my latest relative

a new bear is found in the woods

Maybe the image is slightly premature, but as the course comes to an end there are so many ways we could use the tools. Imagine just publishing an image ( if they agreed) when someone new starts at the Library - or one of our staff becomes a proud parent. For clients, what a great way to even share the covers of new additions to the collection - or a favourite image from an exhibition. For audio and visual the world would truly be our oyster as we opened up our wealth in a myriad of different ways. WOuldn't it be great if we even used images in teleconferences - without the expense of webcams etc, we could at least see what the other people in the conference looked like. Imagining the possibilities is enought to start a new blog!

Didn't think there'd ever be a podcast about us as a dying species - but the new world has everything. Haven't quite mastered the world of links, so here's the URL
http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/media/2005-2006/mp3/qq-2005-11-05c.mp3

Does a Bear Shed in the Woods?
Listen to or download the mp3 or Ogg files. (what's ogg?)
Bear investigating barbed wire - Courtesy, Maples/Metzgar/USGS
Grizzly bears used to roam throughout western North America, but their current range is restricted chiefly to Canada and Alaska, with a few small groups left in the north-west U.S. Now, new work by a group led by Dr. Michael Procter, a post-doctoral researcher from the University of Alberta, has shown that these bears are at greater risk than had been previously understood. Dr. Procter built a genetic profile of these bears from hair snagged on simple barbed-wire collection traps. The DNA showed that some of the southernmost bears have been largely cut off from the rest of the bear population, making them more vulnerable to human activity and more prone to local extinction. Dr. Proctor conducted his research while studying at the University of Calgary.


Lots of ways we could use this - like podcast of events for the day after they are live at the library - or imagine a voiceover catalogue searches or databasees when they're a real challenge

Mashups sounded rather like last night's leftovers, but once I got into it then the challenge began. I lost my poster a few times, but here it is. A glimpse into my recent personal life. I'll be interested to see how others think mashups can be woven into the fabric of our communication strategies

Have just added my first question to Yahoo7 Answers. For the library I can see an opportunity in posting some of our more general questions and the answers - saves looking for questions and shares answers which may be useful to many - a new kind of Information Request Service.

Have been missing for a while and need to refresh. So far my mainobservation would be an identity that was created once and could be picked up and used everywhere. I've got more logins than honey pots!

Really love Library Thing. Wish I'd discovered it before packing for hibernation, then I'd know which book is where. I've also checked out some of our other test pilot bloggers, haven't guessed any of the identities behind them yet though. I can see that the Library Thing could be a great sharing device for students studying the same subjects. Does anyone know if the same exists for journal articles?

maybe this is what I want - last week it was far more relevant because of the weather, and I wondered if we'd all be wading through water. Thanks to a fellow blogger for putting me on the html track - so easy when you know how!

del.icio.us

Finding this site is like a goldmine - being able to get to favourite sites from anywhere (as opposed to just 1 computer) will be so good. I've enjoyed this week so far, am about to retrace my steps and try once more to insert a video into last weeks work






http://del.icio.us/tbarely

wonderful wikis

This week has demystified wikis a bit, but I'm yet to go on the adventure. Checked out the Mint Museums website, but their wiki was hard to find from the front page. I really enjoyed the book lovers wiki and can see real potential there for a whole range of interactions, from exhibition viewers to people in client groups who want to share info about things they found useful in our collections. Biz Wiki was an extension to all this, and showed how a subject based wiki could work. When I have a password I'll add my bit to the SL wiki, then have a bit of a rest!

buttons

I added a notifier button to my desktop today to save going to see if I have any new blogs to read. Just not sure how this will be viewed in a SOE environment. It's rather like knowing the postman's been because the letter came though your door - in a very smart English way - rather than walking to the letter box. I need practice just to find which account, name and password I can find all those blogs I marked, so that's my self appointed task before I move to the optional exercise. I can see that used effectively, a blog could notify users when a new title comes in, especially if we provided a list of subject areas, topics or (shock horror) even dewey ranges to choose from.

rss and all that

Feeding isn't always easy and rss, blogs, names and passwords all got a bit confusing today. However, with a bit of perseverance I finally started to get it and can now start to understand. This week will take longer to learn than before, however I was really interested in a grizzly bear blog I found as well as one from BBC Scotland, so it will be fun to watch/read/hear/see them.

It was interesting to see that for many bloggers the library is about architecture and place. I suppose the ability to photo inside is extremely limited, given privacy restrictions and our no photographs in galleries policy. Good to see that we promote our events in this way. Perhaps we could consider some exhibition images put up through flickr - even if it was the exhibition signature image.

I checked out 'waves' for fun. Have a look at http://www.flickr.com/photos/acastellano/181730235/. Its pretty amazing, with comments somehow embedded in all those drawn spaces which overlay the image. The NLA our town is interesting. Wonder what staff resources it requires. See that National Treasures exhibition is up there. Imagine the benefit in posting the heritage collection guide, or some Dupain images – not sure about the copyright implications. Maybe I've got a flickr account now with one image - will go and check. This session had lots to take in and it took me ages to get back to the publish post button. Still a novice!

beginnings

Today I've done part of lesson 2 and know that writing things down is a useful thing with so much else going on. In the old fashioned way, I've created a paper based folder for things I need to remember. I looked at the other blogs and really liked the Library of Congress blog. I also liked the Australian War memorial exhibition blog. I know many visitors have things to say about our collections when they're on show, and can see how the Library could build up a useful body of knowledge - particularly on photos from the collection where we have scant information about people in the images, or dates and places where we've made an educated guess which could then be confirmed. From Lesson 1 I must say I found the video off-putting, even though the idea behind it is great. The bi-lines were clever, but the jumpy screen images could prove to be annoying and distressing. Maybe its an age thing, but I found the music intensely irritating.