#15 On Library 2.0 & Web 2.0 ...

Well, our Learning Services del.icio.us site has 15 entries tagged under library2.0, which is a reasonable number, I guess. But nothing like the total number of blog posts and references out there. Google returns 162,000,000 results on the search term 'library 2.0' - so that rather puts it in perspective.

Obviously, one of the gurus on lib2.0 is Stephen Abram, who I first met at LIANZA last year, where he gave a keynote and a couple of other presentations. And again only the other week, when he did a presentation for CAVAL, which was so jam packed full of stuff that my note taking really couldn't keep up. His blog, Stephen's Lighthouse, is always interesting. But, if you were to judge what he had to say only from his blog posts, you might be forgiven for thinking that he is just another techno fan - although hugely well informed. But seeing him again the other week confirmed for me that that would be a very unfair judgement.

Just to give you an example, one of the many things he spoke about was the impact of gaming, and MMORPGs in particular. And the simple case for thinking that they are important and worth following? They are based on learning theory - specifically scaffolded learning, whereby you advance in stages, being challenged and then consolidating your learning, being challenged and then consolidating again. Sounds like the levels in gaming, doesn't it? And, even if you don't actually learn anything from the games (which is hard to imagine, since they are so social!), the structure reinforces a mode of learning which will enhance your engagement the next time you engage in some hard-core learning activity which uses the same teaching methodology.

So games, play and learning are all part of the one thing. Which is why they are important to libraries.

The other thing about Stephen is that he has very helpfully blogged on our insideadog youth literature website a couple of times, which all helps to spread the word.

And, talking of insideadog - that's very Library 2.0...

#14 Getting not-so-technical with Technorati

Ok - so I've claimed my blog and am evidently ranked 3929598, which seems not bad given that no one reads my blog.

But...you can help by clicking on the button below...



I've also gone in and favourited one of my favourites (tautology?) Do go and have a look at Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog - particularly the I Can Hath Cheezburger post. Absolutely brilliant!

#13 Tagging, folksomonies & social bookmarking in Del.icio.us

We've actually been running a del.icio.us site for Learning Services since late 2006 - it is http://del.icio.us/learningservices (or just click on the previous link). We're up to 14 pages and I guess I have posted a reasonable percentage of the sites.

I think my favourite is my latest post...

1. Zotero internet browser

   a browser based on Mozilla Firefox designed specifically for humanities scholars - a tailormade learning/browsing system that incorporates catalogues, notes, bookmarks and endnote compatibility.

   to learning internet reference software tools library online bibliography citation extension firefox research ... saved by 4119 other people ... on nov 03

This is such a powerful tool - have you tried it??

Types of intelligence

Had an interesting day today - a combination of listening to a podcast of Digital Planet about using graphics cards for alternative types of calculations and thinking about how that translates into human brain processing and a subsequent meeting. OK - that wasn't how the day was likely to pan out, and the thought about brain power came from a later meeting with someone who has lots, and is employed to think...

The long and the short of it is that I reckon good creative thinkers have a 'graphics card' like capacity to do multiple calculations at the same time - hence the 'eureka' experience of coming to an understanding of a complex situation without understanding the thought process that generated it. That's the multiple calculations bit.

Most people do the CPU thing - processing sequentially and understanding how they come to their conclusions.

Some people do the parallel processing thing, not understanding how they get there, but doing it faster and making seemingly creative leaps. Not. Just multiple/parallel processing. Like a graphics processor.

Interesting...

Test post by email

This is a test post submitted by email...

This message and any attachment is intended only for the use of the Addressee and may contain information that is PRIVILEGED and CONFIDENTIAL If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please delete all copies of the message and its attachments and notify the sender immediately. Thank you.

In-between post

I thought I would add a copy of Kathryn Greenhill's presentation at the Libraries, Web 2.0 and other Internet stuff seminar at the State Library of Victoria on 23 July 2007.

The presentation is on Second Life and Libarians - but what I thought was interesting was the way in which she has linked her presentation in Slideshare with an MP3 of her talk. She blogs about how to do it in a recent post on her own blog, Librarians Matter. Very interesting...

This is a link to her talk.

#12 - Rollyo

I had also played with Rollyo a while ago (2005?) and set up a search to look at a the State Library of Victoria, other state library and National Library sites. Try it if you like, the search is public, and is called NASLA...

#11 - LibraryThing

I had had a bit of a play with LibraryThing before, but never bothered to add books. But I've added some now - just a few and those which are within my view from where I am sitting at the computer - Jill Dupleix's excellent cookery books, and Henning Mankell, since I have read all of the Kurt Wallander books. You're welcome to have a look...

I also had a look at Lili's book list.

The other great things on LibraryThing are the BookSuggester and, even better since it is such a quirky idea, the UnSuggester! UnSuggester takes "people who like this also like that" and turns it on its head. It analyzes the sixteen million books LibraryThing members have recorded as owned or read, and comes back with books least likely to share a library with the book you suggest.

#10 - online image generators

Well, I was ahead on this one, having already played with them in the past, and then constructing an image for a friend's 60th birthday party on Saturday. And, of course, it turned out to be the same image generator used on the SLV Learning Services blog.

I thought it was rather good...

#8 & #9 - Blogs

Well, I've created my own Bloglines account. Have to say that - although I've been using the Google blog feed thing on my personalised Google homepage, and that I subscribe to a few blogs through AvantGo on my PDA, including Stephen's Lighthouse, Connecting Librarian, Information Wants To Be Free and Derek's ALIA Blog - Bloglines organises the information in a nice, clear and easily sortable way. So I might use it some more...

I've also re-subscribed to Derek's blog on Bloglines - especially since he blogged on the Millenials professional development session we hosted at the State Library of Victoria the other week. Is this a shade of hubris??

Attaching more photos

This is a photo I'm adding directly from Picasa - a table from a friend's cottage in the Cotwalds. Elegantly plain...

WikiMindMap

So the next task was to blog about something tech-y, and I thought I would say something about WikiMindMap.

This is a really interesting API which analyses a wiki (the live web version works with Wikipedia, but the site says that WikiMindMap will soon be available as intranet solution, so it could be used to analyse any wiki.)

If you think about it, a good wiki is structured by a whole group of contributors who determine the linkages and associations between entries. So, while the software only analyses the structure of the wiki, that structure really is a mind map if the wiki is any good.

Have a play, and see how you can move from Rousseau to Romanticism...

I've just uploaded a few more images, including my all-time-favourite memorial plaque - from a monument to Edmund Fettiplace in the church at Swinbrook in the Cotswolds (Swinbrook is also the village that the Mitfords come from...)

It reads:

IN PIOVS MEMORIE OF SR EDMVND FETTIPLACE, KNIGHT ON

READ AND RECORD RARE EDMVND FETTIPLACE:
A KNIGHT MOST WORTHY OF HIS RANK & RACE:
WHOSE PRVDENT MANEGE IN, TWO HAPPIE RAIGNES,
WHOSE PVBLIQUE SERVICE, & WHOSE PRIVATE PAINES.
WHOSE ZEALE, TO GOD, & TOWARDS ILL, SEVERITIE,
WHOSE TEMPERANCE, WHOSE IVSTICE, WHOSE SINCERITIE,
WHOSE NATIVE MYLDNES, TOWARDS GREAT AND SMALL
WHOSE FAITH AND LOVE, TO FRENDS, WIFE CHILDREN, ALL
IN LIFE AND, DEATH MADE HIM BELOVED, AND DEER
TO GOD AND MENN; AND EVER FAMOUS HEER:
BLESSED IN SOULE, IN BODIE, GOODS, AND NAME.
IN PLENIOVS PARTS BY A MOST VERTIOVS DAME.
WHO WITH HEI HEIRE AS TO HIS WORTH STILL DEBTER
BVILT HIM THIS TOOMB, BVT IN HER HEART A BETTER.

More Flickr - just found this image of the Cementerio de Recoleta in Buenos Aires. Amazing.

Maybe time to stop now, while I'm still inspired.

But it brings to mind the 7 1/2 lifelong learning thingies. Count me in for the final half. Play is the thing...

#5a - more Flickr

btw Moo is very cool - see http://www.moo.com/ - a great way of using your's (and others') Flickr images at relatively minimal cost. Moo was mentioned on a recent Digital Planet program as an example of how sites such as Flickr can encourage community engagement by making their api (Application Programming Interface) widely available.

I thoroughly recommend the BBC's Digital Planet - a great weekly update on technology stuff, available as a subscribable podcast...

And now I've worked out how to do a hyperlink, anyone following this won't have to cut and paste the url into their browser (not that anyone will be following this, necessarily...)

#5a - more Flickr

btw Moo is very cool - see http://www.moo.com/ - a great way of using your (and other's) Flickr images at relatively minimal cost. Moo was mentioned on a recent Digital Planet program as an example of how sites such as Flickr can encourage community engagement by making their api (Application Programming Interface).

I thoroughly recommend the BBC's Digital Planet
- a great weekly update on technology stuff, available as a subscribable podcast...

And now I've worked out how to do a hyperlink, anyone following this won't have to cut and paste the url into their browser (not that anyone will be following this, necessarily...)

#5 Discover flickr

Hmmmn, just uploaded a range of photos to Flickr - holidays in New Zealand (2006) and the UK (2003). Again, easy - just need to add some tags once they've uploaded.

OK, done.

Just logged onto Flickr again to see how it looked - the site greeted me in Swedish - 'Hej...'. How droll...

Anyway, if you go to Flickr (and it doesn't have the hiccups, as it claims to at the moment) and search on andrew h1 (bit of a give away, that, as to my identity!), you can find a few shots from recent and not-so-recent but-very-expensive-so-worth-remembering holidays... Or you can go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/andrew h1/ (assuming the link works in the not-too-distant-future...)

Just also browsed around some other users. I thought that atreliu's photos of a fencing competition in Milan was pretty compelling - see http://www.flickr.com/photos/atreliu/

Or you can look at this photo of a kids' basketball team - http://www.flickr.com/photos/10082963@N08/851211642/ - what a great album cover it would make...

#3 Grab yourself a blog in 3 steps

Well that was relatively easy - less than 3 minutes I would have thought!

Just noticing the toolbar at the top of the editing pane, I thought I would try to upload an image as well. This is the Bay of Islands in New Zealand.