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Over the decades, Auckland has been fortunate in attracting a number of remarkable benefactors.

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Summary of the learning curve

Before I started this web 2 course, I thought myself having a good knowledge of web 2 technologies. Ture? No, I was wrong, there were many things in this course I was not familiar with, for example, Flickr mashups, and actually it brings up an idea for me to do a google map mashup with scocial media features. Anyway, most of the technologies make sense for our library businesses. Blog, Tweeter and Facebook are good communication channels between library staff and our customers, while Flickr and youtube could be a good promotion channel for events and exhibitions. We need also keep in mind, all sort of sources are world-wide searchable, how fantastic they are!

Week 9: Podcasts, Video & ebooks

YouTube: I quite like to see Youtube is not just a source of video clips, it is also a good source of ideas. I did a search for 'virtual library' and found few interesting video clips. The digital future of a library? :-)


Podcasts: searched 'libray' keyword on podcastalley.com, got the feed url, put into blogline. Also tried to put into iTune. Podcast is a good way to broadcast audio materials for subscribed user groups.

eBooks: I had a look of Netlibrary (ebooks), 'Downloadable media' (audio books). At downloadable media found 'Mao's last Dancer', there was a movie showing at Sky Cinema, I will definately to have a listen (not look this time) of it :D

Week 8: Online Productivity

Google docs is my fevoriate online MS Office like applications. Easy share, easy collaboration and even talk with other users who are viewing the same document. I used it to process share documents with my friends. Very cool and easy to use. Below is a powerpoint like test presentation :-)

http://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0ARkc7ZQbc3xhZGNyc2JyOXZfMGQ2ZGM3cmR3&hl=en

Discovering Web 2.0 Awards: Google maps is not a new stuff anymore, but it is always on my top list of web 2 applications/tools. There are a number of Goolge map mashups (http://mashable.com/2009/01/08/google-maps-mashups-tools/) which are very cool and innovative. The coming of Street View maps are unbeatable. We already have a google map application available on ACL website which gives customer better idea of where we are and even has the "Get Directions" functionality. A GPS tracking function can be applied to google maps as well.

Week 7: Wikis

One of my friends said Wiki can do everything. Giving a Wiki system, by tweaking user management controls and workflows, we really can do an online content management system (CMS), a user community (e.g. forum, blogging system) or something else you name it. On a certain extend, I have to agree with it. Wiki gives user the control of content. For libraries, Wiki is a good platform for collaboration. For example, a staff Wiki for asking questions and sharing information, staff members can constantly update information to keep it accurate, the Wiki could be a well-defined knowledge base for all and also a communication channel.

Thsi blog URL has been added to PB Wiki :-)

Week 6: Tagging, Folksonomies & Technorati

Del.icio.us: Del.icio.us is a more advanced bookmarking tool than internet browser bookmarks. It gives us freedom to access bookmarks everywhere on every computer through internet. It does tagging and comments and makes it easy to categorise different websites :D

Technorati: I just added this blog to Technorati. Honestly, I don't really like the website of Technorati. There are too many ads on this site and make it like a dentist website (ha-ha, I keep seeing a number of dental ads). Tagging can be done when claiming a blog.

Library 2.0: By reading Chip Nilges's 'To more powerful ways to cooperate' (http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/4.htm), I really agree with the point "release lightweight services". So I guess in the next few year, libraries (digital prospective) would focus on building open web services and provide open API for web users/developers. All those sort of services can be easily integrated into partner websites. Digital NZ is a good example to share contents.

Week 5: LibraryThing & Rollyo

This is the first time I heard LibraryThing and quick like the simple way to add, rate and comment you books. Excpet the homepage looks a bit dry and busy to me :D, the actually functionalities inside are designed quite easy to use and understand. A search widget has been inserted to the righthand side bar of this blog.

Rollyo. Well, it seems from yesterday the Rollyo service is down, I will come back to it later on. :-)

Week 4: RSS, Newsreaders & Twitter

Google reader seems to be a very good tool to orgnise personal RSS feeds (that is the purpose of it, right?). Very simple to use if you have a google account already.

Twitter is another quick communication tool. I think the concept here is to keep things short and simple. Easy to sign up and broadcast :D.

All of them can be used as a comm channel between libraries and customers (especially young and technology equipped customers :-))

http://twitter.com/BenACL

Week 3: Explore Flickr & Mashup & Picnik

To share photos with friends and families, I use Picasa a lot, the only reason is it is a part of google. Flickr, I heard it often but started to try just now :-). Honestly, it is amazing to discover so many features of Flickr (e.g. photo view stats, orgnizer, share control, set photo copyrights, add notes and comments etc.) and uploading is very easy as well. The bulit-in photo editting feature is working good. It is a winer :-)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/48269947@N06/4420861766/

Flickr mashup is a fun way to build web apps/desktop tools by using Flickr API. I had a look of the Flickr mashup 'Garden' and found the desktop tool Bulkr was interesting (http://www.flickr.com/services/apps/72157622874451890/). This is a basic tool to help us download interested photos from Flickr in batches and I think it could be one of the most useful :-).

Please see a mashup poster http://www.flickr.com/photos/48269947@N06/4420138555/

Picnik:

an interesting online photo editting application. Photo on the left has been cropped, resized, sharpened and used black-white filter.

Week 2: Social media

I have been on MySpace and Facebook for a while, the most useful function to me is the 'Wall' on facebook. e.g. my 'Wall' is at http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?ref=profile&id=649752992 (may need login, i guess). It is a very efficient way to communicate with friends who are often on facebook :D, and usually can have response in few minutes. But I have a bit compliant about the facebook's interface . For a new user, it is hard to find out where to do what you want and the pravcy issue has been widely talked around the world. :D

First week of online training programme

Followed instructions and created a blog account in just 5 miniutes. Crazy easy :-). Not 100% sure, but I guess blogger may have an account management system or alike, so only specific users can view your blogs. If so, this is a very powerful tool to do small group communications :D.