Finally!!!

Finally, its happened to me and I just cannot believe it......... (twisting the lyrics of a song)! Its with mixed feelings that I am signing my last post. I am relieved that's its all done and also have this sense of sadness that the excitement of blogging is over. I certainly had a few ups and downs, hated a few "things" and thoroughly enjoyed others. This whole exercise was a huge learning curve - I know I wouldn't have done it on my own . So a beeeg thanks to all involved in setting this up and my team, who helped and encouraged me from time to time.
I feel empowered and love showing off among my friends, who haven't a clue what I am talking about and my worse half, who thinks he is the most knowledgeable in the family!!
Awww.....what do I do now? I know! I'll ask my manager to roster regular "Tech" time for the next one month just so that I can take the time to read other's blogs!!
Bye now!

Net-Library

I thought the Net Library was quite good. We have a good number of self-help/motivational books and non-fiction mainly. We seem to have books on a wide range of topics. Had heard so much about it but was able to check them out only now. I might want to read "Best things ever said in the dark". I think it's clever to write on such a topic!

Search Tools

I found Yahoo Podcast and Podcast.net completely hopeless to manouver and didn't find anything interesting either. I tried to go through the Yahoo tutorial but it didn't take me into it directly. I then searched for tutorials and those that came up could not be opened and had the message " This link is not authorised by Yahoo". Anyway, found a podcast "Movies you should see" on Podcastalley.com and have added it to my Bloglines. Also had a listen to "Library across cultures" which I thought would be interesting but the sound quality was quite poor and it kept breaking up. Auckland City Libraries/Library Zone/Citynet should have a podcast that we all can subscribe to and get all the latest news!!

You Tube

I've always thought You Tube to be an incredible web site. Its such a great way of broadcasting yourself or anything that is of interest to you. What's even more amazing is that its all FREE and I quite like the fact that people can post comments on video clippings!! The video I've chosen is on the place I belong to, in India, and the video is quite well made -not an amateurish job.
I thought Auckland City Libraries could advertise themselves on You Tube - or are we already there?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=xgOu4hRMa_8

Web 2.0 Awards

Checked out Fun Stuff and everything on it was actually fun stuff!! I thought Cocktail Builder was quite useful and I just might go back to grab recipes of cocktails. One Sentence made good reading. Some people had managed to express so much in one sentence, it was unbelievable. Some others were quite funny and some very ordinary but obviously met the criteria. Fuzzmail was nice too. I am a very expressive person as it is, so I don't see myself using this but I do think its quite clever for those who don't.
Can't think how this could be useful in a library setting other than indulging in a light moment when the going gets tough or too monotonous!

Online Productivity

Tried getting on to Zoho Writer and realised I had to sign up all over again in order to create documents, so instead decided to skip that step and go on to more user friendly Google Docs. Have uploaded a few documents and since I am more prone to use Google/Gmail for various things, I think its only befitting that I use them for this service too. Had a look at Zoho Writer's features and they are much the same as Google's - what is really appealing to me is that this can be accessed from anywhere.

Wiki-wiki!!

It sounds like the mongoose story I’d read long-long ago called “Rikki-tikki-tavi”. I think it was by Kipling. Anyway the origin of the word is kinda cute. I had been getting the kids to use Wikipedia at Akozone without realising it is a “wiki” and that being so easy to add information to or edit it, it might not be so reliable – that’s an eye-opener!
I don’t see Librarians setting up a wiki and making a success of it – I mean where is Fitch today? I think we have enough to do as it is.
People belonging to some clubs or social groups with common goals, might be better off contributing to a wiki and it might be a good idea to get the Akozone kids to experiment with it – with the onus of monitoring its contents, falling on the poor teacher!!

Sandbox wiki:
Added an entry to Favourite Blogs and Favourite Books. The last time I tried to edit it, we didn’t have a password and I thought there was something amiss. Somebody had already posted a comment to elgar so I thought that would suffice and went on to read and play some more!