Ascending Yueyang Tower

Yueyanglou on the north edge of Dongting Lake

Ascending Yueyang Tower - Dù Fǔ 712-770

Long ago I heard of Grotto Court's lake,

And today I climb up Yueyang's height.

Wu's land & Chu's rive east and south;

Heaven and earth drift day and night.

Family and friends don't send one word;

Grown old and sick, I have a lone boat.

War-horses north of the passes & peaks . . .

I lean on the balcony, teardrops flow.

MySpace, Facebook & Social Networks

In keeping with the times, and in an effort to reach users of social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook we believe Sutherland Shire Libraries should seriously consider creating a profile online. Social networks are popular precisely because, although their online profiles or representations reflect diverse lifestyle values and interests from many different sources, they also, at the same time, have the ability to create groups that share common interests or affiliations. Social networking has increased the feeling of community among people. Uploading videos and holding forums allow users to benefit by interacting with a like minded community, finding a channel for their energies and abilities.
The prominence these sites play on the internet (according to www.ranking.com, MySpace is currently the 9th most visited site, and Facebook the 15th) indicates a value and familiarity each has with internet users. So adding a Sutherland Shire Libraries presence on each would make sense in many regards. For one, each expands our reach and our means of reaching anyone interested in us. Secondly, each is primarily intended as a means of directing 'inquiring minds' to our web site and/or blog.
We checked out a number of different "online presences". Facebook seems to have a clean, well designed, organised interface. MySpace meanwhile is a carnival of flashing bright lights and music, definately appealing to YA's. Hennepin County Library's space was attractively designed, particularly their Library Interests: General/Music/Films/Books/Teen fiction. In their 'Groups': Teen Books and Discussion Group, users can discuss books, reviews, authors and anything else related "so let's keep it friendly and respectful". If you liked this group on MySpace you are invited to join the TRT Reading circle (Teens Read Too reading circle), an interactive Yahoo group for readers and authors.
Denver Public Library's Teen space - eVolver appeared to specifically target young users -'gives them their own space'. To our eyes the interface was messy and the instant noise of a Youtune, unexpekted (their spelling for the song by Ba She Ba)Attractive....no, however the Flickr link and MySpace forums listed a diverse range of topics, i.e. Career centre, Comedy, Movies, Music, Health and Fitness - all with an opportunity to comment.
Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library site really hit you in the face with it's dazzling white writing on vivid blue background. The font was very small and difficult to read. Their YouTube presentations were intriguing... General: 'Book Groups in cubes'; Music: 'I want to be a Librarian' hype did nothing to enhance the image of 'Librarians'(we're so glad we no longer have Stack at Sutherland); Films: showed movie trailers for new releases,useful when linked to a catalogue listing DVDs or book titles held by the library. TSCPL's Friend space (Top 8) and the fact that they had 1293 friends listed was very interesting.
If we are to consider creating a Library profile for our Library service, what should that presence have to offer? After reading a number of suggested blog posts about posting profiles on social networking sites we could forsee that designers of 'library spaces' may have their work cut out for them. Meredith Farkas in her blog 'Libraries in Social Networking Software' thinks it is a good idea for libraries to build a presence in MySpace and Facebook by creating profiles BUT "unfortunately most libraries are doing it really badly". She goes on to suggest that there is a big difference between "being where our patrons are", and "being USEFUL to our patrons where they are".
When creating a library profile first ask for feedback from many different sources, i.e. all types of people, students, adults, patrons, non-users. Secondly, create a Library portal within MySpace and/or Facebook (or any other popular social networking site). LibrarianInBlack.net's blog, we think, hits the nail on the head. In "Please tell me why MySpace is bad for libraries" the following words cry out loudly "the fact remains that our users (and not just kids) are using these sites (MySpace & Facebook) EVERYDAY to get information, explore their communities, etc...so..why aren't we?" P.H., G.H., C.R.

Crimes against Librarians / Death to an antiquated image/ Please lose the glasses ....Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library

Vodcasts/Podcasts

YouTube

Confucius3 was slightly apprehensive when first approaching the huge video-sharing hub 'YouTube'. This may well have had something to do with years of adolescent addiction to 'it' in at least one of our households! However after a little research we changed our minds.

Youtube fits the 'textbook' definition of Web 2.0 :
"A hypothetical next-generation Internet where people contribute as easily as they consume. It fosters collaboration and participation, you use it to share digital assets and link up with other people". 'Wired'.

This sounded all too much for us!. We soon discovered however that most peolpe just don't understand how EASY the whole YouTube process has become. Like us they may be apprehensive about technology and think it's all too complex, but it turns out that videos aren't only for professional film makers any more - EVERYONE is doing it.

The aspect of YouTube that impressed us the most is that it is designed to make the process of publishing and playing video clips EASY. If you can send an email attachment you probably have the skills to publish on YouTube. To post your own video, sign up for a FREE account and go to the upload page , select your file, click the upload video button and you're done. You don't even have to upload videos to use YouTube. If you just want to watch, it's even easier. YouTube lets users tag each clip themselves so when you play a clip the page shows a number of potential matches. It means YouTube is a mix of every video genre imaginable.

In the past we were "photo sharing" over the Internet, now YouTube is letting videos do the same, and we are all jumping onto this new technology. If Librarians want to really participate in the newest form of information sharing we also must "jump on board".

YouTube has a huge community aspect. People accessing your video via YouTube can add their views, comments, Bookmarks and subscribe to your site. YouTube can be used as a teaching tool, reaching out to students to attract their interest. Why not publish educatioinal videos informing students of library resources, tutorials and coming events e.g., HSC workshops on-line.

Choosing a video to embed into our blog post was a delightful experience. We finally settled on a video titled "Welcome to China" produced by the China National Tourism Administration, an organisation directly regulated by the state council responsible for developing promotion and regulating the China Tourism industry (thank Buddha for Beijing). This video reflected the central theme of our blog - the transition of old China into the modern world. The juxtaposition of the old ancient traditions with new technology.

"Study the past if you would define the future". "To learn, and from time to time, apply what one has learned, is'nt that a pleasure?...Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous" Confucius.

Podcasts
We were new to Podcasting so, to locate a number of samples we connected to our RSS reader Bloglines. Here we found it to be an easy process to track podcasts. Instructions were clear and easy to follow, we simply subscribed to 'your favourites' as we would any other kind of blog or news feed in Bloglines. We then sat back and listened to 'The Conversation Hour with Richard Fidler', 'Self Improvement Wednesday with Richard Glover'....very impressive procedure. We went on to explore a podcast directory 'podcast,net'. The amount of possible podcasts/subject areas available was overwhelming and also,the way the site was structured, a little confusing, to us anyway.

Podcasting for Libraries..? It's an amazing medium, to be sure, and as an organisation looking for new ways to get our programs heard, podcasting with it's capacity to cover a diversity of topics, hence attract a wide audience, is the answer, e.g. author visits, book reviews, tutorials, audio books. The concept is simplicity itself; allow users to listen to exactly what they want, and where they want. The ability to time-shift information is increasingly desirable, people seem to have less time to 'visit the library'. If we can harness the power and flexibilty of a media such as podcasting we can reshape our library's landscape and meet the demands of our evolving community. P.H.,G.H.,C.R.

Wikis

Wikis are essentially open web-pages , where anyone registered with the wiki can publish,amend and change it. Much as blogs , they are not of the same reliability as traditional resources, but this does not eliminate their value and we should not avoid using them all together. Users should understand the 'free -range nature' of wikis and be critical in depending on them.
Wikis as items in a Library collection, and the instruction of users in the evaluation of them, are almost certainly part of the future of libraries. A library wiki as a service can enable social interaction among librarians and patrons. Users share information, ask questions, answer questions within the wiki, and the record of this interaction is referenced for archival purposes. P.H.,G.H.,C.R.

Social Bookmarking and Del.icio.us

Discover useful bookmarks that everyone else has saved

Enjoy free access
Linkroll - a list of recently bookmarked links with brief descriptions in the sidebar of the blog
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I mported bookmarks and their collective nature emphasis the strong 'public focus'
Computer flexibility - access the same bookmarks from any computer
I t allows you to easily add sites you like to your personal collection of links and share with others
One of the most popular social bookmarking services
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Use tags to organise and remember your bookmarks.Font size of tags highlights popularity
Storing your bookmarks using tags /keywords (folksonomy) online is it's primary use.

Libraries would find the use of "Cloud tags" very beneficial. Library collections would almost certainly become user-driven by popular demand and meet the requirements of at least the online local community. P.H., G.H., C.R.