Book challenge for 2009

My colleague Scarlett and I have decided to take the 999 challenge as seen on Library Thing.We have to read 9 books of your choice in 9 different categories of your choice in 2009.That is a total of 81 books for the year, it certainly will be a challenge.
My categories are: Books Made Into Movies, Short Listed and Man-Booker Prize Winners, Word of Mouth, Chic Lit, Classic Reading, Australian Authors, Biographies, 1001 Must Reads and Crime.
I have picked my lists for books made into movies,booker prize winners, australian authors and 1001 must reads. I am still to complete the other 5 lists.
Scarlett's lists comprise of Embarassing gaps in my reading, Stagnant bookself books, Orange prize winners, Man-Booker prize winners, Books made into movies, 1001 must reads,Australian authors, Recommended reads and Crime.
There is only one rule and that is you can only have 6 cross over books in your 9 catagories.
Stayed tuned to see how it all pans out.

Wrap up, social networking and catch up - Week 12

Personally I am not a fan of Facebook, MySpace etc maybe I'm just too old to go down that path. I thought the Rotora Library's Bebo site was excellent. I think setting up and maintaing one of these sites would put a lot of pressure on staff time especially working in a library with limited staff.
The only social networking site I use is Schoolfriends.

Well here I am at week 12 and have finally finished. I did not want to start this program but once I got going I found I really enjoyed it. I actually became a little obessive in some modules.

It has been a great experience and thanks to Learning 2.0 team for the program.
I will now understand the terminolgy and applications of all these different moduels that I have journeyed through. Best of all I will now be able to understand and converse with my teenage grandson who thought I was very cool when I showed him my blog.

Thanks again it's been a great experience
Electra

Lijit Search

Oneline applications and tools - Week 11

There are a large number of free online applications out there. Goole Doc was very easy to use. Finding an application to use was the hardest task. As I had just used my refurbishment photos to make my mosaic last week and still had the photos available I decided to go with a slide presentation of before and after shots of the refurbishment.
I don't know if I would have the need to use share documents in my library as we have the T Drive and Trim but it could be useful for our regular customers who wanted to access their documents on a regular basis.

Mashups - Week 10

Well, what a week with mashups. It was a lot of fun once I got into it. I decided to make mosaic from the photos of my library refurbishment that were on the T drive. I used big huge labs for this process. It did take a while to work out how to actually make the mosaic.
Ways you could use mashups in libraries is with google maps for local history and tourism. For fun ideas you could use photo's from flickr through big huge labs for promotions.

Secret Garden Music Video Clip

Podcasts and Audio - Week 9

After spending a relaxing long weekend with my daughter and grandson at Lovett Bay I am ready to tackle week 9.
If only I could get into something!! This looks to be a very versitile media. Podcasts could be useful in libraries for in-house training, oral histories and as Annetta commented, it is a great way of capturing the tales from the living library.

Answer Boards and Social Searching - Week 8

I have noticed over the last couple of years that we don't get asked as many reference questions as we used to, now that many people seem to have access to the internet.
If cutomers do need an answer to a question they want that answer instantaneously. This is where Answer Boards may prove to be the answer.
I posted a question on Yahoo7 Answers and answered two questions. I thought the site was not as good as the Wiki Answers site. The Wiki site had better quality qustions than the Yahoo site and the Yahoo site was clunky to get around. It would be very handy for complex questions that you just can't seem to find an answer for, but how long will you wait for an answer and hopfully the answer will be correct.

Del.icio.us, Library Thing ,Technorati - Week 7

After a week's break I didn't think I could get back into it again but here I am. I set up my Del.ioio.us account and away I went on another journey. I could have searched for hours but unfortunatly the library customer required a little attention. I have linked a few tags to my blog. It could prove to be a good reference tool for links to relevent sites.
Library Thing, another account,username and password but what a lot of fun it turned out to be. Being a prolific reader(never without a book) my list could have gone on forever but once again the customers need attention. I will go back at a later date and add more to my list when time allows. I see having a list as anvantage of being able access it to recommend books to customers.
Technorati, I put in the recommended search term in both simple search and advanced search and ended up with the same results. I searched nswpln2008 as suggested with no results.It was all a bit boring and who is watching or tracking whom seems part of our everyday life today.

Videos Online - Week 6

What an experience it was finding and adding a video. So many choices I didn't know where to start. I did not realise what was available out there.

I can see videos online would be very useful in libraries for oral histories, self paced learning, book reviews and before and after of library refurbishments.

Wikis - Week 5

Wikis are a great way of sharing information as long as there is authensity in what is written.
I have used our own Wiki proceedure manual (BMCL) and it is as good as any wikis out there. I have also looked at Mint Museum, Book Lovers and Wookieepedia. They are all different and have individual benefits.
My favorite is Wikipedia and I use it quite often especially for movies, directors and actors. I love the way everthing is cross referenced you can go on for hours on the one subject.
My contribution to a Wiki is the updated procedure for Inter Library Loans in BMCL procedure manual.

RSS Feeds - Week 4

Here I am at week 4 RRS feeds. Who would have thought I would get this far. I have added Sydney Weather, Latest Yahoo7 news, Flick Direct Film Industry News and the ABC Shop: ABC DVD New Releases to my blog. On some sites the feeds where hard to find but once I got the hang of where to look it became compulsive. I quite enjoyed this exercise and would have added feeds if time allowed.
Now on to Wikis

Sharing images - Week 3

I felt a little overwhelmed by the thought of setting up a blog. When we were sent a link to the lazy blogger I thought that's for me and gave me incentive to start. I am sure I will experience many many frustrations along the way.
I do not have access to the internet at home as it would cut into my reading, movie watching, gardening and sewing time. I will have to fit my blogging challengers into my busy working day. luckley I have a technological wizz as a co worker to lend me a hand when things get tough.
All my images are from Flickr and I now seem to have a theme going.
Well now it is on to the next challenge RRS feeds.

Planting a timebomb in a local library is a felony -

quote Batman

Introduction to Blogs - Week 2

Holy Blog Of Doom, Batman! I just woke up to the fact I have not updated this since the sun was actually shining in Melbourne... You would not believe that my hands were chopped off and I was waiting for bionic ones. But I'm sorry you'll just have to take my word for it..I am frantic with finding Jesus (after someone told me he was lost), hoping you haven't found other blogs, just generally being the life of the party to anyone unfortunate to cross my path, my day is full to overflowing from the light through yonder window breaks to I run out of alcohol. I am not complaining though. can't they see I am blogging.I absolutely, positively promise I will write something that makes sense soon. You wanna test me? What do you mean you don't believe me?.