#23 Finito

I never cease to be amazed by the volume of information, entertainment, comments, sites etc. that are available on the web. Oh to have the time to discover them all, and spend time with your favourites.
Some sites have been immediately useful in day to day work - eg. Zoho writer in a library with no word processing facilities. LibraryThing has been suggested to borrowers, and I personally have been excited by it. 'One Sentence' is an interesting site that I visit regularly now, and have recommended to several friends.
I have enjoyed the learning process, and do feel that I have learned alot and gained tools that will help me and the borrowers in many areas. I feel more comfortable with terminology (wiki,blog,post etc) which once would have yeilded "WHAT THE?"
I have created my own blog, equipped with photos and video, which I never assumed I would do. I gained the greatest praise from my son, who after showing him my blog commented "That's sick mum, good on you".

#22 Downloadable audio books

I had a look at NetLibrary and OverDrive, where libraries can subscribe to ebooks, music and videos. They provided a relatively small number of titles, but I suppose this will quickly increase. The world ebook fair site was not easy to understand, and what was available to dowload appeared very limited.

#21 Podcasts

There are certainly a huge number of audio broadcasts to listen to, on just about every imaginable subject. On Podcast.net I went through 'soliloquies' to 'soap box & rants'. Also through Podcast.net into 'entertainment' and 'comedy' provided some interesting listening.
I could not add the RSS feed for the podcast as a message said the feed contained code errors.
There is certainly use for podcasts in the library situation - information provided on audio is just another format for patrons to utilise.

#20 You Tube

I have looked around You Tube quite often, and been shown some very funny, amazing, bizzare and WRONG videos by my kids.
I was very frustrated at posting my video, as it always came attatched with others. This would have been fine, except my original choice was ducks revenge which was an apparently banned commercial. When I posted it, a host of other banned commercials were on offer after it had finished playing. Some were just a bit too wild!! I have settled with 'duck lake' which seems to have other duck related videos that accompany it.
I see this as a fun tool, and the library could possibly use video presentations on its web page to highlight certain areas. People take more notice of a visual presentation than they do of great amounts of written words.

#20 You Tube

#19 Discovering web 2.0 tools

The site I chose to look at was : One Sentence - true stories, told in one sentence.
http://www.onesentence.org/
I like this site because it is amazing what can be condensed into one sentence, and how much power, humour and information can be contained within it. It is just people's everyday stories - nothing really useful per se, and no application to a library setting. It is just a really interesting site.
Two of my favourites were :
"This morning while in the shower the ground shook, and I realized my greatest fear is to die naked"
"During the 90 minutes he was in our arms, his mother and I loved him a lifetime"

#18 Zoho writer

What a wonderful word processing tool! Easy to use, and accessed from anywhere. This is certainly a site that I will remember for patrons wishing to use word processing on our PCs that currently dont provide this facility.
I had a look also at Google Docs : through 'new presentation' viewed the facility to produce a slide show.

#17 Sandbox wiki

I visited the sandbox and added an entry. I loved the area "favourite vacation spots", and was interested by all the great holiday/travel stories and advice.

#16 Wikis

I had a look around Wikis : what a 'social' tool (so much sharing and caring). They certainly provide a great service eg. BookLoversWiki, with suggestions, opinions and reviews which are always sought by readers. Certainly a great way to disperse information!

#15 Web 2.0, Library 2.0 and the future of libraries

Having worked in libraries for over 30 years I have certainly seen my share of changes. I felt I coped well with them all, but really they were relatively minor changes and all extremely low-tech. in comparison to the advent of the computer in our libraries, the Web, and diverse technologies of today.
Changes/advances/enhancements appear almost daily (or so it feels) and we have no choice but to accept them, learn about them, and use them with, and for the public.
Perhaps more teenagers would access our services if they found them more relevant and in formats that they identify most with. If they are not coming into the library, we need to be going out to them in interesting and diverse ways. Therein 2.0!

#14 Technorati

I had already had a brief look at Technorati in #9 (useful library related blogs). It is certainly a useful tool for searching blogs of interest to libraries and general public interest.

#13 del.icio.us

I can see the benefits of this social bookmarking site, as you keep track of your favourite areas, and have to ability to add from other people of similar interest.

#12 Rollyo

I created an account, and made a search roll on American artists for my daughter who I'm sure will find this very useful.

#11 LibraryThing

Well, if this isn't the way to over-excite an old cataloguer, I dont know what is! The joy I experienced on finding a tool to create a quality catalogue of my own books proved conclusively I need to get a life. Suggestions, critiques etc. were an added bonus. I love it!

#10 Online image generator

What a lot of fun you can have with these! I looked at the Generator blog, Letter James and FD toys where I created a customised badge of my "killer hound" Milo the wonderdog. You have to take my word for it that it looked great, because for the life of me I could not persuade it to come over to my blog page.(I am at home with no one to ask for help - except the dog - and he aint helping!)

#9 Useful library related bogs

I explored the search tools eg. Technorati, Bloglines, Topix.net and searched for current topics. Oddly enough my searches on Kevin Rudd and Madeleine McCann yeilded huge amounts of information.

#7 Technology blog post

Technology - don't you love it! One of the main reasons I come to work everyday! - Not so much to utilizise it, but to earn the money to pay for it!!
As the parent of teenagers, our home is filled with pieces of just about every technology known to mankind. Just when you think you're up with the latest, along comes the new improved version : faster, slimmer, better, with more memory, more features, more expense, more MORE. We are educated, employed and entertained by such a diverse variety of gadgets, I almost start to hyperventilate at the prospect of a power failure or a world wide battery shortage!

#5&6 Photos and images

It was fun to have a quick look through some fabulous images that are available on every subject imaginable. It was pleasing to post some of my own snaps that someone somewhere may get some enjoyment from. Having a daughter who has just finished VCE Studio Arts with photographic mosaics as final assesment pieces, we have discovered the likes of flickr and Montager a little too late (but better late than never!!)

Lord Howe Island

Even though there were so many unbelievable photos to choose from in flickr, I wanted to post one of my holiday snaps of beautiful Lord Howe Island.

#8 RSS & Newsreaders

How wonderful to have access to all this information, music and laughs without all the added advertising to annoy you! After setting up my bloglines account and subscribing to some interesting sites, I realised what a predisposition I appear to have for the frivolous (music, Dilbert etc). I was thrilled to realise that Salon.com which I assumed would feed my hair preoccupation, was actually a serious current affairs site (phew).