Goodbye

It is months since anyone commented on a post in this blog. This is most disheartening and I have decided to stop spending any time on it. My colleagues will just have to put up with emails of interesting items that I find from time to time.

I have been blogging for over a year and at first it was stimulating and rewarding. Now I wonder why I bother - hence the decision to say Goodbye to any regular readers who may be out there. Please email me if you think there is any point in continuing.

Librarians in the 21st Century

I attended another session in the intermediate course on Virtual Librarianship in Second Life yesterday. It was not as stimulating as the previous three sessions, probably because it related to working with teens and I have have been turned off that age group by my experiences as a high school teacher. However, one thing that did come out of it was a reference to an article about Librarians in the 21st Century.in which the writer, Joyce Kasman Valenza, claims that ... librarians cannot expect to assume a leadership role in information technology and instruction, and we cannot claim any credibility with students, faculty, or administrators, if we do not recognize and thoughtfully exploit the paradigm shift of the past two years.
This is particularly relevant in light of my current efforts to run 23 Things at my library and my struggle to achieve acceptance of the role that Second Life or any other virtual world may play in the learning/teaching environment. I am empowered by the comment:
You do not take “no” for an answer when a network administrator or technology director refuses to support a pedagogically sound activity. You seek a way to get to “yes” if learners will benefit.
In yesterdays SL session I mentioned that I was trying to introduce my colleagues to new technology in spite of my director's reservations - and virtually behind her back, and received a resounding cheer from my classmates.
I wonder if the 23 Things participants realise just how much effort goes into running this exercise and how disappointing it is for me when they "cannot find the time" to complete each "Thing" as it is posted.

Latin anyone?

I didn't study Latin at school because my father didn't want me to suffer the way he had when studying the subject. However, my love of words and their origins has often made me regret that omission. One of my favourite daily emails is 'A word a day' by Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org) and in AWADmail Issue 275 he points us to an article about a Latin version of Wikipedia, Veni, Vidi, Wiki: Latin Isn't Dead On 'Vicipaedia'. This is a wonderful use of modern technology to discuss items of current interest in an ancient tongue.
"Vicipaedia has 15,000 articles. Catullus, Horace and the Roman Senate all are there; so are musica rockica, Georgius Bush and cadavera animata, a k a zombies. You can read in Latin about hangman (homo suspensus), paper airplanes (aeroplanum chartaceum) and magic 8-balls (pila magica 8), as well as about famous Italians like Leonardo da Vinci and the Super Mario brothers."

Engineering Librarians Lunch

It is some time since I last attended an Engineering Librarians Group meeting so when Susanna sent me an invitation recently I jumped at the chance. I was able to combine work and pleasure as not only did I meet up with old friends but also Tamara from Nature Publishing Group was there to tell us about her company's new and enhanced online products - as well as paper based.

Coincidentally, on my return to my office I was working on a wiki for 23 Things @ Central when I came across this post:
Though del.icio.us is great, and I use it all the time, if the student happens to be science-oriented,(Connotea is a fantastic tool that was created by the Nature Publishing Group (publishers of Nature, etc.) specifically as a social bookmarking tool for scientists. And, unlike del.icio.us, it is set up to automatically retrieve bibliographic information from several recognized sites (PubMed, etc.).

Thanks for lunch Tamara. And without your presence I would probably never have become aware of this tool.

Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 Blogs

From Library Journal is an article by Melissa L. Rethlefsen, Tags Help Make Libraries Del.icio.us, I found this, and other useful information, on the iLibrarian blog which contains lots of news and resources on Library 2.0 and the information revolution. If you are "doing" 23 Things there is much material here that could be used.

The Library is alive and well

From ResourceShelf comes this article about the increase in numbers of people who visit libraries in Colorado. There is often talk about the demise of the library because of the rise of access to broadband and the ease by which search engines can be used to find information but this article should be compulsory reading for any of the powers-that-be who are thinking of cutting back on libraries in academic institutions, preferring to allocate them only virtual space.

Libraries attract record crowds by resourceshelf

Despite the rise of broadband Internet access in homes across the country and the ability to Google just about anything from anywhere, libraries are attracting record numbers of visitors.

Nationwide, visits to and items checked out of libraries are increasing steadily. According to the American Library Association, nearly 1.3 billion library patrons checked out more than 2 billion items in fiscal year 2005, the most recent figures available. That compares with 1.15 billion visitors checking out 1.7 billion items in fiscal year 2000.

Colorado 's 114 public libraries saw just shy of 28 million visitors in 2006, up slightly from 27.8 million visitors in 2005.

Source: Denver Post

Video tools

Central TAFE's "23 Things" team has had a lot of fun playing around with various online video tools, mostly visible on YouTube. In particular there have been some hilarious mashups using JibJab. It's fortunate that our colleagues (and bosses) have a sense of humour.

To find videos why not try the Google Video Search Engine? This article from Research Buzz tells us more about it:

** Fun With Google Video
<http://www.researchbuzz.org/wp/2007/09/17/fun-with-google-video/>

As you probably know, the Google Video Search Engine (http://video.google.com/) now encompasses other video sites, like YouTube. But if you don't want to search anything but Google Video, you can go to the advanced search page and specify that you want video only from Google.com, or you can use site:google.com from the home page.

That's how I discovered that site:google.com works as a standalone search. That's also how I discovered that Google Video has something over 4.8 million videos (just over 4.9 million if you turn off filtering). But if you start sorting the results by anything but relevance, the result count drops to about 333. So I couldn't get a handle on what the highest-rated video was or how many videos have been rated lately.

If you use inurl:video.google.com at Google, you'll see that the main search engine gives a result count of about 1.5 million pages.

Hooray for Perth

Perth has been successful in scoring the venue for the first Australian Podcamp, billed as the new media community UnConference that helps connect people interested in blogging, podcasting, social networks, video on the net, and new media together to learn, share, and grow their new media skills.
Podcamp Perth will take place on October 27 & 28 at Central TAFE (140 Royal St, East Perth WA 6004).
(Oh dear, that's where my new offices are. Does that mean I'll have to camp there over the weekend?)

The last two unconferences (Perth BarCamp and Perth UnConference) were very successful affairs and we are lucky to have another, with organisers who are leaders in their fields. To find out more visit the wiki or the blog.

New Library Building

This may look like something surreal out of Second Life but it is a winning design in real life.
Future System's winning Prague library I want it! In one of the shots it reminds me of a giant Teletubby looking over the treetops at Prague. Whatever it looks like it is a truly innovative design. I hope librarians also had some input as to how the interior works - something often overlooked in current practice.

Research Buzz newsletter

The Research Buzz newsletter always has so much of interest that I find it difficult to keep up. This week's contribution includes:

• New Wiki for Installing Software
• BlogTalkRadio
• New features in Google Spreadsheet

Collaboration

I'm so glad that Kathryn Greenhill (Librarians Matter) is "doing" 23 Things with her workmates at the same time as I am experimenting with it at Central. She writes such fascinating posts and I don't need to think - just send my participants to read her blog. Her recent post What’s new about Library 2.0? Shift in power had me thinking about the problems that I'm having trying to persuade colleagues - and management - of the value of immersing oneself in new things. Thanks Kate. I know I am not alone.

Second Life demo

I did a demo of Second Life for Adult Education Week recently. There was a disappointing turnout - I don't think it was promoted very well - but the 1 lecturer, 2 psychologists and a smattering of Library staff who attended were entertained and, I think, persuaded to try it for themselves. I was lucky to come across a couple of avatars in a library in SL and one of them entertained us by turning himself into a multi-coloured dragon and several other incarnations. I get a lot of pleasure out of this programme and am doing another virtual librarianship course starting in next week. There is so much to learn about the world and how to do things in it. My new home PC is in for repairs (it went into a regular reboot cycle and couldn't get started) so I am currently unable to visit SL from home. It's very frustrating. Can't play Oblivion either and am having to spend more time on housework!!

23 Things @ Central

We're in week 3 of this programme and the 9 participants have put up a variety of blogs reflecting their tastes and interests. I'm finding out a lot about them as they explore their 23 things and make new discoveries. Marsha advised us to take the Book Quiz at the Blue Pyramid. This turned out to be quite an eye-opener for me

You're Pale Fire!

by Vladimir Nabokov

You're really into poetry and the interpretation thereof. Along the road of life, you have had several identity crises which make it very unclear who you are, let alone how to interpret poetry.

You probably came from a foreign country, but then again you seem foreign to everyone in ways unrelated to immigration.

Most people think you're quite funny, but maybe you're just sick. Talking to you ends up being much like playing a round of the popular board game Clue.

How little I know myself!

Kathryn Greenhill's latest post has some great pointers about how to find time to do the 23 Things:10 ways to find time for 23 Things

Change of Job

I've been persuaded to accept a secondment to a Systems Librarian position with the LRSN for 2 days a week. Not sure if I'm doing the right thing as I'm very happy and perhaps too comfortable in my current job. There will be a bit more money on my payslip (it's level 5) and I've said that I'll try it until the end of the year so both sides can see if I am the right person for the job. I'll continue to work for TAFE the remaining 3 days and it makes sense that I'll be transferring to the eCentral campus. I will miss my current colleagues at Leederville. I've worked with them for 5 years and we've built up a cohesive team that is not afraid of challenges and whose members all have a lovely sense of humour.

Sweet Nostalgia

I ran out of my favourite facial cleanser last week and paid a visit to South African Essentials in Joondalup to buy a new supply. It's odd how the things one has used for a long time - in this case I'd been using Elizabeth Anne Baby Shampoo since my children were babies - remain the best. While there I was thrilled to see a bag of sweets labeled "Black Balls". When I was a kid we called them by the very non-pc name of "Niggerballs". I just had to buy them and see if they were the same; and they are. The first, strong aniseed flavour of the black coating never quite goes away but subsequent layers of different colours and different flavours make sucking these sweets a delightfully different experience. I took half a bag to work the following day and it was fun to watch my colleagues, all middle-aged, getting excited about the different flavours and colours, taking them out of their mouths to see what colour had been reached and sucking like mad to get to the next one. Just the same as I and my friends did when we were kids.

On another tack, what in South Africa are called sweets, are called lollies in Australia, candy in the USA and sweeties in the UK. How can we purport to speak the same language when basic childhood pleasures are known by such different names?

Grammar and Citation

The Resource of the Week at ResourceShelf this week is Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL). It is a comprehensive writing style page where users can request help with grammar, construction and how to overcome writer's block (among others).

"OWL is easy to navigate; click the plus sign next to each item in the list on the right side of the page to access an excellent collection of succinct, well-written (of course) tutorials by category — The Writing Process (including what to do about “writer’s block”); Professional, Technical, and Job Search Writing (including writing for Chinese, North American, and Indian business audiences); General Academic Writing; Research and Citation (both APA and MLA are covered in detail); Grammar and Mechanics; English as a Second Language; Internet Literacy (including information on documenting electronic resources); Writing in the Social Sciences; Writing in Engineering; Literary Analysis and Criticism; Creative Writing; Teaching Writing; and Tutoring Writing. The site is keyword searchable via a box on the home page."

Of particular interest to me is the advice about APA citation. We teach Harvard at Central but I have recently been asked to do some APA classes - which I've had to turn down because I'm not familiar with it. I believe it is very similar to Harvard but I'll have to work out a new lesson format - and answers to my set examples - so this will be most useful, to me and the students who need to use it.

Who am I?

As part of the 23 Things programme that I am coordinating for my college I started playing around with avatars from Yahoo earlier this week. Here is my avatar:


She's quite unlike the character I play in Oblivion (blonde, fair-skinned, delicate-looking but a champion fighter with "hands like a smith" or my Second Life avatar (she changes virtually every time I go in-world as I have an amazing array of free hairstyles, skins and clothes in my inventory as well as the ability to change my appearance at will). It's sometimes hard to come back to reality and look at myself in a real-world mirror.

23 Things @ Central

On Monday I started a trial run of the popular 23 Things programme based on the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County's 23 Learning 2.0 Things. I'm learning things myself as I go along but think that I and the participants should get a lot of fun out of it.

One of my favourite sites for finding out about new Web 2.0 things is Go2Web20.net; It has an endless variety of Web 2.0 sites and an RSS feed that goes some way to keeping me up to date.

What to read?

If you're ever stuck for something to read - here's a blog that gives a new suggestion each day Blogging for a Good Book.
I've reached the stage where I seldom know what to look for in my local public library (I have read all my favourites over and over again) and this could provide me with inspiration.

Google's classroom posters

From Pandia Search Engine News comes a note about Google's set of posters for the classroom, explaining stuff like how a search engines work, how to improve your search results and how to make the most of Google Books. There is a link to the .pdf files. these could prove very useful in Information Literacy classes - as long as teachers take pains to explain to their students that Google is not the only search engine.