What I thought of the Web 2.0 course

I'm thankful of what I have learnt from the course and very appreciative of Melissa and Mark's efforts at the City of Swan for running it. I have learnt so much. Many aspects of Web 2.0 technology I may not again find a use for but it is I think important to understand what is out there and how it works.

We are fortunate to have a number of people at our libraries who are interested in the new technology and keen on discovering ways of using it for the betterment of the Library service.

Personally I found the course interesting but the requirement to post on 5 blogs each week a bit time consuming and tedious. Maybe the number of posts required could be reduced in the future. This is just a minor quibble and overshadowed by the many good things about the course.

Geocaching

I had absolutely no idea what Geocaching was and am surprised that it's more of a fun game type thing to do. I've discovered that there are Geocaches in Angkor Wat in Cambodia and that would be a great place to be searching for them but I doubt whether I have enough time to play the game. Obviously geocaching can be used in libraries as an educational orientation game enabling people to discover objects and places in the Library. Maybe you could have a geocaching treasure hunt for books or what about taking it outside the Library and have people searching for caches that have been placed at historical sites. When looking at a list of libraries that use geocaching it seems that many use it as a fun event for teenagers. Maybe that is something we could use it for.

PODCASTING

I haven't listened to podcasts much except for a few music programmes. Gilles Peterson's podcasts on BBC where he interviews musicians is a favourite but I hardly find time for that. I've also discovered there are travel podcasts as well. I may download one on Angkor Wat for my trip to Cambodia. There is so much great stuff out there but finding the time to delve into it is the problem. That's also the problem libraries face. How do we make our podcasts more attractive than the millions of options out there? I guess if people are reliant on our webpage and catalogue then they'll see the podcasts of events that we make available.

Book talks and readings are obviously events we could make podcasts of in our Library. Library tours and oral history interviews are also other likely uses of podcast. Podcasts could also be a great aid to the visually impaired or to people who can't speak English and are illiterate in their own language.

Back to Cambodia

Back to Cambodia but not yet. Online video can be very useful to libraries but I'm not sure about videoing things like storytime. When my son was little he loved storytime but I don't think I would have sat him down in front of a computer screen to watch a video of it, even if he had missed the real thing that day. I would have preferred to have read him a book myself. It may be better to video other events in the Library but only if it is something that would attract a healthy number of people. Something like a cooking demonstration may be useful but then again there is already so much of this online.
We have to make sure if we're using video that they add real value to our service by reaching out to alot of people.

I believe video could be used to record oral histories of people in the area or libraries could even start a project of recording introductions to the library in different languages and let the different cultural and migrant organisations know. Some libraries have tried having pamphlets about their libraries translated into different languages only to discover that many of the people they were targetting were illiterate. Video would solve this problem.

Here's a quirky US band with a Cambodian born female singer. They play kind of Cambodian psychedelic music and they've just made a documentary of a trip they made through Cambodia. Here is a promo for it. I saw them originally on the Jools Holland show which is a great music show that introduces you to new artists but also has the legends as well.

Social Notworking for me

I can't see myself becoming too involved in social networks such as facebook and twitter. I am impressed by their power and the fact that  f*** millions of people use them, as the presentation What the F*** is Social Media NOW rammed down my throat f*** a thousand times, but they're not for me (or Prince) it seems. This may change. I'm sure if a member of my family was travelling and they wanted to communicate through facebook and show photos etc then I'd be in, but at the moment the day is too short to be spending more time in front of a computer. I'll be travelling soon but I won't be tweeting or using facebook but if others wish to communicate that way then that's great. Maybe library staff can tweet to me in Cambodia from their library team meeting. Probably won't happen.

This doesn't mean that I'm not interested in them as a networking tool for the Library. Obviously they enable us to reach out to more people. We can tweet messages to people, let them know of events etc. On the other hand, at the moment I can't see myself tweeting other professionals. I've read some of the Librarian tweets and not too much seems that useful to me and I still don't understand the point of people tweeting at Conferences. I find it petty annoying having someone next to me hammering away on a laptop and to be honest would rather have someone knitting next to me but if there is a point to this tweeting it would be good to know. At the moment I see more of a point to the knitting at a Conference.

I've followed some tweets of a few well known people in the library world and some seem no different to those of bored celebrities (eg Warney), with way too much time on their hands.

It's also downright annoying when you're watching a live television show and inane tweets are appearing on the bottom of your tv screen. So at the moment tweetings not for me but that's not to say I can't be persuaded the other way. Maybe all we need is an earthquake for people like myself to change their minds.