Social networks

There are things I like about social networks. I like having contact with people I have not seen for ages on facebook. I like hearing about their lives now and looking at pictures of their kids. I do not like getting messages and emails from them too often. I do not like the feeling, sometimes, that I am being stalked. Like all these htings I played it obsessively for a couple of weeks and then got bored. I like some of the applications - playing scrabulous or D&D is fun - though no more fun than playing them on game sites.

I guess you could define some of the gaming sites as social networks. I have played backgammon with some lovely people over the years and round the world!

I think Ning and Bebo could be really useful for clubs, groups and even families - a space on the internet that reflects an actual relationship and interactions. In fact, I think that is what the social networks I like have in common - they are expressions of existing relationships. One creates a ning group with people who know or interact with each other, and you do not invite strangers to be friends in FB (though it is a bit close to that with the young!).

Second Life, however, is a totally invented world, with pretend interactions between pretend people. This seems fine to me if it is a game - I remember discovering a MUD years ago (I got to it through Gopher so it was really years ago, pre www) and the excitement when I realised that it was a real person I was interacting with. WOW and the other RPGs are pretty much extensions of this. I do not really see what people get out of Second Life, however. Nothing much seems to happen except for commerce and blah. Maybe I have never given it long enough, but I got bored and did not come back. Club Penguin seems much the same and more fun!

Bebo could be great for bookclubs, or networks of bookclubs, for local studies groups, for individual branch libraries - though it would mean letting go of control in a way that most libraries are adverse to. I have qualms about libraries in Second Life - rather like the librarian coming up and being buddy to the students in the pub. I don't think they want it!

Online applications

Here is the link to the travel calendar I made in Google Doc last year http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=dcb674hv_1f4ctc5&hl=en. I ended up actually just using a word version and keeping it on esnips - was just easier to edit at home with one right on the computer. However, this was fun to make. The tools have improved a lot since then.

On Zoho I tried out the wiki tool as we are looking for one that it is very simple and has minimal advertising but is still attractive. http://harbison.wiki.zoho.com/Testing-a-zoho-wiki.html
Zoho had a lot more applications than Google and seemed to have more formatting options, but I could not understand some of the formatting terminology in the image insert and things. It is great that you can use your google or yahoo accounts to login though!

Have never really got into these much, but some of the other tools are wonderful. I do not know what I would have done without Zamzar. When people came into the library to print out documents from macs or some versions of office that would not work on open office, I could always convert them using Zamzar. If I needed to send a pdf document to someone, it was the only way to create one at BCC. Doodle could be wonderful for trying to schedule weeks to burn off at Barney or weeding weekends or even dinners with a lot of people. esnips means I can share all the schedules, scans of passports, etickets, etc and still have them available if all our documentation gets lost.

Mashups for Local History

I think a mashup for local history could revolve around a map with images and history information. There is a one of the Somerset Hills, but it is not particularly attractive(http://www.t3consortium.com/drafts/interactivemap.php)

The Get London reading one could be really well applied in Brisbane - it could be used for reading, galleries or historical interest: http://www.getlondonreading.co.uk/Books-in-London

Even more interesting could be mashing oral histories with photographs, maps and historical information. You could morph the then and now photographs or mosaic the street scenses.

More mashups

I made a Warhol of Clea!

and more

and a Hockney of Sam!

Mashups

Mashups can be really fun. I made Sam's birthday invite this year on one. Big Huge Labs is much nicer though - and I love making the inspirational (or in my case, desperational) posters.

Voicethread looks absolutely amazing - and certainly one of the most inventive and ingenious uses of APIs. Would like to get time to play with it one day...

Podcasts and vodcasts and things that go bump

I love podcasts. Well technically, I love downloading audio files. I do not podcast at all - my mp3 player does not have enough memory (and I do not have enough time to listen to) for all the files that would come if I podcast things. As it is, I go through the ABC and other places sometimes and download the mp3 files I want to listen to.

Answer Board

I reckon we have to tread the Answer Board - I am going to make it my mission the next time one comes up. We have a natural advantage here being earlier int he world clock, so we should get lots of us to do it.

The main problem is going to be the homework questions - which a lot of them are. At work I can show them resources and tools and help them answer the question. But on YAnswers that is not the idea.

Library Thing

Another toy. I think I will continue to use GoodReads more (it is free and unlimited and it means you exchange book info with the people you know, which suits me more than with strangers). However, Library Things's input tool is sooooo much better than it used to be. You can choose from 690 different catalogues to search for data on - so it gets the out of print and small publications if you search their local research libraries. The state libraries of Australia are all there so that was good fun!


This is the link to my catalogue - http://www.librarything.com/catalog/harbison
but I cannot really see the use for a catalogue that only holds 200 books. Gurulib looks much more useful to me - a tool rather than a toy.

delicious and tagging

I think somewhere I missed the idea of tagging. I can do it and I find it useful to put tags on things for work, but I cannot see how a random cloud of words is more useful than a hierarchical tree of folders. True the latter imposes a false sense of order, but given the fact that I have about 1000 bookmarks I actually find it easier to use them than to use tags.

And Google toolbar (and iGoogle) let me do that from wherever I am. It is not confined any more than delicious is - in fact less as it is a nice easy drop down menu.

And it is private - and I like that - I do not see why the rest of the world should need to know my fascination with psychiatry! But here is the link to my delicious page anyway http://delicious.com/kateharbison

Luisa's Library Orientation Video

So here is my favourite library related video (apart from the abseiling one) - and not only because Luisa and Xanthe did it!

Online video

Almost as much fun as playing backgammon online, but a damn fine way to waste the evening.

I have posted a video of Sam on holidays already, so here is a wonderful ad!

Wikipedia project

Wikipedia, however, is a scarey thing. While I use it myself for anything that does not matter, I have seen too many unreliable and skewed pages to use it for anything important. Just look at most author pages and they are constructed by themselves, or worse, their publisher.

A few months ago I started studiously going through the Brisbane suburbs and making sure they link to Brisbites as well as OurBrisbane (which does just harvest Brisbites information, but doe snot giver references or links). This was very arduous and I think I only got up to Corinda. Something else to continue. Just went and had a look and some of the links are wrong anyway - so got to start again!

Wikis

I like Wikis a lot! I think they are actually the most useful of the web 2.0 tools I play with. At work we use wikis to communicate all the time. If something is happening we put it on the news page - and people can amend it as it gets fixed. We put up information about training and meetings and conferences so everybody can see it. We keep the info desk rosters and the IL planning schedules there so everyone can add, contribute, amend. We even put up recipes and jokes.

We set the alerts to go so when something is added or amended we get an email about it. It is just like sending an email to the group then - but a permanet record is kept too and we can refer to it when we need it.

At QUT we are looking at putting our subject guides in wiki format - it allows contribution by the students as well as the staff and can change to suit each cohort.

The one major disadvantage is that the less techie people in a group can find themselves being left out of the communication process. When we started to use the one at CA, I went round and made sure everybody had set the alerts up properly. That way they would not miss out on information because they do not use the wiki. I also set the home page on the info desk to be the wiki so we saw it whenever we were there.

With wikis for other groups this has been mor eof a problem. At Grace's Hut we have a wiki (http://graceshut.wetpaint.com/) and it was meant to work so that when we weeded or had anything to report we would put it into there. But most people just email me and get tme to put it in, and never use any of the functionality. Philistines!