This whole process has caused a considerable amount of stress and hassle. Yes, I realise that this was not the intention. Yes, I have accepted comments and even apologies for the additional pressure in my life when I really needed less, not more. And the idea that it could be covered in short soundbite moments was a fantasy. Irrespective of one's technical skill, the actual concepts involved a lot of lateral thinking. In order to learn something, it really is necessary most of the time to return to the subject over and over, which was not possible here.
So I have tended to view this all as 'Learning 2.0 Lite'. Having spoken with staff members to ask what they remember of the processes, terms, acronyms, etc., most could not recall much of what they had done without going over notes in some detail. That all being said, and putting aside degrees of success or failure in the various exercises, it has really been a terrific introduction into Web 2.0 technologies. It has inspired me to continue the process, and I must return to my blog on a regular basis, just to make sure I revisit at least some of those technologies...
...But I have actually finished.
Back soon...
Friday, December 28, 2007
#22 Audiobooks
More good stuff, I really like this podcast thing. So much 'freeware' out in cyberspace; I listened to a short podcast of Marvell's 'To His Coy Mistress' (love it when he mentions the lady's "quaint honour"...) on the PC, but will return when I have more time (how often have I written this during these exercises!) and podcast tons more. Classic and contemporary books and stories, talks, discussions and more and more...
Because of the above, I latched onto some free audio books at
Because of the above, I latched onto some free audio books at
This appears to be a 'not for profit' site where people lend their skills and talent to put books on the web. So far the list is fairly contained, but enough to promote interest. I thought about offering to do some reading, because I have always wanted to do that...but I digress.
The Project Gutenberg is also fascinating with many additional works available for download at
I am making a note of this in my blog to act as a reminder that I have to get back into this.
21 Podcasts
Podcasts have interested me for some time. This year (last year? 2007) I had to do a great deal of driving, and the radio doesn't always cut the mustard. A friend had sent me a bunch of podcasts, including a number from the BBC with Melvyn Bragg and various guests pontification on an eclectic range of subjects, from string theory and quantam physics to the growth of newspapers before the French Revolution. I listened to all of these on my MP3 player, and also a talk from the SLV about the future of libraries.
I hope to use this technology much more once I have found a podcast feed that does NOT open as soon as I turn on the computer and take over the desktop. Here is one podcast I added by RSS feed to my Bloglines account.
I hope to use this technology much more once I have found a podcast feed that does NOT open as soon as I turn on the computer and take over the desktop. Here is one podcast I added by RSS feed to my Bloglines account.
I tried to do the same for Stephen Fry whose blog is already one of my RSS feeds. But he doesn't appear to podcast any of his posts, which is a pity since he has an excellent speaking voice.
#20 YouTube
This is great, I love YouTube. Mind you, there is an awful lot of bollocks to wade through before you find things worth watching. Earlier this year, I was teaching a VCE student in Melbourne, and I wanted an audio example of one of the pieces he was learning. I searched YouTube and there were a dozen or more videos of people playing this piece. Generally, they played it quite badly, but my student recognised this. He found the process useful, because he could get a basic idea of what the piece sounded like, but with a number of faults which I had already warned him to be wary of.
While zapping around, I found a number of videos that I thought were amusing and/or instructive. Here are a couple;
While zapping around, I found a number of videos that I thought were amusing and/or instructive. Here are a couple;
This bloke spends his days - and life - living in a disused mobile library (is there such a vehicle?)
at the northern end of Loch Ness. He sounds remarkably sane for someone who might not be.
Very witty, all the right questions and responses. I love the bit about "Do you want a cup of hot water?"
YouTube is an excellent repository for all sorts of artistic endeavours, such as Weird Al Yankovic's excellent Star Wars spoof to the tune of Don Maclean's American Pie;
So that's it. I think there is a gerat deal more bu this is all I have time for...
#19 Discovering Web 2.0 tools
One thing is that while the web technology available has huge potential, we (humans) are still lacking a huge amount of content!! I looked at several of these Web 2.0 sites, such as the following:
They are subject specific, and are useful/fun/encouraging to those who want to use them...? Which I suppose is the intent of most APIs.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
#18 Web-based Apps
I looked at Zoho Writer and thought and wrote the following;
- This looks interesting, though I will not have the time to mess around with it and discover its value to me. So, I am creating a test text document. It appears to function just the way normal text-based software operates, with an excellent range of formatting and diagnostic tools. Except of course, it's online and does not need software updates and the like.
I will attempt to save it to my blog.
Hopefully there will be time in the New World, after the Revolution has come, to return to some of these applications, and really get into them. This will certainly be on the list.
#17 PBWiki
I have to say, it really gives me the sh... 'irrates' when Helen Blowers bangs on about how easy this all is. Having failed in this exercise, I tried to add a comment about Favorite Music/Book/Movie but could not locate the space for actually writing it. I also attempted to add my blog's URL which I thought I had done, except for the business of the brackets. This I do not comprehend; I simply copied and pasted my blog's address into a blank spot under the West Gippsland heading. It was not made clear what the brackets were for and why the URL had to be put between them.
Mind you, I am trying to do this after a long day in the library, when I really want to go home and open a cold bottle of something enervating.
Mind you, I am trying to do this after a long day in the library, when I really want to go home and open a cold bottle of something enervating.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
#16 Wiki'd - so what's in a Wiki
For some reason I really like the idea of wikis, though I feel this is more a political stance - at the moment - than a cultural or social one. One of the problems is of course accuracy, or the lack of disinterestedness. But as historiographers always seems to point out, there is no such thing as a truly factual account of anything. So what the hey...
I looked at a couple of the library wikis;
I looked at a couple of the library wikis;
Both were interesting, though the Princeton site seemed more dedicated to providing an open resource for books (you think??!), while Library Success was more skewed towards aspects of actually being a librarian. Again - I would really like more time to follow this up, and will certainly return to these wikis as a source of information and inspiriation for library users.
#15 Library 2.0 & Web 2.0
Inevitably (I think) this sort of investigation leads one to consider the future of reading. Will there still be books as we know them in 20 years? 50 years? 100 years? Personally I hope so, although I understand that this view is in part encultured. But the book as a physical object (and the reading of it) does provide a form of 'comfort' in the way that a back lit monitor screen doesn't.
Learning 2.0 is introducing me to a range of technologies that I assumed, guessed, figured were out there but which I had not encountered or had a need for. The trick from my point of view is to use and adapt what could be effective and productive, rather than starting to use a technology simply because it exists. Using Web 2.0 technologies for anything more than a small handful of daily utilities can swallow vast amounts of time, and quite often it is passive time.
I read several of the OCLC perspectives on Library 2.0. I cannot avoid the feeling that to be really effective in the coming years, a librarian will need advanced knowledge and understanding of IT processes, above and beyond what even those who are competent now comprehend. (At least I feel justified in requesting more PD and training in these areas when asked to comment on what more libraries could be doing to assist their staff.)
Learning 2.0 is introducing me to a range of technologies that I assumed, guessed, figured were out there but which I had not encountered or had a need for. The trick from my point of view is to use and adapt what could be effective and productive, rather than starting to use a technology simply because it exists. Using Web 2.0 technologies for anything more than a small handful of daily utilities can swallow vast amounts of time, and quite often it is passive time.
I read several of the OCLC perspectives on Library 2.0. I cannot avoid the feeling that to be really effective in the coming years, a librarian will need advanced knowledge and understanding of IT processes, above and beyond what even those who are competent now comprehend. (At least I feel justified in requesting more PD and training in these areas when asked to comment on what more libraries could be doing to assist their staff.)
#14 Not-so-technical stuff
Following the current practice of screaming around and trying NOT to be interested in various facets of these exercises (so that I have a chance of getting to the end by the end of the year!), I did spend some time looking at interesting blogs and posts through Technorati.
First of all I put "percussion" into the search engine (a throw back to my previous life) which resulted in 26,714 posts. Unhelpful, given time restraints. So I narrowed the field by putting in "mallet percussion" which brought it right down, but still not very helpful.
I then changed the search term to "mobile libraries", and within a couple of clicks I was looking at a site called BoingBoing (a site of really wonderful things). Amongst the stuff on view - and this is what relates to mobile libraries - was a project to put vast numbers of free books on the London Underground, to turn the Underground in fact into a huge free mobile library. This was apparently started in June this year (2007), and seems to have been very successful. The link is below:
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/06/04/london-book-project-.html
First of all I put "percussion" into the search engine (a throw back to my previous life) which resulted in 26,714 posts. Unhelpful, given time restraints. So I narrowed the field by putting in "mallet percussion" which brought it right down, but still not very helpful.
I then changed the search term to "mobile libraries", and within a couple of clicks I was looking at a site called BoingBoing (a site of really wonderful things). Amongst the stuff on view - and this is what relates to mobile libraries - was a project to put vast numbers of free books on the London Underground, to turn the Underground in fact into a huge free mobile library. This was apparently started in June this year (2007), and seems to have been very successful. The link is below:
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/06/04/london-book-project-.html
Again, I would like to have had more time to investigate, but I found this quite intriguing and hope to have the time to come back later.
#13 Tagging, folksonomies and social bookmarking
I had a look at this in general through the http://del.icio.us/ site set up for Learning 2.0. Not sure what to say, except that these pages have the look of many RSS feeds and other sorts of blogs. Though I am not sure whether they have the same function. I would really like the time to wander around and compare different uses of some of these sites. I looked at
- The Shifted Librarian: Libraries with RSS from the Catalog and
- PaperCuts: What the Director is Reading: a TSCPL Podcast
They appeared well set up and to provide a variety of links to other pages of relevant interest.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
#12 Rollyo...
I'm zapping through things now just to get some done. I created an account and added three Searchrolls. I must stop now or else I will implode.
#11 LibraryThing
Set up the account, added some books, managed to add one with only 1 other 'member'. Not bad, thinking of a book that virtually no one else knows of or has read. Hopefully I will go back to this site/account soon and spend more time there looking around...
#10 Image Generators
Well, I did 'play' around a bit. I found the R2D2 Translation Generator. I asked it to translate "I want to be a proctologist". I was none the wiser afterwards, but it sounded like R2D2.
#9 More RSS feeds
This was also a frustrating experience, partly because there is not enough time to explore the options anywhere near fully enough, and partly because I had to spend twenty minutes trying to get into my bloglines account and to recall the fine details about adding feeds.
#7 About technology...
For a long time now I have had a personal and professional interest in music of all kinds. Having had the opportunity to perform in many different genres - from very early music to very modern, from the highly commercial to the highly individual - I find the use of technology in general (and web based technology in particular) in this field fascinating.
The thing is that for most musicians for most of human history, music has been a physical, hands on thing. You make music by holding an instrument and blowing, hitting or plucking it to make the (hopefully) appropriate sounds. Two primary technologies have changed that millenia old understanding, apart from changes to the methods of instrument construction and performance. The first was the development of recording, from the second half of the nineteenth century, so that music was no longer a creation of sound lasting as long as the human ear could detect it. The second was the development of the web in conjunction with the digitisation of music recording.
In 'the old days', if I wanted to hear a recording of something that I had played on, I would have to get hold of the hard copy - whether vinyl, reel-to-reel, cassette or more recently compact or mini disc. This process would also involve leg work, the Post Office, or a vehicle of some description. But with the advent of mp3 file applications and the internet, that has changed forever.
Earlier this year I was in email contact with a mate, with whom I had worked on an album for a couple of guys in Melbourne. He had made me a rough demo of one of the tracks on a CD and sent it to me in the post. I emailed some comments to him about the drum sounds. A couple of weeks later, he emailed me the same song track, now with changes, as an mp3 file. Within twenty minutes, I had listened to the song through the computers speakers, saved it to my hard drive, burnt it onto a CD and listened to it again on my stereo system and emailed my response back to him (the track itself is over five minutes long). Very different to the process used when I was starting out...
The thing is that for most musicians for most of human history, music has been a physical, hands on thing. You make music by holding an instrument and blowing, hitting or plucking it to make the (hopefully) appropriate sounds. Two primary technologies have changed that millenia old understanding, apart from changes to the methods of instrument construction and performance. The first was the development of recording, from the second half of the nineteenth century, so that music was no longer a creation of sound lasting as long as the human ear could detect it. The second was the development of the web in conjunction with the digitisation of music recording.
In 'the old days', if I wanted to hear a recording of something that I had played on, I would have to get hold of the hard copy - whether vinyl, reel-to-reel, cassette or more recently compact or mini disc. This process would also involve leg work, the Post Office, or a vehicle of some description. But with the advent of mp3 file applications and the internet, that has changed forever.
Earlier this year I was in email contact with a mate, with whom I had worked on an album for a couple of guys in Melbourne. He had made me a rough demo of one of the tracks on a CD and sent it to me in the post. I emailed some comments to him about the drum sounds. A couple of weeks later, he emailed me the same song track, now with changes, as an mp3 file. Within twenty minutes, I had listened to the song through the computers speakers, saved it to my hard drive, burnt it onto a CD and listened to it again on my stereo system and emailed my response back to him (the track itself is over five minutes long). Very different to the process used when I was starting out...
#6 Bangers and Mash
This business of 'mashups' is really interesting. I wish there was more time to explore the nature of this technology, espcially the creation of simple web applications. A couple of sites were of passing interest;
This one because of my long time interest in music. Interestingly it seems that a great number of "music" related web applications deal only with 'popular' music. If a jazz or classical name is entered very little information, if any, appears. Is this because non-pop oriented music listeners do not visit these sites or are not so interested or familiar with the technology? Or because such processes favour commercial music which almost invariably means 'pop'?
And this one is a great idea, given that the increase in the efficiency of global communication technology continues to be a problem for political regimes that do not favour openess or broad accountability.
I did take a brief look at Librarian Trading Card, but need more time to consider the possibilities.
Sunday, December 2, 2007
#8 Bloglines & RSS feeds
Well, I think I have done this all correctly, but it is a bit hard to tell. The right hand column of the Bloglines page is a lot more complicated - or at least time consuming - than would appear at first glance. I flagged Stephen Fry's blog because I think he's both erudite and witty, and talks about interesting stuff. Mainly at the moment, IT news that interests him.
I also subscribed to LibraryThing, which looks interesting from a more literary point of view, and because I heard an interview on the Radio National's 'The Book Show' with the guy who started it all up. Apparently it's now a public company he now runs it as a full time business. All right for some.
I have also tried to copy the URL, don't really know if this has worked:
http://www.bloglines.com/public/farmerpeter@hotmail.com
Well, it was worth a try...
I also subscribed to LibraryThing, which looks interesting from a more literary point of view, and because I heard an interview on the Radio National's 'The Book Show' with the guy who started it all up. Apparently it's now a public company he now runs it as a full time business. All right for some.
I have also tried to copy the URL, don't really know if this has worked:
http://www.bloglines.com/public/farmerpeter@hotmail.com
Well, it was worth a try...
Saturday, December 1, 2007
#5 Flickr
Yesterday, the first official day of summer 2007, I posted three photos on the public libraries' Flickr site. Even this process was attacked by the deus ex machina that has followed me relentlessly ever since beginning this technological odyssey. I managed to get the photos, which were on a laptop, onto a USB flash drive. Then I went step by step through the exercise of uploading them onto the appropriate web page.
But for about half an hour I was stymied by some bug that closed the Flickr site down every time I tried to get the pictures up and running. The web browser - I use Mozilla Firefox - continually wanted to send in an error report. This I eventually decided was the only way forward. Shortly I received a message saying that the possible cause of the problem was in a particular version of Flash Player (which of course I had), for which Adobe had not yet worked out a solution. So I had to upgrade to the 'latest' version, which then allowed me to continue and complete the exercise...I mean, fun challenge.
Actually, it was quite interesting. The main problem is that when things go wrong and I can't fix them, many hours of my life are over and gone in frustration while staring and swearing at a screen. Anyway, here is a link to my three pics.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/princo//
Back soon.
But for about half an hour I was stymied by some bug that closed the Flickr site down every time I tried to get the pictures up and running. The web browser - I use Mozilla Firefox - continually wanted to send in an error report. This I eventually decided was the only way forward. Shortly I received a message saying that the possible cause of the problem was in a particular version of Flash Player (which of course I had), for which Adobe had not yet worked out a solution. So I had to upgrade to the 'latest' version, which then allowed me to continue and complete the exercise...I mean, fun challenge.
Actually, it was quite interesting. The main problem is that when things go wrong and I can't fix them, many hours of my life are over and gone in frustration while staring and swearing at a screen. Anyway, here is a link to my three pics.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/princo//
Back soon.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Once more unto the blog...
I am (re) restarting my attempt to write a blog. Apparently, I managed earlier to create something - a blog - that didn't exist, except that it did. Let's not go into that right now, except to say that the entire experience has slightly underlined a sneaking suspicion that I was already living in a sort of parallel reality, but different from (almost) everyone else's.
Whatever...
Today happens to be national election day, and it seems appropriate to recommence (sic) this effort at a time when many Australians are hoping their country will 'recommence'. Judging by the apparent state of the main political combatants, the results will create a change with no change, a bit like my first blog (see above).
Whatever...
Today happens to be national election day, and it seems appropriate to recommence (sic) this effort at a time when many Australians are hoping their country will 'recommence'. Judging by the apparent state of the main political combatants, the results will create a change with no change, a bit like my first blog (see above).
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