailed instructions on adding and editing pages which would be helpful. Anyone who uses a wiki can be a content supplier.

A wiki will be useful for libraries to collaborate with its users and communities. In 'Using wikis to create online communities' it is said that Wikis can be used by libraries to update subject guides, catalogues and give community information. I think wikis will be great for community information.The organisations or assoications in the community can add an edit any information and can provide updated information . Wikis would be good to get reviews and comments from people about books and other library related activities. Using wikis for catalogues and subject guides could be a bit worrying.

Week 6

#15 Web 2.0, library 2.0

In web 2.0 the web becomes a shared, open, network space. Library 2.0 is everywhere , it is participatory and is barrier free.

Libraries have always tried to anticipate the needs of the users and collected books and other materials to satisfy every need of every customer. With the opening up of the web, the demands of the customers will increase, but it will also increase the number of avenues to find that information. This will bring about a big change in the way libraries function.

With the changes in technology, librarians are becoming more like teachers. Every society will have people who move along with technology and those who lag behind. Librarians have to try hard to eliminate the barriers that exist between the patrons and the information they need. As more and more services become available with the click of a button, library patrons will soon be expecting the same from librarians! This is a very scary thought.!

Earlier people used to come into the libraries looking for information.But now libraries are moving out of the four walls and are taking their services to the patrons. OCLC's Open WorldCat which integrates the collections and services of member libraries is an attempt to take libraries to the users.

Librarian 2.0 bases all planning, proposals and services on user needs and wants.User centred libraries break down barriers. Libraries have to use new technologies and new materials to meet the user's needs.Librarians had to visit communities to know their needs, but soon librarians will be participating in online communities.


#14Technorati

I did a keyword search in Technorati for 'learning 2.0 and got 6300 results in blog posts. Even though I put the words in quotation it looked for them separately and brought up all blogs with either 'learning' or '2.0' in it. When I searched for posts tagged 'learning2.0', I got 81 results and got 137 results for the search in the blog directory. The difference in the number of blogs retrieved in each search is amazing. The tag search may be a better and more precise, but we have to think of the right tag!I found the blog of 'The learning librarian' through this search. Technorati could be a useful tool for someone who wants to spread a message through their blog.They can make it popular and easily retrievable by all the major blog search engines.

I looked at the popular blog, searches and tags and was not surprised to find that blogs that advise people how to make money from blogs are very popular!Online marketers and even evangelists are making use of this new technology!!

#13

del.icio.us is a new thing for me. del.icio.us can be used to tag sites and will help to retrieve sites with similar tags easily later. Tags can be anything that will help a person to bookmark and organize websites, but they cannot have spaces in between. One website can be given different tags to denote the different subjects it deals with.It is good to know how other people have tagged the same sites and we can take the same tag or choose a new one. The tags given by different people for a particular site can be seen either as a 'cloud' or as a list. 'Cloud' shows the most used tag in big font and list gives the number of people who have used the tag. For a researcher who has to look into numerous websites for information, tagging can be really helpful.

Week 5 #10

The searchroll I created on rollyo

http://www.rollyo.com/malu31/travel_sites/

It is intersting to learn about all these technologies. Rollyo helps to have all the websites together for people who use them regularly. For me, I am used to going into the sites straight and don't find that a problem.As with all new things, we have to get used to this one too I guess.


Created a LibraryThing account. Found it interesting, but don't think it will be of much use to me. As I work in the library, I have got used to getting all the books I need from here.So am not buying much books at the moment, and so there is no need to catalogue them.

My library thing catalogue can be found under http://www.librarything.com/catalog/malu31






















From Animated wave generator. it's fun.

I had real fun doing this exercise.The image generators are cool, and I will be coming back to this to try out more of them. At present I cannot think of any use for this, but who knows, tomorrow this may be the one thing that will help me with something.

Week 4

I used Feedster to find blogs by gardening enthusiasts. Found a few like '52 weeks in the california garden' and 'gardening club covent garden'. The search also brought up items like 'Bon Jovi and band announce world tour' and 'affordable dentures'!!! The search must have brought up any blog with the word 'garden' in it! Technorati also looked for individual words and brought up lots of unrelated blogs. Do they expect us to do boolean searching???

I found topix.net useful in finding newsfeeds.

I had used the Google blog search before, so I tried that to find something library related, and I found a 'flipfloplibrarian's weblog' on - Library 2.0 and web 2.0 a heathen's thoughts.He says "Life is all about change. We must grow and learn and improve. So what others call “library 2.0,” I call another step in the evolution of the library".


I had heard about RSS feeds, but never got to explore what it was. So it was a good discovery exercise and setting up Bloglines and RSS feeds was much simpler than I had anticipated. It is good to have all the links to our favourite sites together and getting rid of the advertisements is a bonus.I dislike the pop up ads especially.

http://www.bloglines.com/public/USERNAME

Libraries can have RSS feeds to good reading sites from their websites.

Week 3

Technology has advanced quite fast in the last ten years and it is becoming hard to keep up. Certain advancements like skype are very useful, especially when people move to different parts of the world. It is a great technology to keep in touch with friends and relatives. I have not got it at my place, but I have used it at my friend's place and know how cool it is.





Photo framer

flickr billboard

I have a bit of my garden in my blog through Flickr. The garden is my little haven and am planning to spend some time in there this summer.

Social networking

Have been busy with my final project for MLIS for the last few weeks. Now that is almost over and am back on track .

Had a look at the different social networking sites. I think I am too old to be in Bebo , but liked Myspace and Facebook. In Myspace, anyone can log on and go into anyone's profile.So there is not much of a privacy there! Or maybe that is how people make friends these days! who knows! I created a Facebook account and I like the fact that people have to be invited to be friends. I got in touch with a friend from India through Facebook which was great.

Had fun doing the social networking.

First step

I am always interested in learning new things . This year with lots of help from my friends, especially CJ, Anna and Jo I learned to knit and knitted my first scarf, which I am very proud of. Now I am trying to learn a little bit of Crocheting. I am finding it a bit hard at the moment, but hope to be better at it at least by next year!

I had created a blog last year, but did not do much posting. This learning program will be a good opportunity to familiarise myself with all the latest gizmos and technologies.And getting an MP3 is an addded bonus!