Monday, 28 March 2011

The Best Egytpian photo competition?

Well, perhaps not the best photo ever taken, but different.  Oh it was hot as well.  Similarities are quite striking aren't they, except I still have my nose.  The Sphinx is only on the site of the Great Pyramids of Giza because it was a pile of ugly dirt and they didn't know what to do with it so they carved the beast with the head of the Pharaoh and the body of a lion.

Thursday, 24 March 2011

Wiki Pt 3: Antioch University and staff training wiki

This wiki has detailed JIGS or procedures for training staff members on front desk duties.  While currrently all our procedures are available to all staff through the T drive and can be read and edited by all staff, you do have to know what the procedure might be labelled in order to locate it easily in the system.

By placing all procedures specific to the job in one place has its advantages for training and referring to in the future.

I wonder if privacy may be an issue with this form of technology, but then who would care what the procedure for scanning at the Mandurah Libraries would be.

Wiki Pt 2: SJCPL Subject guides

First I liked this, then I didn't, then I did.  Confused yet? 

Firstly I thought it was going to give me great lists of authors in different genres, and it sort of did in the History related mystery section with images of book titles.

Then I looked at Arts and Entertainment and it is all about local events, galleries,  museums, movies and bars. I guess I was expecting it to have relevant books on those subjects.  It did have a comprehensive list of the magazines that the library has on those fields.  I think the info on the page was very relevant to the local community and therefore not a bad thing to have on the site. The same thing with the Gardening page, no books. I would have liked to see the library collection somehow linked to those particular pages.

Very interesting area on writing your own diaries and journals with links to other sites for further information. 

Great section on Genealogy which includes help sheets for the databases that the library subscribe to.  Many links to useful sites and general how to information.

The Business page has direct links to the library catalogue from where you can reserve a book as well as links to journals and databases.

All in all a very good, informative Wiki.  This wiki was only able to be edited by librarians.  I wonder if that is a good thing or a bad thing.

Wiki Pt 1: Twilight Wiki

Wow.  I use Wikipaedia quite a bit so am used to what the site looks like.  Pretty boring really.  I was so surprised to see this Wiki which is colourful, interesting and alive.  Interesting that it has links to other TV shows and movie wikis that would have the same target audience as Twilight. The countdown to the upcoming movie release.  Lots of information on both the characters, actors and the books.  Moving images and clips to watch.  I can see that there would be a whole community of Twilight fans who would return again and again to blog or chat in the IRC channel room.  There is a lesson here on how to make a site vibrant, informative and interesting.

I also had a peek at Wookieepedia which was far less engaging.

Wednesday, 23 March 2011

RSS Feeds

Well, it seems that I have been using RSS Feeds into my Hotmail account for several years without even knowing what I had been doing.  So while the title of this weeks lesson looked a tad frightening it was a very easy lesson.  I have added some of the suggested sites that were in this weeks lesson.  I have also added a former workmates blog.  She is exactly the same age as I am.  Both born on the same day on other sides of the world.  We job shared, each working half a week and working together every Satruday.  Another thing we shared was a love of adventurous travel with both of us enjoying the back packing type of holiday.  She has recently sold up everything, left work and has just begun a life journey that is beginning in South America.  She has emailed me with her blog address and I am very much looking forward to following her journey.  There have already been some mishaps and they have only just begun.  J

Tuesday, 22 March 2011

Use of Flickr in Libraries

Flickr is a photo storage site.  Libraries, local museums and historical societies could use Flickr as a storage device and also a promotional tool.

Albums could be set up for various activites, events and historical images.

[http://www.flickr.com/photos/beebe_library/3808436641/]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/beebe_library/3808436641

I have spent some time searching for an image and have found it very frustrating not to have been able to locate one that is free to use.  The above link shows a young girl holding a craft item that she has made during a holiday programme.  The links to the instructions for uploading an image using flickr seem to be out of date as when I tried to  follow these demos/instructions I was looking at different screens to the ones depicted in the 'lessons'.  I found it very frustrating to use and wonder if it would be of much use other than as a strorage device for your own images to which you would have full access.

Sunday, 20 March 2011

Oh the pain

What I learnt on my recent annual leave, is that travel is not at all fun when you get ill.  Lucky it was only a short break.  Met a nice doctor on Langkawi who trained in Adelaide before heading home to Malaysia.