Thing 20

Well there was only one choice of video to post in my blog... check out my daughter showing off on her birthday. What I like about Youtube: all kinds of videos of every conceivable type (my son is enraptured by Gene Kelly singing in the rain). What I don't like: dodgy image quality and super slow streaming. No doubt both will improve over time - after all, only a couple of years ago I couldn't watch video over the internet at all.

Thing 19

I chose to have a look at lulu (the "Books" category winner). This is fascinating. I collect NZ science fiction which includes a number of self published books - I can see that lulu will increase the numbers of books to buy... in fact I have even found one on the site today. What is interesting about that is that it is not published in New Zealand - place of publication is one of the ways I find books for my collection. So I will have to watch for this in future and work out some more clever search strategies. Interesting for library purchasing strategies too - allows us to buy books on request and have them printed on demand. These will never be out of print so we don't have to buy them "just in case".

Thing 18

Online word processors are a great idea. I already have problems with transferring files between work and home because at home I use a Mac - and open source office software - and there are always formatting problems when I move from one to the other. I have created a document and emailed it to myself at home in OpenOffice format - will be very interested to see what arrives.

Thing 17

Favorite book and blog duly added to sandbox wiki.

Thing 16

I think the wiki is a fantastic tool for sharing knowledge. We all know about wikipedia... and let's face it, we all use it. I have lately been using the Greenstone wiki. Greenstone is the name of an open source software we are considering adapting for library use - the wiki works like a manual where I can get answers to my questions, but also benefit from the practical experience of other users around the world (which you don't get from a manual). There is another really interesting example of a wiki application for libraries at Horowhenua library. Here people in the Horowhenua community (and beyond) are uploading their own content to build an amazing local history/community resource.

Thing 15

I agree with Rick Anderson that library users out there want "everything". But I don't think that means getting rid of the hard copy just in case collections quite yet. I think our customers/users do want everything - including hard copy, digital, web 2.0 technologies, catalogues, indexes, human librarians, online reference... they want it all. So how do we provide it? Well in reality we will have to either abandon some services, or spend more money. Or perhaps both. Or we need to get more help from users as Chip Nilges says. But let's remember this won't be free either - tagging, commenting, adding content etc all need to be actively supported and technology kept up to date.

Thing 14

My search for "Learning 2.0" found me a bunch of people around the world doing this course... tag searching found hundreds more hits than searching blog posts, but of course the directory was most helpful if trying to find blogs directly about the topic. What surprised me about the top blogs/searches were how terribly earnest and worthy most of them are. I was expecting 90% Britney but not so. People are taking their online life very seriously! Although number 10 was all cat pictures so perhaps not that seriously. And it is certainly possible to locate Britney in there.