W12 Wrap up, Social Networks and Catch up

Wow it's the final lesson already! I'm really glad to have participated in this program! Also a bit panicked to hear other colleagues finished it months ago. Although this has also really motivated me to try and catch up with them.

I like The article, "Spotted" by Seb Chan from the linked Powerhouse Museum webpage mentions a chart compiled by Josh Bernoff at Forrester which analyses how libraries use social media to support five key functions research, marketing, sales, support and development.

We have to follow the new trends and adapt to new age online applications to reach out to a broader community. According to Wikipedia, "the traditional way to interact is face-to-face, but nowadays interactive technology make it possible for people to network with their peers from anywhere, at anytime in an online environment".

"communities of practice for local government" use Wiki as a forum which can allow patrons to get involved and help other patrons and also to improve their services throughout the comments.

Social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace are a good way of bringing people with the same interests together.
Libraries can use sites such as MySpace for promotion to young people who would be interested in clubs such as the Animanga club which acts like a magnet, pulling in young people with those interests. It would make the present library web page more attractive and fun. As a result they would be promoting the library. Young people are our future patrons, so they are very important to us.

Learning 2.0 has shown me valuable ways in which online tools can be exploited to further promote our library services.

I will go back to learn more from the past 12 weeks of lessons to get an insight and better understanding of how to apply it to my library, but at the moment I have learnt about exciting new ideas such as online story telling using podcasts and vodcasts, using Google maps as a source to help patrons with directions. I've been introduced to sites and tools such Flickr, Youtube, podcasts for promotion, advertising, highlight events etc...

Finishing the program I have more time to explore other blogs to learn from them. I will register for the NSW Reference and Information Services group forum, as recommended. I am researching more about "second life", which is unfamiliar to me, but from what I've read "second life" is the new way to do business, where people plan what they want to do in a real life but experiment with the concepts first in the virtual online environment. They then wait and see how residents in second life respond and decide if it's worth doing in real life or not. This is a very cost efficient way to test the success of future businesses in comparison to doing it straight away in real life. Second life includes many real life features such as the option to buy land, build business for example libraries, and creation of all kinds of services.

Here is a link from Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg Country: teen library in second life with include the video tour of virtual library in teen second life.

http://www.plcmc.org/teens/secondlife.asp

W11 -Online Application Tools Continued

'Thumbstack slides' has less features in comparison to Powerpoint and Zoho which come with many features such as clipart, shapes, sizes, fonts, colours and other customisable options. These programs allow us to create and edit attractive and professional presentations online whenever we want to.

Zoho has different useful online software which includes all the software that a person or business needs in order to do a good job. It allows us to create, edit and share files anywhere, anytime.

Some examples of online software include:
'Zoho meeting' which allows a group of people to meet or learn online. We can use these new tools in the library for training patrons online or to carry out urgent meetings between central and branch staff when needed.
'Zoho planer' is another useful tool which can be used as an online organiser to keep track of what we have to do and what has been done to meet deadlines etc...
'Zoho creator' can be used to create an online contact list. We can embed it to our blog and update it whenever we want to.

Below is the presentation I created by using 'Zoho show' it looks better in comparison to the ones I made using the 'thumbstack slide show'.

Week 11 Zoho, Zambar, Thumbstacks

I have set up a zoho account. The toolbar has more features than Google Docs, I like the emotion icons, they're add lots of fun to our message. Also the special characters are helpful for typing in other languages.

It is easy to convert Word document files from my computer to pdf files, and have them sent to my email, but I couldn't successfully convert from URL to pdf.

I also practised creating a presentation slideshow from thumbstacks about how to renew items online in our library.

http://www.thumbstacks.com/play.html?show=faa69665702a0d511eacc5dfdef91c1c

W11- Online application tools

Google Docs is really useful and handy website which allows us to create documents, or projects for individuals or groups. Its features allow several members of a group to work on the same document so that they can finish their work quickly and efficiently without meeting each other. We can update information or edit data and republish. It is a real time saver.

In the library, we can work on projects, plans, agendas for meetings and staff can add to the document. It also allows staff who may have missed the meetings to have a say on the topics discussed.

I think we can introduce Google Docs and zoho.com services to our patrons so they can work on their documents and save directly online making things easier and preventing problems such as discs getting stuck in the computer's drive, loss of discs or USB sticks.