I have seen these answer board pop up a fair bit in Google searches, especially if I format my search like a question, eg. How do I clean red wine out of carpet?
I trust them to a certain extent on simple queries, but never follow any health advice or base passionate arguments on them! I find them slightly less reliable than Wikis as some real silly people seem to post real silly answers on them. Maybe this is because it takes less effort to post a short answer to a set question than to write a structured piece on a chosen subject.
I'd be stoked if I posed a question on an answer board and a librarian answered, but I'd be more likely to ask at a library first before resorting to answer boards. :) I've noticed some of the librarians' replies weren't rated too highly (mustn't have checked their links in a while!) and I think the reason for this is that people on the internet are too impatient. Generally a librarian's response will be long and give many options, which is foreboding to read and understand for a lot of people. I still think it's a good idea for librarians to get out their and advertise their services to the internet using public - even if only 1 in 10 will actually end up using the library's resources as a result. I did notice that the librarians have smartly tagged their answers with a range of search subjects that will hopefully lead more people to their answer.
I think it would be a great idea to expand on the SL's Ask a Librarian service to include an easy to use web forum (moderated to remove inappropriate questions of course) that is easily searchable via Google. Hopefully we would then get more visitors to the website looking for answers and our reference librarians wouldn't have to answer the same questions quite so many times.
Here is my answer on Yahoo!7 Answers - you should be able to guess which one is mine (the one with all the SLNSW references in it!) While I was answering it another 3 answers popped up before mine! Wow!
Technorati seems to be quite a useful search tool but there are a couple of things I don't like about it. Firstly, it will be displaying nowhere near all the blogs available on a subject you may be searching as a lot of people would not think to get their blog listed and, secondly, it's not useful unless you are quite technical. I was looking at the How do I get indexed? FAQ and found all the pings, links, feeds and claims quite confusing!
Obviously despite all this it would be advantageous for someone who wants their blog "out there" to put the effort in and learn how to get indexed on Technorati. It's just not something everyone is going to know about or feel confident doing, compromising Technorati as a search engine in my opinion.
My search for bookmobile brought up a lot of information on new technology coming out for downloading e-books to read on mobile phones. When I did an advanced search for bookmobile as a tag I ended up getting a lot more focusing on travelling libraries in vans that visit schools! Two very different interpretations. I was interested to see that you can search for blogs that have linked to a specific page. I'm not sure how accurate this is, but it would be useful if you could get the results as a feed to see who is mentioning your site in the land of blog.
I only got one result searching for SLNSW2008 which is a little video I think might be linked to the Learning 2.0 blog! In fact, I used Technorati to double check that fact and found that a whole lot of other blogs have linked to that video as well! This is definitely a useful feature to track links back to you. Unfortunately I didn't get a bunch of Flickr images popping up in the search results as mentioned in the Learning 2.0 blog.
As far as LibraryThing goes, I am familiar with the idea already as I mentioned in my previous post. I prefer Shelfari as, well, it's totally free! And I like the idea of having a community created information base. I created an author information page with ease and then it was up in minutes for everyone else to use! The problem here is obviously the same as the Wikipedia problem - you can't trust everything you read straight up. It has been reliable in my experience though. And, as you can see to the right, a blog widget is available as well. :) Here is a link to my Shelfari account.
LibraryThing looks great too. What a fantastic internet invention. Go internet! Maybe we should start an SLNSW Shelfari book club?
Yum yum! I've seen a lot of sites linking to Delicious but have never really followed it up (along with a bunch of other stuff including Reddit and Twitter). Once again I am surprised I didn't look into it earlier and can definitely see the applications for library use.
As with most social networking sites it's easy to use, fun and not too complex. I've managed to network with SLNSW on my new Delicious already! I really like the NLA's usefulresources Delicious. Great idea as it's searchable, easy to access and trust worthy. Will save a lot of AskNow librarians time on filtering through dodgy websites. I also really like the way Cleveland Public Library has different Delicious pages linked from their home website. Makes it a little easier to follow for people not familiar with Delicious.
I'm also liking the tag bundles used by Sutherland Shire Library. I've taken a note from them and created a couple of tag bundles on my own Delicious... with my whole five tags! It's also interesting to see who else has linked to your chosen site - I was surprised how popular Shelfari was!
Another thing I really like about it is how you can integrate it into your browser with the button downloads. This makes it almost like a second Bookmarks menu on your computer except that it is also connected to a massive internet group!
I can certainly see the applications of Delicious for libraries as a research tool.
Well, I've know about Google video and YouTube for some time now. It's hard to avoid it! YouTube is usually my first port of call as I like the interface but Google video tends to have more available if you're willing to look for it as it searches more than just one online video database for you.
I was surprised to see only one front page entry from State Library of NSW when searching YouTube for "state library". A very short one it is too! (see below)
State Library of Queensland pops up quite a lot surprisingly - they must have a team working on online presence! I watched a tour on Strimoo, very lengthy but good to get an idea of how their library is laid out. I was interested to hear they have 24 hour wireless access in areas accessible all night so a lot of people apparently hang around until the early hours of the morning! And the British Library has a lot of conference footage up for public consumption along with some corporate sponsor material which I was surprised to see. Didn't get a lot of relevant material on the "flinders map" search except for this little school project gem which I'm suuuuure little Jed didn't get any help with. :)
Wow! NJ State Library really has it down. They've used online video to project a friendly, accessible and even "cool" image to the public. Absolutely well done.
And I know this may not be the exact type of library video example you're looking for, but it's just too cute. And, of course, informative to young children about libraries - i.e. how to be an annoying client. Although now libraries do have cookies, but still no juice...
For something a little more appropriate, click here. Very good! :)
Unfortunately I don't have any more time to check out the rest of the library online videos suggested in the Learning 2.0 blog, but I have had fun searching for some myself. I really like how a lot of libraries are embracing online video with a good sense of humor to get clients interested and informed of their (our) product. It's a great, free advertising plan and a good way to keep yourself stuck in peoples heads when they're on the search for information.
I think we should definitely look more into this application of online video.
What an exciting discovery! It's funny, I've known about RSS for ages but just never signed up for it as I couldn't really see the difference in just going the the web page I was interested in and checking it myself. I didn't realise you got a numbered amount of unread articles - very useful. The only problem with that is, if it's a frequently updated blog, you may end up with huge amounts of unread articles (because sometimes you just don't have time to read 20 updates per day!) which would make it impossible to tell if there are any new posts since you last checked. Unless you have a very good memory for numbers - Ah, BoingBoing is up to 1021 unread entries, which is 20 up from last time I checked!
For my RSS feeds I've selected 3 feeds from the SMH site, the library's Holtermann Collection blog and the Powerhouse Museum blog as suggested. The first thing I went to subscribe to (after the Holtermann Collection blog) is the Tales from the Loft blog about the project I'm working on at the Historic Houses Trust - and guess what? No RSS feed! Something I'll definitely have to look at soon. :)
Obviously this technology is a great way to stay up to date with the latest news in your area of interest with the simplicity of visiting a single webpage for the information. As a library assistant these feeds could be used to keep up to date on all the library blogs, such as the Library Services blog, which contain important information on new practices in the library. On a wider scale in the library this applies also.
There is also the use of RSS for the clients of the library, which is great for keeping people up to date on new and exciting library news! A good example of this is New York State Library's RSS feed. I've signed up to this feed to see what kind of innovations they are using to keep their clients interested in the library. Who knows, maybe the clients will be so impressed with the content of an update they'll email it to their friends (very easy to do in Google Reader) and spread the word! Library Journal also has an absolute bevvy of RSS feeds to choose from, one very appropriate example of which you will see on my page! What a great library information site.
I'll be keeping a close eye on the Holtermann Collection blog as it's an area I'm really interested (photography and preservation) and so close to home I can always run down and check out any exciting new developments! A very good blog in the sense that it keeps everyone, including staff, the public and sponsors, in the loop and up to date.
I think I'll be making use of this super simple syndication (SSS) as a regular from now on.
I have done pretty much everything I wanted to do in previous weeks so just finished up this week by changing the Learning 2.0 Wiki and taking another quick look at Technorati - which is something I am very glad to know about and will be using out of personal interest in the future.
When on Technorati I had a look at the popular books being blogged about and was pretty much disgusted at what people are reading. Half the books are about credit cards and money - Hello people! Don't overspend and you'll be fine! And there is even one on how to increase your ranking on a Google search, Get to the top on Google. (see left)
My problem here is how insanely easy it is to increase your Google ranking. I could sum it up in about 5 sentences, yet someone has managed to write an entire book on the subject. I am astounded!
Anyway, I think that's enough ranting for now. To the stacks!
Hmmm... Interesting subject. I find Wiki's confusing in some ways and not in others. I use Wikipedia quite a lot when researching things that I don't need a great deal of accuracy on and am quite familiar with that use.
It's when Wiki's are used for things such as the CIA's Intellipedia, i.e. "consists of three wikis running on JWICS, SIPRNet and InterlinkU"... ??? Can't the CIA manage to get a wiki running off their own servers? I think the main thing that confuses me is: where do most wikis live? Did Ward Cunningham release an open source code that people are using to create wikis on their own servers or are most somehow linked to Wikipedia or something similar? Is it a trait of wikis that they are free of charge to create? Anyway, I'm not quite clear on it but I do understand the uses of wikis for some applications.
Of the links I followed I thought a couple such as the SJCPL Subject Guides and the Book Lovers Wiki were very easy to read and straight forward to follow. One of the problems I've noticed is that since anyone can start a wiki - a lot of these people don't seem to know what looks good or is easy to read at a glance, resulting in clunky looking pages that are not user friendly.
I've created a Wikipedia account and have edited the details to inform anyone interested that Pitt Town Bottoms has a model aircraft flying field! And yes, I did actually live in Pitt Town for a few years before leaving home. :)
I'll be adding my addition to the SL Learning 2.0 Wiki as soon as I get approval.
