PBWiki & Sandbox Wiki

I set up an account with PBWiki and found it is very easy to share, edit and recover deletions. During the sandbox wiki activity, I found had deleted the entry as I was adding mine. However, I found it was very easy recover the deleted page and then add your favourite holiday location.

Wikis

Wikis are is an excellent collaborative tool for sharing knowledge. The Wikis Web pages can be edited by anyone, or a restricted group of users. You do not need have any knowledge about html. Many wikis have additional features such as page version histories, and RSS feeds. Wikis are a good way of gathering facts and knowledge quickly to a large number of people.

I discovered that Wikis have a wide range of applications that libraries can use.

The following is a list of applications that Wikis that libraries could use:

• Collaborative spaces
• Professional development
• Internal communication
• Research guides
• Web content management
• Personal to-do lists
• Subject guides
• Reference resources
• Assignments
• Library instruction resources
• Conference planning
• Annotating the library catalogue
• Book reviews
• Library newsletters

Library 2.0 - What does it mean?

Library 2.0 gives the ability to apply new Web 2.0 technologies in a library to deliver services and improve access to library users. The Library is no longer a in-house collection of books, journals, and videos, but also, now provides digital collections external to the its environment. With the aid of social software tools such as:

• Weblogs (blogs)
• Podcasts
• RSS feeds
• Instant Messaging (IM)
• Wikis
• Technorati
• Flickr
• Tags

It can enhance the user experience and access to the library more than it ever did in the past. Libraries are there to help the user find and access information in a way that will enhance the user learning experience. Therefore, libraries need to place the emphasis on access and not purely on ownership. This can be achieved by ensuring systems and processes are user friendly.

Through the use of Web 2.0 technologies it can assist in streamline metadata creation and reducing duplication by collborating with the Open WorldCat Project. Provide better feedback and communication with its users.

Technorati

Technorati is a great place to post your own blog. You can search blogs by subject using Blog Directory.

You can do keyword searching in the inital search screen or go into the advanced search screen to do more advanced keyword searching, in Blog posts, in Tags and in the Blog Directory.

To use it best you need to think through your search strategy so you get the best results. Whilst saying that, you still have to browse through lots of results to obtain specific results. That I found to be a weakness of Technorati.

Adding a widget to your blog I thought was a rather cool feature. Also, using the API (Application Programming Interface) for Technorati can make some great mashups. You need the time and skills to do this.

Results varied between popular blog, searches and tags. The Popular page is interesting to find out the top favorite blogs, top searches and blogs.

PLCMCL2
TQLlearning2

Del.icio.us

The things I like and discover about del.icio.us are:

• Ability to group blogging listings into folders
• Access your favourites anywhere, anytime and on any computer
• Share your favourtes with friends and colleagues
• Find good material on a topic
• Convert existing subject guides e.g. civil engineering
• More timely and up to date
• Easy to use, organised and share
• Allows you to bookmark a web page and add tags to categorise your bookmarks
• Provides simple browsing
• Good for research and finding topical information
• Share reading lists

As a result, I have started to transfer all my bookmarks and all my faculty team subject sites to del.icio.us.

Rollyo

I tested out Rollyo with some specific sites that I need to consult on a regular basis. One was for the printing industry which I was able to retrieve specific current awareness information for our printing teachers.

Searching a few known resources can be rather limiting. It reduces one from searching the whole web.

I prefer a search engine such as Google for search results, than being restricted to a tool like Rollyo.

LibraryThing

LibraryThing makes cataloguing books a whole lot of fun. It is a goood way to catalogue your own book collection.

I like a few of its features such as showing book covers of the books you catalogue.

Finally, I added the LibraryThing widget, which I found very useful for searching for books

Image Generators

Had fun with Image Embellisher which can take photos and change them to many interesting shapes.


http://www.chami.com/html-kit/services/imge/

Finding Feeds

A most enjoyable task, I found Technorati, Google Blog Search tools and Feedster were the easiest to use.

Technorati is very useful with good results. I did a search on "libraries" and this returned some worthwhile results.

Google Blog Search tools was relatively easy to use, and more so when you use the advanced searching features to obtain the best results. A search for information literacy was conducted on Google, Technorati and Feedster with Google Blog Search retrieving the best results.

RSS & RSS Feeds

RSS newsreaders such as Bloglines and Google Reader are useful for keeping up with your favorite websites and staying up to date. While I subscribe to both newsreaders, I found the Google Reader easy to add new feeds quickly.

This technology is useful as far as libraries are concerned in keeping up to date in specialised subject areas e.g. color management, new technologies etc.

To see items in my shared RSS feed, check the link below:
http://www.bloglines.com/public/paul65

Blog About Technology

Tools such as blogs, wikkis and podcasts can assist with ways of providing information.

Recently I discover a new technology called Digital Flip® Technology which uses FlipViewer Library. It creates the ability to read e-books by recreating a common page flipping motion and organisational design of a physical book using a powerful and simple user interface. It can present not only contents of books but also the multimedia contents such as video, audio, animations, and images all integrated into a digital publication.

Content is deliver using a FlipBook format. This FlipBook format publishes a copy and digital publications of magazines, newsletters, novels, textbooks, catalogs, brochures, portfolios, company manuals, financial reports and more...