There's so many cool templates to use for your blog - it's a bit hard choosing with so many options.

Great to refamiliarise myself with blogger as I haven't done anything since 2.0

Social Networks

After looking at some of the examples of social networks, I can see a use for them in the library, particularly as a lot of our newer clients are so technoligically evolved. The Powerhouse Museum's info was very interesting, particularly as we are a combined museum and library - the ability to obtain social histories and information on collection items sounds using social networks sounds fantastic. I haven't signed up to a network myself, but can see the advantages in using them.

Online Applications and Tools

I wasn't aware that there were online programs like google docs. How great is that? I like the idea of cutting out all those emails I'm sure we all send with attachments - or without them (I get a lot of those). We have a program guide that goes to print every 3 months, with about 15 different people contributing. Then we have to edit and proof-read it and send an email to the co-ordinator, who then has to make all the changes. I'm sure she's going to love this idea!

Mashups

I really liked the Star Viewer Mashup http://keirclarke.googlepages.com/sky.htm

I can see us using mashups to create promo materials in house - something like the one I created using Big Huge Labs. At this point, I can't quite see what else we'd use mashups for. I guess I don't find this tool quite as interesting as some of the others we've looked at.

Podcasts and Audio

I didn't listen to all the podcasts I tried - a lot of them were too long. I must admit, I prefer the ones with video - otherwise my attention wanders.

Some of the podcasts I came acroos didn't have a running time listed, which was a bit annoying.

I believe we could use podcasts in our library to do a few things - book reviews, podcasts of author talks, and as we're a LibraryMuseum, podcasts for exhibitions. The exhibitions podcasts would be extremely helpful for both staff and clients - of course, we'd need to load them onto an iPod, but it would definately be beneficial.

Tagging, folksonomies, del.icio.us and LibraryThing

I got a bit frustrated with del.icio.us, but only because we can't load anything on our PCs, and I had real trouble adding sites without the toolbar buttons. I can see it being quite useful, particularly as we have over 20 public access PCs, and if we want all the favourites to be the same, I.T. seem to take forever to do it. If we could create a del.icio.us account, then users could access that.
http://del.icio.us/traclee

When I was using Technorati, I became really aware of how important tags are. The advanced search page doesn't seem to be user-friendly to me, but maybe it's just me.

The big thing I noticed when using these 2 sites, was the importance of tags. We need to try and avoid "library speak" if we want the public to utilise our sites - some of the tags weren't what people would look for when searching for a subject.

I really love LibraryThing!! Added some of my own books, and am planning on sitting down this weekend and adding my entire library. My colleagues see the appeal of this site has for me - apparently I'm an "organised freak". Not a bad thing to be when your work in a library though.

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/traclee

Videos online

Having just spent ages going through Youtube (which I've used before) and Google Video (which I haven't), I've come to the conclusion that you really can waste a lot of time finding stuff to watch.

I can see the benefits for libraries to put special events, conferences and maybe a virtual tour on these sites. I think with events, the only benefit would be if the actual event was going to be repeated again in the future, so people would look and think "I want to go to the next one". Otherwise, it's only really acts as a record. However being able to watch sessions from a conference that I couldn't attend would be great!

I find I use online videos to preview upcoming movies - my latest search was for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I'm trying to embed a video of "fainting goats" which is quite funny (but strange). I hope it works!