12/04/2006

Flow Charts on Gliffy

“Whether you’re creating flow charts, floor plans, or pretty much anything you’d consider a diagram, Gliffy actually looks like it can handle it.”
“This is really cool if you’re looking to share flowcharts"
http://www.gliffy.com

11/30/2006

Library & Medical Blog Search Tools

LibWorm: An RSS based search tool searching library blogs and feeds & MedWorm for health and medical feeds. Thanks to ResourceShelf for noting this.

LibWorm is an RSS search engine specifically for library sites. They have over 1000 RSS feeds that they index. It is a really handy way to quickly look for a subject and find out if the biblioblogosphere has been discussing it. You can also browse by categories or specific subjects, handily each category and subject has its own feed. This means that you can subscribe to a subject like library 2.0 and have all those posts delivered directly to you!

11/28/2006

More about RSS Feeds

Found two good entries about RSS in Marshall's Web Tool Blog; they are My intro to RSS and Teaching RSS: A Discussion. RSS is a difficult concept to explain but Marshall has some great suggestions. He also advises how to organise your feeds into folders and spend less time reading the less important feeds.


11/22/2006

LRSN Forum presentation

"Blogs, Wickis and Other Stuff"

Getting started with RSS http://frl.bluehighways.com/frlarchives/000123.html

Blogs

Library Stuff http://www.librarystuff.net

LISNews http://www.lisnews.com

Resourceshelf http://www.resourceshelf.com

The Shifted Librarian http://www.theshiftedlibrarian.com

Librarian.net http://www.librarian.net

Swan TAFE http://www.blogger.com/posts.g?blogID=30672805

http://www.icvet.tafensw.edu.au/resources/blogs.htm Updated by Steven Parker, TAFE NSW Illawarra Institute

How to Start a Blog
http://www.windley.com/essays/2004/how_to_start_a_blog.shtml

Blog Software Breakdown --

http://www.asymptomatic.net/blogbreakdown.htm

Why and How to Use Blogs to Promote Your Library’s Services --

http://www.infotoday.com/mls/nov03/fichter.shtml

Overview of the Weblog Tools Market -- http://tinyurl.com/67bpn

Weblogs: Do They Belong in Libraries? --

http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/area-dna-155ue40/public-libraries/

Time to Check: Are You Using the Right Blogging Tool? --

http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/050714gardner/

Blogs for Libraries --

http://webjunction.org/do/DisplayContent?id=767

Dr. L. Anne Clyde’s Internet Courses: Weblogs --

http://www.hi.is/~anne/weblogs.html

Blog Glossary -- http://www.samizdata.net/blog/glossary.html

BlogBib -- http://blog-bib.blogspot.com/

Blog search

Searching weblog content.

Feedster http://www.feedster.com
Blogdigger http://www.blogdigger.com
Blogstreet – http://www.blogsteet.com
Waypath http://www.waypath.com
Daypop http://www.daypop.com

Web 2.0 websites http://2.0websites.com/

Meebo Instant Messenger http://www18.meebo.com/index-en.html

Wikis

Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki http://www.libsuccess.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

The Shifted Librarian Wiki http://theshiftedlibrarian.pbwiki.com/

WikiMatrix allows you to put wikis against each other and get side by side comparisons. Plus, there are forums and articles that will help in the decision making process as well as assistance throughout the early stages of your "wiki-ing".
http://www.wikimatrix.org/

Social Networking

Flickr http://www.flickr.com/
Deli.cio.us http://del.icio.us/
Wink http://wink.com/
LibraryThing http://www.librarything.com/
Stumbleupon http://www.stumbleupon.com/

From The Shifted Librarian blog

Flickr Explained for Librarians

By Jenny

If you're doing a Learning 2.0 initiative, implementing an emerging technologies committee, or just trying to help your colleagues keep up, check out this article by Connie Crosby about Flickr, which includes this excerpt from an interview with Michael Porter.

Flickr is the Web Photo Tool Preferred by Superheroes and Librarians

"The ability to easily comment on and discuss images, put them in subject specific groups and have discussion threads within those groups makes Flickr much, much more than simply photo sharing. It actually helps deliver some of that 'promise of the Internet' we’ve always wanted more of. Understanding Flickr and all of its features (like groups, mapping, commenting, setting friends, tagging, etc) is also one of the very best ways to get a grasp on all of the “2.0” business that seems to be all the rage in library (and other) circles now. There is a reason you hear that '2.0' term all the time at conferences and in professional publications and 'getting' Flickr can be an amazingly fun, practical, engaging and psychologically rewarding 'Library 2.0' learning experience."[LLRX.com]

11/20/2006

Information Literacy

Like most librarians I am preoccupied with the information literacy skills (or lack of them) of our clients. We conduct classes and have online tutorials but I'm always looking for something new. Here's an idea from the University of North Carolina Greensboro Libraries - The Information Literacy Game. I have tried it briefly and think it would be a fun addition to our training.

11/15/2006

New Tags

Over the past few weeks I've tagged several interesting sites on Deli.cio.us but have been very remiss in not blogging about them.

I have StumbleUpon installed on my PC at home (it is too time-wasting to play with it at work) and one of the preferences I've ticked is iPod.

The Seven Phases of Owning an iPod - An Illustrated Journey is amusing and oh so true.
Are you frustrated with having a lot of tunes on your iPod but not being able to transfer them to your computer or share them with others? Try How to get songs off your iPod w/ iTunes or SharePod

More on music; if you use Pandora but sometimes find that you inadvertently close your browser and lost your current selections then you may want to try CFDan.com - Wrapper Application For Pandora Running In Task Tray.

A new search engine TWERQ featuring
tabbed based results directly within the website and ton of other practical time saving features is still in beta but I'll be testing it to see if its features live up to their promise. Search results are based on your choice of Yahoo! or Google.

Internet Trends Workshop

Sylvie Huveneers and I presented two workshops for staff and students at Central TAFE last week to educate them in the use of blogs, wikis and RSS and to bring them up to date with some of the new, fun social networking sites. We had a few hiccups in the first presentation but learned from our mistakes and the second one ran smoothly. We are hoping to add it to the College staff professional development programme next year and tailor it specifically for lecturers, administration or support staff.

Next week I'll be doing something similar at the LRSN Forum and the full presentation will be posted on the Forum website. I'll also be posting a page of links on my blog as an alternative to providing handouts - that's one way of driving traffic to this site!

11/01/2006

SEOmoz's Web 2.0 Awards

I will never be able to keep up with all available Web 2.0 applications. The best thing about them is their interactivity and pure fun. SEOmoz's Web 2.0 Awards uncovers the most useful and popular Web 2.0 sites and recognizes the top three in each category for their innovation. Some of those at the top surprised me and others that I thought should have been in the top three didn't make the grade.
Who has time to validate what is best in each group from Blog Guides to Wikis? I know the public is asked to nominate favourite sites and I hope the final choice doesn't work in the same way as some of the reality shows on TV (eg Australian Idol or dancing with the Stars) where popular vote overrides evaluation by well qualified judges.

Firefox 2.0 is here

Complete with bells and whistles, the new Firefox browser was launched within days of IE7. I've been a big fan of Firefox for over a year but unfortunately some web developers are slow to catch up and I still have to use IE to do any administration on the College's website. That is, however, the only time I do use it. Here is an excellent review by Percy Cabello Firefox 2 Review
Although Firefox now has some of the old extensions built in there are still people out there who love creating add-ons to give it even more functionality. There are currently 491 Firefox extensions! They can be found at The Extensions Mirror.
In Cybernet Technology News I read "Two of Firefox’s slogans are “the browser you can trust” and “safer, faster, better” but maybe we can beef up the security a little more with the help of Firefox extensions. You can do everything else with extensions so why should adding more security and a little privacy be any different?" See the article and Security and Privacy extensions here



10/18/2006

Web 2.0 Directory

http://www.go2web20.net/
I was blown away by the number of sites depicted here. Click on an image and a link and a description of the site appears. Chat sites, photo sharing, gaming; it seems that every site that considers itself to be of the new breed of social networking is here.

10/16/2006

Useful tips from Library Stuff

Average Library Use Calculator

"Have you ever thought about the monetary value of your own library use? The Maine State Library offers an interesting take on this. Go to www.maine.gov/msl/services/calculator.htm and take a look at how your average library use is valued." (Holmen Courier - 10/12/06)

More about Web 2.0 (and of course Library 2.0) is discussed in this paper. An alternative term is Participatory Network - less confusing than Library 2.0

Participatory Networks: The Library as Conversation

"This document describes the conversational model of libraries, provides an overview of current Web 2.0 technologies, and a brief discussion of Library 2.0. Specific challenges and opportunities of participatory networking are reviewed. Finally, the authors recommend the creation of a shared participatory network of libraries. This network would not only experiment with new collaborative web technologies, but work with library organizations and vendors to speed innovation in traditional library systems. Finally the network test bed would provide shared infrastructure to provide participatory technologies, such as Wikis, blogs and RSS feeds to libraries for inclusions in their day to day services." - "American Library Association’s Office for Information Technology Policy Information Institute of Syracuse - Syracuse University’s school of Information Studies - Sept 2006) - via It's All Good

10/11/2006

Library 2.0

I have done a lot of reading while preparing for my presentation on Blogs and Wikis at the LRSN forum next month. Nearly everything leads me to find out more about the catchphrase “Library 2.0”.

It was only recently that I first heard about this phenomenon so I brought it up at our monthly Librarians’ Forum at Perth this morning – only to find out that, although we had been discussing several ideas that are important to Library 2.0, my colleagues were not aware of the term.

I’ve cobbled together some links to further reading that I have found worthwhile. If we want to be seen as being on top of new ideas then constant awareness of what’s being posted on the web is important and we should all monitor our RSS feeds regularly.

Library 2.0 Links

http://mchabib.blogspot.com/2006/08/academic-library-20-concept-models.html

Academic Library 2.0 Concept Models (Basic v2 and Detailed)

posted by Michael C. Habib @ 4:27 PM

http://wiki.library2.net/index.php/Main_Page

Library 2.0 Wiki (not much in it)

Library 2.0 Sarah Houghton’s (LiB) definition of L2

“Library 2.0 simply means making your library’s space (virtual and physical) more interactive, collaborative, and driven by community needs. Examples of where to start include blogs, gaming nights for teens, and collaborative photo sites. The basic drive is to get people back into the library by making the library relevant to what they want and need in their daily lives…to make the library a destination and not an afterthought.”

Key principles

  • Browser + Web 2.0 Applications + Connectivity = Full-featured OPAC
  • Harness the library user in both design and implementation of services
  • Library users should be able to craft and modify library provided services
  • Companies wanting to do business with public or academic libraries should not be creating proprietary software; Library 2.0 is not a closed concept.
  • Constant change is replacing the older model of upgrade cycles
  • Beta is forever
  • Harvest and integrate ideas and products from peripheral fields into library service models
  • Continue to examine and improve services and be willing to replace them at any time with newer and better services.
  • Library 2.0 is a disruptive idea
  • Rigidity breeds failure
  • Harness The Long Tail

http://del.icio.us/tag/library2.0

All items tagged Library 2.0 in del.icio.us

Better Library Services for More People

http://digbig.com/4ngdn

One thing, however, is crystal clear—our discussion of Library 2.0 and the debate that's followed has but one goal and that is: better library services for more people.

What we do want is to discuss and search for ways to reach that goal; to improve library services and reach more users—without leaving any existing users behind. This is not an easy goal, but one that should be discussed. It would be great if we can do this in a constructive and productive manner.

Eli at AADL sums it up very well in a blog post:

Because Web 2.0 is the product of increasingly smarter software development tools and progressively more robust open-source code libraries, inventing and implementing a new Library 2.0-style service requires more creativity than it does cash. Furthermore, the ideas of Web 2.0 are based around sharing code, access, and services; the stuff that the bigger libraries do over the next few years are likely to become available to smaller libraries much faster than the Internet achieved its current ubiquity.

11 Reasons Why Library 2.0 Exists and Matters

http://digbig.com/4ngdp

Online Community and Libraries, Parts I & II

http://digbig.com/4ngdr

Online Community and Libraries, Parts III & IV

http://digbig.com/4ngds

Library 2.0 Theory: Web 2.0 and Its Implications for Libraries

http://www.webology.ir/2006/v3n2/a25.html

9/25/2006

Bringing Information Skills Training Up To Date

There are some great ideas here. I haven’t been able to download the audio files but the slides blew me away.

"Delivering Top-Notch Technology Training for Your Patrons" presented on August 18, 2006 by Brenda Hough, Technology Coordinator at the Northeast Kansas Library System and Michael Porter (aka Library Man), Training and Support Coordinator at OCLC Western. Sponsored by the Johnson County Library.

Archive of Previous OPAL Events about
Library and Information Science Topics and Trends

Text Chat log of the session about Tech Training.

The Internet - Past and Future

  1. New from Pew Internet & American Life Project: The Future of the Internet II

http://digbig.com/4nbfa

  1. People around the world are coming together on Friday to celebrate the world wide web.

Susan Crawford, the founder of OneWebDay, said she wanted people to reflect on how the web had changed their lives.

http://digbig.com/4nbfb

Citation Data

Scholar for Firefox is now ZOTERO, currently in beta. It works with most library catalogues, some popular dot-coms such as Amazon, and many gated databases.

http://www.zotero.org/

It captures citation information you want from a web page automatically, without typing or cutting and pasting on your part, and saves this information directly into the correct fields (e.g., author, title, etc.) of your Zotero library

This looks interesting but I haven’t been able to test it yet. It could become a very useful tool.

To Google or not to Google

When teaching web search skills I try to impress on my students the need to use more than one search engine for the best results. That's why I was impressed to see this entry from a blog by the Librarian in Black:

Ten Reasons Librarians Should Use Ask.com Instead of Google
http://digbig.com/4nbfm

I find myself using Ask.com more and more of late. It’s so easy to use a variety of search tools using the drop-down list in the Firefox toolbar.

ClickO6

Last week the ALIA Conference, ClickO6, was held in Perth. I have long thought that ALIA is more relevant to public and school libraries than to special and academic libraries and this conference did nothing to dispel my opinion. Central TAFE purchased three subscriptions and library staff were given the opportunity to attend the sessions that interested them most. I chose presentations on blogs, wikis and web design; the first two were repeats of presentations I had seen several weeks ago and the third offered very little that was new. In the exhibition hall various library-related vendors were well represented and I gathered some literature about those that interested me. (There weren't many freebies left as this was the third day of the conference. I did, however, gather enough pens to keep me writing for a year or more) Then I did a very stupid thing and left my "showbag" in one of the seminar rooms, not becoming aware of my loss until I was waiting for a taxi to take me back to work so there was no time to go back and look for it. All in all it was a wasted morning for me. I know a lot of time and effort had gone into it (one of my colleagues was on the organising committee) but I won't put my hand up to attend another similar conference. Several years ago the Health, Special and Law Librarians Group held a conference in Perth and that was streets ahead of this one in interest and variety.

9/14/2006

ResourceShelf

Designing Usable, Self-Paced e-Learning Courses: A Practical Guide
By Michael Feldstein, SUNY Learning Network, and Lisa Neal, eLearn Magazine

This guide was primarily designed to help teams of instructional designers and content experts create effective, self-paced e-learning. It teaches best practices for improving usability that can be applied by any instructional designers or content experts and was created so that no prior knowledge of usability is required to use the techniques. (Great article, precisely summarises key approaches and useable processes!)

Source: eLearn Magazine

In July, The World eBook Fair took place offering more than 330,000 FREE full text books, all in PDF format, all ready for downloading, bookmarking, sharing. We’ve learned that another World ebook Fair will take place in October. It’s sponsored by The World eBook Library Consortia that offers these materials year round for a small fee.

From a news release:

5,000 new eBooks for cellphones are being added this week and this is only 1% of the hoped for 500,000 eBooks being targeted for release on the first day of October in honor of International Book Fair Month. Up from the 1/3 million eBook files offered for download, all free of charge, on July 4, in response to requests of eBook readers around the world, more eBooks were added to include more modern selections via commercial sources and a wider variety of formats, which could total 1/2 million eBooks in October. If all goes perfectly well there will be 1/2 million free eBooks, AND over 100,000 from various commercial eBook sources.

9/08/2006

Earth Science Sites of the week

I was pleased to receive Mark Francek's weekly newsletter again this week after a long break for the USA summer holidays. I regularly forward this to the lecturers in Mining & Geoscience, Environmental Science and Surveying at Central TAFE and many of them have remarked on its usefulness. The website is http://webs.cmich.edu/resgi. Mark is Professor of Geography at Central Michigan University.

Why not recreate this as a blog with an RSS feed Mark?

9/01/2006

Feeding the OPAC

Some time this summer, the TOCRoSS project will release open source software that will be capable of delivering an RSS service to push publisher and e-journal table of contents data directly into library catalogs, allowing users to find journal articles just like they find books. The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the UK is developing the service with publisher Emerald and library supplier Talis.
From LibraryJournal.com Journals in the Time of Google
By Lee C. Van Orsdel & Kathleen Born — April 15, 2006

8/28/2006

What is Pandora?

Pandora
is a music discovery service designed to help you find and enjoy music that you'll love. It's powered by the Music Genome Project, the most comprehensive analysis of music ever undertaken. Just tell it one of your favorite songs or artists and it will launch a streaming station of music in a similar vein.

You can vote for songs that you like or dislike, bookmark songs to hear again any time or buy them from iTunes or Amazon.com with just a few clicks. Great to use as background music any time or create playlists (from your bookmarked songs) for parties.

8/25/2006

Honey, honey

Our dear friend, David, visited us at home last Sunday bearing gifts of pure Jarrah honey and honey and sandalwood. He's a firm believer in alternative medicines and had read a newspaper article proclaiming the benefits of honey as an antibiotic - particularly against Staphylococcus aureus. It sounded ludicrous but he advised Tim to rub it on his feet and let it soak in to let the benefits permeate his whote system. Feeling a bit of a nana Tim followed his instructions that evening and covered his feet with plastic supermarket bags to keep the stickiness off the furniture while he watched TV.

Next day he was on his feet all day presenting an OH&S training course. This usually leaves him with very sore ankles (arthritis has affected them, he has collapsed arches and doctors have recommended surgery to correct the problem) and he is almost unable to walk. He walked in the door that night without a stick and proclaimed that he was pain-free! His knee wound was also less angry-looking and puffy. Each evening this week he's followed the same procedure, except for last night. Today he is using his stick again so plans to use the honey treatment every night and see whether he can maintain the improvement to his mobility. He will be in Melbourne training all next week and the following week will be on an oil rig in the Timor Sea.

Intute is a free online service providing you with access to the very best Web resources for education and research. Subject specialists select and evaluate the websites in their database and write high quality descriptions of the resources. Good directories are hard to find and require a lot of maintenance by their creators. This one shows promise.

Does anyone out there use Moodle? Moodle is a course management system (CMS) - a free, Open Source software package designed using sound pedagogical principles, to help educators create effective online learning communities. Sandy Dailakis was enquiring about it recently and I’d like to know if anyone has experience with it.

The Library 2.0 Reading List from Squidoo has dozens of links to thoughts and ideas for using Web 2.0 in the Library. Web 2.0 is about finding new ways to interact and collaborate on the internet. An example is 5 Suggestions for Upgrading to Library 2.0 (or Some Easy Steps to Get Started...Really) from an article in Tame The Web: Libraries and Technology A Weblog by Michael Stephens

Mary Ellen Bates Search Tip of the Month doesn't necessarily come out every month. The latest edition is for July and August 2006. She always provides insightful comments and it's worth signing up for her newsletter or adding her site to your RSS feeds.

8/21/2006

Surprising Search Patterns
A new study questions the common assumption that search engines control the hierarchy of the Internet.
By Kate Greene in Technology Review

Writely is a web-based service that allows for the creation and sharing of documents in a sophisticated word-processor-like interface. I love the idea of being able to access documents at home that I have started at work (or vice versa). Sign-up is free and once you have logged in you can start a new document or upload one from your computer.

Internet Resources Newsletter has many, many links of interest on a wide variety of subjects. There are far too many to list here but I recommend that you subscribe to it and pick the topics that interest you most.

8/16/2006

After another week off I'm back at work again. This time it was all pleasure. Tom (my son) and his wife, Nessie were on a visit to Perth from Melbourne. This is the first time I've seen them since his accident last year. He has made an amazing recovery through sheer guts and determination but still needs to have half his pelvis replaced. I hate seeing him limping and in obvious pain but it doesn't seem to get him down and his presence in our house was like a breath of fresh air.

My iP0d continues to give me pleasure and I read all I can find about its uses. I can't imagine wanting to watch videos on the tiny screen so I'll probably stick with my 2G Nano - until eye attachments are available enabling large screen viewing. I've come across several mentions of the use of iPods as educational tools but can't imagine that they'd be of much value in a library. See iPod has new role as educational tool from Engadget.

A Wiki symposium - what next? I know that wikis are hot news and I look forward to reading the papers available from WikiSym 2006: Papers and Presentations. Some are already online and others, I hope, will be available after the end of August. I'd love to attend but Denmark (in Europe, not Australia) is rather far away.

Free web-based tools can be very useful - particularly if you don't want to be tied to Microsoft products. ResourceShelf has posted a link to a growing list of Zoho tools including word processing, spreadsheet and presentation tools. The full list is awesome.

A report in one of my favourite RSS fees,
BBC News, relates that Time magazine list the 50 coolest websites. "Many of the websites chosen for 2006 are examples of so-called web 2.0 sites, which give users tools to create and share content online." I've never heard of most and will enjoy investigating them.

My husband Tim now takes his antibiotics orally and his infection site shows marked improvement. Sue Benson, his microbiologist, must be a miracle worker. Not many years ago he wouldn't have survived golden staph. Thank goodness all that is behind us and we can get back to a normal life again.

8/04/2006

Two weeks leave is never enough. I spent the first week running around for my mother to doctors and immigration interviews and the second trying to recharge my batteries.

Tim (my husband) is home though for 2 weeks he had daily intravenous doses of antibiotics administered by a series of charming nurses. The drugs would have cost us over $250 per day - thank goodness for private health insurance. His knee is looking much better. The swelling has gone down and the redness receded and he manages to get around quite well - sometimes even without crutches.

Because of the treatment we couldn't go away on a much needed holiday but were able to take a break of one night at a lovely B&B in the Perth Hills, Falls Retreat, run by our friends Jenette and Peter. We spent the night in a delightful self-contained suite that was snug and warm despite the winter temperatures and rain outside. Peter cooked dinner - a simply delicious curry made with fresh, authentic ingredients, not just the bottled curry sauces that we usually use - and they treated us to a slap-up breakfast served in the suite next morning, as they do with all their paying guests. Thanks guys, we had a great time.

On my return to the library I found an email from Ralph Mattner, librarian at Swan TAFE, advising me about Swan's Community Services Blog http://swantafecs.blogspot.com/. He also pointed me to these two sites http://jokay.wikispaces.com and http://jstuffed.blogspot.com , great for anyone interested in the Learning Community.

ResourceShelf this week contains links to searchable databases from some of the major art museums around the world at http://digbig.com/4mfck.

7/14/2006

The ResourceShelf newsletter out today provides a link to an article UK’s Resource Discovery Network Now Known as Intute – it is well worth a read. The same article also posts links to news about “Internet Detective” which Central TAFE hopes to utilise in its new online Information Skills tutorials on WebCT and the launch of a second ESL Virtual Training Suite tutorial.

Tomorrow I will be on leave for 2 weeks. Tim is coming home this weekend and we have a lot of catching up to do. He contracted a golden staph. infection after undergoing knee replacement surgery and it's been an uphill battle for 6 weeks while he's been in hospital fighting the infection. He's not out of the woods yet and will probably have to continue on antibiotics for 2-3 years. Currently he receives them intravenously but eventually he hopes to be able to take them orally.

Mum will also be home next week. She has had a pacemaker installed and has taken some time to recover. She has spent the past 2 weeks in a beautiful nursing home where she's had a room flooded with sunlight and nurses ready to run round catering to her every whim. It will be hard for her to come back to reality!

7/07/2006

Virus Attack

In spite of all I've read about the dangers of downloading files from unknown sites I stupidly downloaded a file earlier this week that infected my laptop with a Trojan virus. Fortunately I have an antivirus installed (why didn't that stop it?) and was able to clean up my files without having to reinstall the operating system.

Read the article Understanding Hidden Threats: Corrupted Software Files http://www.uscert.gov/cas/tips/ST06-006.html and make sure it doesn't happen to you!

Beatles Music

Still looking for Beatles music for my iPod I came across a suggestion to use these search terms “index of” + “mp3″ + “beatles” -html -htm -php. This was in an essay about advanced Google searching at http://www.cwire.org/data-mining-using-google/ so I was actually working at the time. There were several sites from where I was able to download free MP3 files and also some where they could be purchased ridiculously cheaply.

http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/jul06/Mattison.shtml has an article about finding classical music but there are many ideas for finding music in all types of genres using a variety of search engines.

6/27/2006

CARCIT (Collaborative Action for Reference Competencies and Information Technology)

I had the pleasure of attending a CARCIT forum last week “Showcasing Innovation”. It was held at the lovely Murdoch University campus in the Freehills Lecture Theatre and attended by librarians, mostly from other Perth universities, with a smattering of those from other colleges (four of us from Central TAFE). I was particularly interested in the ways that blogs, wikis, podcasting and other Web2 features are being used in the library world. University libraries are better funded and have more staff to enable them to spend time on these ideas but Central is doing its best to keep up with them.

The CARCIT wiki is at http://carcit.lis.curtin.edu.au and has the outlines of most of the presentations plus many other useful ideas.

“Down with Blogs”BBC article about their new blog

“Blogs can be many things - trouble-making, independent, cool, nerdy, peppered with annoying links, even full of kittens who look like Hitler. They can also be abused for attention-seeking headlines (eg "Down with Blogs"). But one thing they have in common is that they work best when they go both ways - when they are a true exchange.”

By Giles Wilson
BBC News

6/23/2006

Free eBooks

One third of a million ebooks are available free between July 4th and August 4, 2006 from the World eBook Fair, http://www.worldebookfair.com/ . This event is brought to you by the oldest and largest free eBook source on the Internet, Project Gutenberg, with the assistance of the World eBook Library, the providers of the largest collection, and a number of other eBook efforts around the world.

RSS Feeds

Two new examples of RSS feeds are available , one from Amazon at http://www.onfocus.com/amafeed/ and a toolbar for quick feed reading in Firefox or IE http://www.rsstoolbar.com.

Checkout the reviews on Research Buzz http://www.researchbuzz.org/wp/.

6/16/2006

ResourceShelf has so many amazing titbits that you really should read yourself to get a feel for what is out there. Some from the current newsletter:

Wikipedia
A Wiki Situation By Scott McLemee
"To wiki or not to wiki? That is the question."
http://digbig.com/4jgks " There is no benchmark for quality. It is an intellectual equivalent of the Wild West, without the cows or the gold."

Tomorrow never knows: the end of cataloguing?
http://digbig.com/4jgkt

Abstract
This paper (to be presented at the 72nd IFLA General Conference And Council) reviews the perceived threats to the future of cataloguing posed by the increasing volume of publications in all media, coupled with a resource base which is declining in real terms. It argues that cataloguing is more rather than less important in such an environment and considers some of the ways in which cataloguing will have to change in order to survive.

A rose by any other name?: from AACR2 to Resource Description and Access
http://digbig.com/4jgkr

The readers editor on ... the downside of Google
http://digbig.com/4jgkm
“Search engines such as Google find acres of instant information and more ‘experts’ than you can shake a stick at, but every computer screen should carry the warning: ‘Beware:
all is not as it seems.’

Research Buzz also came out today. What a wonderful way to spend a Friday - finding the best of new resources.

Imagery: an alternative interface to Google's Image Search

If you want to search Google's images with a different interface, check out Imagery at http://elzr.com/imagery/.

Warning: It will work only in Firefox 1.5 or higher.
I did a simple keyword search for 'wave' and came up with some amazing images. Mousing over each one gives you the option to open it in the source page or in a new window. Clicking on 'Preferences' will give you the option of searching by size, colour or file type and turns SafeSearch on or off.

Publisher Offers Free Computer Books

A new line of computer books called In Pictures http://inpics.net/ is giving away books for free .... Normally these books are downloadable PDFs that cost $3.95 each, but until the end of July lower-resolution versions are available at no cost.

In Pictures computer how-to books are based on pictures, not text. Step-by-step instructions will give you a foundation - somewhere to start from. The books tend to be beginner-level -- topics include Computer basics, Microsoft Office, OpenOffice, and a few programming, web layout, and web graphics books.

6/13/2006

Things to do with your iPod

I was thrilled to receive an iPod Nano as a Christmas gift last year. I may be a grandmother but I still like to keep up with technology trends and feel very much in vogue as I travel to work on the train accompanied by other people with plugs in their ears, oblivious to their surroundings.

I've loaded all my favourite CDs and would like to add more Beatles' music but can't obtain it from iTunes. I do, however have a DVD with Beatles' music in .WAV format that is not compatible with the iPod. Audacity http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ is the answer. Not only can I convert .WAV files to .MP3 but can also cut segments from a track and save them separately.

The past week or so I've spent little time at home as my husband and my mother are both in hospital (fortunately the same one). When I do get home late in the evenings I find it therapeutic to play with these files and work out how to do new things with them. Playing the iPod through my car radio (another trendy attachment that I was given for my birthday) also helps to keep me sane in rush-hour traffic.

Wikibooks - Free Open Content TextBooks
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Main_Page


I'm sure everyone is familiar with Wikipedia, now we have Wikibooks, a collection of free, open-content textbooks that you can edit. They have 13,357 book modules in over 1000 books.

6/09/2006

Resource Shelf Newsletter


If you don't subscribe to the ResourceShelf Newsletter by Gary Price then you are missing a lot of great information. I will add snippets of information gleaned from it to this blog but obviously cannot cater to everyone's interests - not even amongst my own colleagues.

In today's edition I found a link to Gary's growing compilation of links to the Deep Web , direct search, useful for anyone interested in finding information that is inacessible to most search engines
.

His Resource of the Week refers to an article by Mike Steckel Ranganathan for IAs in which Ranganathan's five laws of library science are applied to Information Architecture.


6/08/2006

FreePint

The new edition of FreePint (every Librarian should subscribe to this newsletter) has a feature article about blogs and wikis "Q&A with Christopher Barger, IBM's Blogger-in-Chief" By Tim Buckley Owen. In my organisation we've been nibbling around the edges of these methods of communication and this article gives several reasons to make better use of them.

Technorati Profile

6/06/2006

Maeve's Blog

I try to keep up to date with new developments and interesting websites that I feed to my colleagues at Central TAFE in Perth, Western Australia. By adding them to this blog I will be able to keep a record of sites of interest and hopefully get feedback from them and anyone else who may find something useful here.

The June edition of Internet Resources Newsletter is now available. It is always worth reading but some sites particularly caught my eye:

Scholarly, evaluated web sites now available in every ISI Web of Knowledge Crosssearch
http://scientific.thomson.com/news/newsletter/2006-03/8318097/
The Current Web Contents module provides access to over 5,000 editorially evaluated and carefully selected Web sites
From: KnowledgeLink Newsletter

In a link to Stephen's Web I found this article that will give me some good material for the educational session I am planning with Sylvie Huveneers:
blog.ac.uk: Guidelines or Tramlines - blogging safely towards digital literacy by Peter Ford, looking to arrive at the sort of guidelines which would give institutions the confidence to make a start with blogging. http://elgg.net/mberry/weblog/29878.html

Have you tried the new look Ask Jeeves - now simply Ask.com? This article from Search Engine Watch shows some of the features I haven't seen in other search engines:
Ask Binoculars Improving Search Results?