Conclusion (Learning 2.0 feedback)

I started off with a quote so I thought I'd finish off with one. "It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change"--Charles Darwin.

Things I liked about Learning 2.0:

• That you can do the course anywhere any time (I did most of mine at home).
• That the library has set aside 15 minutes out of it's busy schedule to do this course.
• All the help from Mylee and Ellen. Good on ya guys.
• The opportunity to learn about daunting I.T. subjects.
• A chance to keep abreast of subjects vital to our profession.
• Being given tools that help us to provide innovative services to our clients.
• It was really interesting and relevant as well.

Knowledge and Networks (week 14 postscript)

In a not unrealated aside I would like to talk about the presentation we had from IBM's Petar Bielovich entitled ‘The IBM Learning & Knowledge Journey – lessons, challenges and insights’. He really blew my head away with his talk of knowledge management and how forming social networks is great business; it sounded such a human idea. Of course with computer systems like FaceBook, Myspace and Flickr (etc. etc. etc.) you can form communities all over the world. What a great idea for the State Library.

Here are some of the other things he told us about knowledge and networks that I thought interesting:

1. You always know more than you can say, you always say more than you can write down.
2. Knowledge can only be volunteered never conscripted.
3. I only know what I need to know when I need to know, when I need to know it.
4. My knowledge is unique to me.
5. The knowledge that people build up in their minds over years by experience is called “tacit knowledge” is difficult to access.
6. Downloading this knowledge needs extensive contact and trust.
7. You have to build an environment where people are valued not just because they have knowledge but because they can share knowledge with others.
   

How can libraries use social networking services? (Explore week 14)

The sites connected to week 14 of this course were very interesting. Those libraries are really getting out amoungst the clients. Social networking services are a great way to "sell" your service in a subtle way. In my oppinion the low key approach is what I think would be the best way.

The thing about social networking is that they are social first; as the title suggests. In that context the State Library is your pal on the block, not a pre-eminent cultural institution. At the risk of creating a tautology, the opportunity is to create a two-way dialogue between our clients and us.

Some of the ways we could use social networking in the State Library are:

1. To get unsolicited client feedback.
2. To trawl for information about how our clients see us and what they would like from a library service.
3. To advertise events.
4. To promote regular library services.
5. To connect with the library users of the future.

Second Life where "Meatspace" meets meet-space

I have to risk sounding a Luddite here because I think Second Life is a total cop-out. January 2008, residents spent 28,274,505 hours there (that's about 166, 467 person weeks, I didn't get up to years, because I didn't have a calculator).

What if all that energy and creativity were channelled into the cause of fixing the real world we all live in? I hope we all live in. We could fix cancer, the hole in the ozone layer and have some time left over to beautify own surroundings (and ourselves).

With all the problems in our world: global warming and childhood obesity to name but two, I think its the first life we need to give our efforts to. There are a many tools outlined in this course that will deliver what the State Library and its clients need in a timely, accessible and fun way. Second Life is just a diversion. (Check out the guy in the picture, he's in virtual reality).

What is "Social Networking"? (Discover week 14)

I didn't realise there were so many social networking sites till I looked at the map. I've been using and contributing to FaceBook for some time for my outside interest of stand-up comedy. It's really good for keeping in touch with a group of people with a similar interest.

But you do get some weirdos interloping on the group. Every comedian does a joke about their horror at finding their mum is on FaceBook. Why, you ask yourself? Because one of the cheif reasons most people (including comics) get on a social network is to make friends with the opposite gender. No one wants the grown-ups cramping their style.

But what is a friend? Is it someone you have spoken to, is it someone you just know about or have a business connection? You might find you want different networks for different areas of your life (back to Seb Chan here, he might have one for his library interests and one for his interest in DJing dance parties; not to mention his love of fresh fish).

Seb Chan and "leveraging" "knowledge management"

Recently I saw Seb chan speak in the Metcalf Auditorium about what he and his colleagues had been doing with their web site at the Powerhouse Museum. The museum has been using various forms of links to “bridge the semantic gap” so that even if you don’t know what the exhibit in the Museum is called you will be directed to it anyway.

They are also getting into client tagging of the Museum’s catalogue, “harnessing user energy” as Seb put it, to add value to the information they already have on their web site. Clients put on free form descriptions of the items and add meaning to the record on the web.

Seb drew our attention to all the pictures of exhibits in the Museum that the clients put on Flickr and all the hits that the Museum gets on its web site for things that they think are interesting. I liked this because it answered the question I keep on wondering about, “how do you know what the client wants?” The full-on knowledge management trip.

Googledocs and Zoho (My Adventure)

I had a few questions relating to the document sharing applications:

1. Will you always want to share a document? I don't know about you, but my first draft is very much my own affair.
2. How do you control the fate of your files up on the web? Anyone who has lost files due to computer failure knows the importance of backing up. How do you do this now? And I don't mean in another building, possibly another state (did you ever hear about the company that had their files backed up in the second building in the World Trade Center?). And everyone has heard of the Dot.com disaster.
3. What about security? Heard the old joke about how you should never put anything up in an email that you wouldn't want on the front of the Sydney Morning Herald? I should think that Googledocs and Zoho are pretty much the same. I wonder how huge organisations with trade secrets go about these things.

All the bells and whistles (Explore -- Week 13)

I got quite excited about Slide share and Thumstacks. Another cool way to share slideshows. Something I could see being used widely for training purposes. A good way to share powerpoint presentations.

Googledocs and Zoho had a lot of good office applications: Googledocs is good for sharing documents without the hastle of having to be in the same R drive group; Zoho was good for Zoho Meeting and Zoho Projects and very cool because it lets you chat while you work on documents in real time.

I didn't really get Zamzar till I started trying to download a document to Googledocs from my home Del computer that uses Windows Vista. I needed to save the document in rich text or a typ of file that Googledocs accepted. One of the draw backs of beeing the leader of the pack (ha, ha).

I had this one thought though, aren't some of these apps. standard features on your home computer these days? Like Picnik is part of the Windows Photo Gallery on my p.c. The "cool" thing is probably that it is free.

This is says it all for me -- Slideshare

This slide show starts with the invention of roll film for cameras and traces some of the technology we all take for granted like video recorders. They all started with the wow factor and then people started to ask themselves "would I like fries with that?" This is how the creative process works, a continual refining of the product building on what you had before.

View Upload your own

Mashup Adventure -- Week 12

On the question about different types of mashups and how you might use them in the library, I had a bit of a surf on Google about mashups. Wikipedia has "Web Application Hybid" at the end of a list of options. This took me to Yahoo Pipes. This is quite a mind blower. You can harness a number of a number of applications like Google maps, RSS feeds, etc. to create your own mini web site. Think of the power. This site about wineries in the Napa Valley was one of their "hot pipes". Check out this address:

http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=bMPFtO342xGrr53VyzUFzw

I can see departments like Public Libraries Branch getting a lot of use out of this type of application. Where are the libraries? Where are related services. What are the feeds that would provide public libraries with community information that they need? These are all questions you might ask.

Mashups -- The value of Energy and Teamwork

Recently we've been seeing a lot of Energy and Teamwork on our floor. In this mashup I'd like to pay tribute to some of Ela and Chris Fam's excellent work. It was well appreciated by all!!! The only problem is that Joanna will have another title to catalogue but then she loves doing that. Good on you Serials Team!!!

The law of precession

I started looking at Stanen Design and what it does and it reminded me of The law of precession. This is like when a bee makes honey. That's it's goal. It's purpose is to fertilize flowers. This is like when you tag pictures on Flickr and then some one like these guys comes along and makes a mashup with tagged photos of peoples holidays and then mash them up with place names from the United States postal system. You never know what your goal is going to end up producing. So you better keep doing it! Flickrvision blew my head away as well. All these places all over the world and all these moments from people's lives being fired back at you. What is this all about? How can you take it all in?

Podcast Opportunities

I went into Online education database and Yahoo podcasts search with some interest but soon I was mentally back at university wondering why can't I understand any of this stuff?

Am I an idiot, I wondered. Of course I'm not an idiot, none of us are; totally. It's just either the recording situation or the speaker is not up to par. This issue was highlighted for me the more podcasts I looked at.

If we want to use this media at the State Library I would hope that we would consider:

1. Choosing a form of file that is compatible with a wide range of recievers (does everyone have/want ITunes?).
2. Get a type of file that downloads quickly (do you really want to spend a long time downloading a file?).
3. Make recordings that are of a good quality (clear to listen to and the speaker actually knows how to speak).

Library Success at the State Library

At the State Library podcasts could be used for a number of purposes we have previously used flyers and other written material. Young clients seem to be keen to take up the new information technology and we can exploit this self provided conduit. Here are some of the ways:

1. Oral History tapes online or MP3 player
2. Presentations by interesting speakers in the library on interesting items we have in the collection. Elizabeth Ellis and Paul Brunton doing a Betty Churcher.
3. Answering frequently asked questions on reader education subjects
4. A personal guided tour of the Library
5. Talk me through I.T. procedures.
6. Talk me through cataloguing procedures.
7. Induction information for new workers in the library

ABC and British Museum Podcasts

I went onto the ABC podcast site and found an episode of the Gruen Transfer (which I watched at home). What an opportunity we have now, you can catch up with back episodes of your favourite shows and documentaries.

I listened to Evelyn Waugh's voice that the British Museum has in their collection. This made me think of all the oral history tapes we have in the Library. Podcasts connected to the State Library's website would be a wonderful way to make them available.

Regina Sutton has already made use of podcasts so we can visit or revisit Towne meetings and other presentations on the intranet. I think we are just chipping away at the potentiality of this medium. With the popularity of MP3 players I think we've got something.

Yahoo 7 Answers

The Yahoo 7 Answers "Adventure" assignment was a lot of fun. I posted a question and I felt all responsible but as I went through it started to seem more and more funny. The question was all about naming this woman's future child Freya or Wyatt. I said think about how that child will feel living with that name but then I weakened and said:

"If these are names that refer to some sort of media association then in ten or twenty years time everyone will be able to tell their age by that association and be thought terribly cheesy (all those Britneys and Courtneys are probably already having a hell of a time).

All my best wishes, Sue
P.S. Terribly sorry if your name is, in fact, Britney or Courtney"

I was checking through the questions that other people had put up. Similarly there were a mixture of serious and humorous answers. As one person pointed out, here they are asking total strangers about the most personal issues of their lives. Maybe this isn't a good idea.

I remember an anecdote that the presenter of a seminar on social networks on the internet told us. A man wrote in "what do I do when I have these pains in my chest?" and people were desperately writing back "for God's sake man, go to a doctor". What I mean is these sites are a lot of fun but you have to use your own judgement when asking a particular question.

Slamming the Boards

What a great idea "slamming the boards" is; getting in to where people are doing the searching and giving potential clients free samples. That's always been a great way of advertising. (Hold on a minute, we're usually free).

We could provide links to out site and our library; a kind of paper trail, without the paper. We would have to have a think about this, would we do this on a regular basis, or just hit and run? Build a kind of reference service away from home?

And who would do this sort of thing, just reference librarians? Often questions are from other librarians with cataloguing issues and people with technical services experience would be better equipped to answer such questions. The possibilities are endless.

Tag lines and signatures

I thought the Answer Board Librarians Wiki was a great idea. These were my favourite tag lines and signitures. I couldn't help imagining what the people were like behind the tag lines. This is what I think:

Librarians--Ask Us, We Answer!
She wears flat shoes and never wears a skirt.

Librarians--We eat questions for breakfast!
She's a bit plump and has a wild look around the eyes.

Librarians--Yep, we're here!
This one lives for their holidays and flex days.

Have a question you don't want the whole world to see?
This is the colleague that turns up each day wearing sun glasses.

Librarians ... the ultimate search engines
Works in I.T. and dresses like a goth.

Librarians provide power tools to the people.
Has to be a male librarian, does a lot of work on his home at the weekend.

Librarians are where you are - online! (The Library is a resource, not a building).
This one looks like Ellen and Mylee.

Guess which one looks like me.

Social Searching

In big picture view I think "social searching" makes a lot of sense. Everyone putting in their bit of the picture is like each of us contributing a peice of a zigsaw puzzle. The whole idea of each person being a "neuron" is right. The way I see it there are two sorts of people: the "numbers" people who contribute logic and control and the "ideas" people who contribute courage and compassion. Bring both of those types together on a situtation and you have balance. It's what the world needs right now. If technology can do it for us, I say bring it on.

Del.icio.us - Technorati - Library Thing

Del.icio.us is a must; after a few of these Learning 2.0 sessions I can't even remember what all these sites were. So I started adding some of the sites to my Del.icio.us account as a way of keeping notes. I had a little problem working out where I put the URL from my blog but I suppose I should have looked at the notes from Sharon Morris first.

Technorati is interesting, a way of getting into all the blogs out there by subject. I have started a blog on my own interest and am hoping to tag it and so get people to access it out there on the internet. Otherwise you just don't have a hope (I seem to have the same name as a Canadian detective T.V. program character - so as far as everyone out there is concerned I'm a blind detective with a dog).

Library Thing was cool but I have some reservations. I thought there were privacy issues involved with telling people what books you were interested in; I think they have laws about this in the U.S.A. I suppose when you get onto Library Thing you don't tag all those books about terrorism and the middle east.

Using Learning 2.0

Here's a minor brain wave. How do you catalogue a big pile of crumbling posters? These babies were not intended to exist the day after they were printed; sixty-eight years ago. No problem. Photograph them with a digital camera. Download onto your computer and tag them with the poster number and date. Then you can organise them "virtually" into ten distinct poster groups and catalogue them onto Millennium. Easy peasy. Well it did take a few key strokes but it was definitely better that hoovering all those tiny pieces of newspaper off the carpet. Other opportunities might include adding such photographs onto Flickr, with tags and linking them in some way to the catalogue. It might be easier (and cheaper) than scanning and you don't have to handle the posters as much.

Folksomy - Taxonomy - Mission Impossible?

It seems I've been a taxonomist for some time; adding tags in a more or less organised way. Folksonomists add tags that mean stuff to them and probably don't imagine what the person out there would want to see in a tag. Why should they? It's all about them.

As librarians and cataloguers the challenge (should we choose to accept it) is to imagine our audience and it's view point to add value to our subject headings. This audience will include reference clients, reference librarians and a number of other stake holders. Hey guys - what would you like us to serve up to you?

Light bulb moment

Doing the exercise on how to "embed" a You Tube video into my blog I found out how many Librarians it takes to figure out how to do it. We all thought we were pretty smart but its not as obvious as all that. I learnt:

1. Some videos don't want to be embeded (like the Librarians at Work video from the Australian National Library - maybe because it showed them having much too much fun at their Christmas party).
2. You can post things to all sorts of different parts of your blog; like the side bar, I had no idea. I suppose I would have found it sooner or later.
3. It took three of us several tries. That's how many librarians it takes to change a light bulb. One to type and two to say "try pasting the link there".
4. Obviously it makes the learning "journey" (how I hate that hackneyed expression!) easier if you phone or in our case email a friend.

Library Lovers Day

"Are you ready?"

"Are you ready" it says at the end of the You Tube video on the week 7 page. Some of us have been ready for a long long long time. I can remember back in the late sixties watching Star Trek where they had floppy disks, communicators, and tiny computers you had on your desk. They got their lunch from a box that worked on microwaves and they talked to people from other planets, space ship to space ship.

"Are we ready?" Are you kidding?

"The Essence of fundamental Change"

I found these quotes in a slide show that I found in my rss feed box on Google Reader from week 6. There were 26 slides. These are the ones I really liked.

1. Normally our thoughts have us, rather than we have them.
2. Fundamental change happens when we learn to see the whole.
3. Seeing the whole doesn't happen as a result of trying. It comes from suspending our voice of judgement.
4. When we truly suspend our taken-for granted way of seeing the world, what we see can be disorienting and disturbing.
5. Embarking and continuing this journey requires the willingness to accept many such moments of profound disorientation.
6. Take courage.

RSS Feeds - A Power House of knowledge

I had a look at Google Reader, My Yahoo, Bloglines and Newsgator (aptly named, like an aligator it's really aggressive!). Again this is great but you have to have a virtual life to get into all this stuff.

As you go through your life you start to prioritorise what you are interested in. Sure this is a way to help you do it. But seriously when do I get time to look at all these things? As it is I'm sitting here on a Saturday afternoon when I could be reading a fine work of literature.

What I'd really like is a RSS feed that picks out all the usefull stuff about your job, the key things that everyone is talking about at morning tea (using A.C.R.O.N.Y.M.S.), and just serves it to you on a plate. But before I do it I have to search for it on the web.

More about Wikis

I really liked the Wookieepedia and Book lovers Wiki. And the Montana History Wiki I liked a lot. Wikis are a great way for local areas to get their information across.

The PD Wiki video made me think that wikis might be a very good way for colleagues in various locations to work on a project together using all the available tools like calendars and simaltaneous voice input. It would almost be like being in the same place at the same time.

The big challenge would be to look outside the square. There are a lot of possibilities with the new technology. You just need to forget the old paradigms and see the wiki as a whole new country.

Wiki Wacky Wiki, Wiki Wacky Woo!

I'm up to week four on the Learning 2.0 course (two point zero, or two point nought?) and I am still surprised how many people I talk to in the lift that say "no I haven't done my blog yet because I'm too busy". They say it like they were being incredibly worthy for having the self control not to get into this exercise at all. Weird!

We're all busy, but we all need to get smart too if the Library is to move forward. I try to work out why this happens because that's the way I am. I like to work things out, to learn things and I don't want the library to be split into people who benefit from useful programs like this and people who don't.

This morning I sat in with one of my colleagues and talked her through setting up her blog, a process that gave her some encouragement and gave me some experience in training. A win win situation. If we don't take these opportunities when they come up, they might not come up again. We lose individually and so does the Library as a whole.

Balanced Diet

Just because you're doing your Learning 2.0 at home, it doesn't mean you don't have to have an unbalanced diet. Here is what I had sitting beside my home P.C. this Friday night:

1. Carrot and zuchini curls (for minerals)


2. Apple slices (for fibre)


3. Corn chips (because I like corn chips)


4. And mixed nuts (for protein)


5. Red wine (for something to wash it all down with)

What do I hope to learn from this course?

I want to get an overview of what is available out there in the internet. It's a great big sea of stuff out there and some of it might be useful in my job and in my life.

So far it's been interesting and challenging. Like life if you go in expecting anything, you usually get it. Better pick a goal. And you will get it too.

I think I covered the whole "what is in it for the library world" in another post. What's in it for me? A showcase. Some insights. A window to the world's soul.

"Explor Flickr"

I had a go posting photos and found the whole thing quite easy to use. It did take quite a lot of time so I did most of it at home and in my lunch hour. They looked quite nice when I got them up there but sadly I couldn't see them as part of the group of Learning 2.0 participants that had already posted. Maybe they will be visible tommorrow. Fingers crossed.

One thing occured to me. I caught a You Tube video on someone else's blog that heralded the death of Dewey. After posting the "slnsw2008" tag on all my photos I thought that was rather ironic. It's like what they say about God. If God didn't exist then man would have to invent Him.

The same with Dewey and other controlled vocabularies. If you didn't use Dewey and Library of Congress Subject headings we would use something else to co-locate items. It's a big internet out there!!!

Energy and Teamwork

I found this picture on Flicker and I thought it illustrated "Energy and Teamwork" for me. In any group there's always someone who has a bit more energy and a bit more imagination. That's why it's always important to agree on what you're all going to wear.

Have you ever come to work in the morning and looked around you and everyone has the same colour clothes on? This shows that even if you have individual views on things you are in sinc on a fundamental level.

So it's your wedding day and every girl wants to get noticed. But it's the bride's day and so you find the bride's maids wear eau de nil or florescent pink so she looks super good. Don't make a mistake about the footwear. These girls are all brides and they're working as a team.

Creative Commons and Beyond

With Creative Commons I was greatly pleased to see that someone has addressed the situation of the exploitation of creative output on the internet. It's not pleasant to think of the internet with all it's possibilities being used in a negative way. Ethics are important, they are part of a civilized way of life.

I checked out the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg county front end. To me it looks very busy. But when you look with the eyes of a child, it would seem a lot of fun. You'd want to try everything, not knowing what you actually want.

The most important thing is to change the focus. Not what would I like but what would you like. Then what we are seeing come up makes a lot more sense and will prove more congruent with our strategic values in the Library.

Money or Love?

Looking at the library Flicker groups and found myself fractured. Am I a cataloguer? Am I photographer? Am I anything? If anyone can get anything (photos and cataloguing) on the internet, why pay money for it?

Also, If you want people to tag pictures on your pictures database, how will you induce them to take the time? It is time consuming to open a flicker account and post pictures, to take pictures in the first place. Why do people love us so much that they would want to do all that?

It reminds me of the other day. I had to book tickets at the opera House and I turned on my P.C., filled in the registration form, chose my tickets (filled in my credit card number), paid my I.P. bill and pressed enter. Low and behold they charged me a $7.50 "service" fee. What was the service? I did all the work.

Flickered

I checked out the video on Flicker; which pretty much said it all.

The sound flickered all the way through; but I get the picture.

It's about sharing photos, preservation (though when some unknown person somewhere can pull the plug at any time, I don't really buy into that one).

It's all good if you think about the thing in the moment and don't worry too much about tomorrow. But that's not what we do in Libraries and especially not in the Mitchell Library. We think about people in the future and people in the past. It's what they call HERITAGE.

Checked out Flicker for the State Library photos. Don't they like that Mitchell Library Facade!!! Well we all do but it took me heaps of photos to get inside and look at the really cool stuff. How like life!!!

Opportunities for the State Library

1. Sharing information with library colleagues, in the library and in other institutions
2. Working teams can cooperate on projects in their own time
3. Keeping clients up to date with things happening in the library
4. Collecting unsolicited feedback
5. Use of a new easy to use tool
6. Encourages new writers to contribute by putting their work out there quickly
7. Information on a wide range of informal subjects (ephemera on the net).
8. Sharing information with “families” of individuals (e.g. community organisations).
9. Current information is off paper (killing fewer trees?)
10. Linked to the State Library website blogs could be an accessible way to get information
across, attractive to younger clients

Working it Out in Your Head

One of the things from week one of the course that really got my head buzzing was how blogs can be used to work out things in your head. Sure, I like to work things out. But do you really need a computer to do it? (What about energy shortages and “global warming”?)

Surely that’s what you have a brain for?

A piece of paper and a pen can be helpful tools as well or you can use whatever comes to hand. Take Lieutenant Ray Stewart (1914-2001) of the 2/29th Australian Infantry Battalion who wrote his diaries on a roll of toilet paper and several note books during World War II (27 July to 12 September 1942).

Writing it down helped Lieutenant Stewart survive the Second World War and his insights help us to survive too. It could all have been erased if it had been put up on the internet.

Better than that. Making such diaries was illegal in time of war and he could have been penalized if caught. Writing it on toilet paper meant the diaries weren’t only a great legacy to succeeding generations, they could also be fully recyclable!

What About the Quality of the Text?

On the video I watched poor old Stephen Fry wondering “what do I do now?”

All those years learning to act at R.A.D.A. must seem pretty meaningless to him when he sees the legion of amateur video clips and “reality TV” that you can watch on the internet.

I know how he feels.

For nine years I have studied to write properly and express myself well, with some success. Now I face the prospect of wading through vast amounts of poorly expressed data that we have to sift through to make any sense of. Why do I want to do this?

Surely I’m too “time poor” to face this task.

The opportunity for libraries and information professionals is (as it always has been) to act as guides to the sea of “information”. Sifting and evaluating it to bring the best of it to our clients. As experts in information we can add value to the internet so that clients can actually find WHAT THEY WANT.

It’s Not About Living in the Past (It’s About Living in the Present)

Many people can’t imagine a time when there were no mobile phones because they have never lived with any other situation. What did we do before email? We sent each other a note or went round to their house and paid them a visit.

Another thing we did was write in diaries. The other day I went to the Mitchell galleries where I saw a diary in a note book where the author wrote about going to an Abba concert in the 1970s. Where would this be now if it were written on a blog? Out in the invisible ether, deleted from the hard disk of history to be no more.

History is important because it lets us track the changes of civilization. Without this we are at the mercy of institutions that say there has never been CHANGE, there has only been the situation we are in now; which is a lie.

Lifelong Learning Isn’t New

From the time of the Industrial Revolution people have been complaining about how the times have been changing at an ever accelerating rate.

In Victorian times workers’ institutes helped working people update their skills. So, they couldn’t do it on their laptop. You can always read a book on a horse drawn bus.

In the past thirty years (of my working life) the mantra has always been “update your training; you won’t be in the same job for life” (how wrong could they be about that one; I've been doing this job since 1987).

The Internet means you don’t have to go out of the house to update your skills. So you save your bus fare; you spend the money on your subscription to the gym.

Library Luddite?

Synchronistically I found these quotes in a book called The Enclopedia of Crime Scene Investigation by Michael Newton:

"Inventor, n. A person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers and springs, and believes it civilization". ----Ambrose Bierce

"If the human race wants to go to hell in a basket, technology can help it get there by jet. It won't change the desire or the direction, but it can greatly speed the passage". ---Charles M. Allen.

The thing is the techology and these little boxes called blogs are only one of a range of options that we might choose to get our (the Library's) message across. They just happen to be the newest "sexiest" version.

Before we start "saying" things willy nilly shouldn't we work out what we think, what we want to say and how we want to say it?

Possibilities for the Client

Loved the Stephen Fry video. Love the possibilities of Blogs. A bit nervous of putting myself up on the web (again!!!!!). It feels like you're being another person, how weird is that?

Putting myself in the shoes of a user of the library this might be good. If you were a shy person wanting to give feed back and not wanting to talk face to face (which makes me feel most comfortable) you might think this kind of thing very cool.

It means we will get a lot more of what our readers really think. Not just trying to be nice. When we get the good oil from them we can act on it and move forward as a library.