Finale

It's hard to believe that twelve weeks has passed since we first started blogging.

I must admit I was ready to give up around about week 3 - the usual excuses, "I don't have time", "it's too hard", I'm glad I persevered. The fact that I continued was mainly due to the the badgering and bullying, encouragement and mentoring that I was lucky enough to receive from my colleague Kiwi Owl. Thank you Kiwi Owl.

I would also like to thank NSW State Library, you gave us the opportunity to travel the road, a little bumpy for me at times but enriching and fulfilling in the end.

I'm looking forward to using my new knowledge in the workplace and would love to participate in any further courses that the NSW Public Libraries Learning 2.00 team create.

Social Network

As always the Commoncraft video explained in good basic language how social networking happens. As an older person I find the whole idea of finding a job, friends and partners on a social networking site a tad desperate. Is there anything wrong with hidden connections, does this not leave some aspects of our life open to serendipity?

I have enjoyed blogging, I have enjoyed reading comments and the camaraderie I feel with fellow library bloggers has quite surprised me. I must say I have some concern regarding the number of young people that seem to be addicted MySpace and Facebook.
Are we going to lose the art of face to face communication?

I read an article in one of the major Brisbane papers that spoke of social networking sites being used by employers to check out prospective employees which also made mention that lawyers were now using these sites in courts of law to show the "true" person. This shows that care should be taken when presenting yourself to the World.

With the right people, libraries can use social networking to show the activities of their particular library. Second Life Library is a 3 D World that is able to offer a glimpse at events, lectures, exhibits and collections and is built by its residents.

The map showing a breakdown of popular sites around the World was surprising with a great variation between countries using MySpace, Facebook, Skyblog, Bebo and Netlog.

Josh Bernoff's chart showed how corporations might use social media showed an excellent breakdown of objectives that could support research, marketing, sales and development.

Today our small library had two flamenco dancers and two musicians accompany me at a special dance themed story time. How great it would have been to have been able to advertise online and follow through with a presentation on the activity. As always in our system there just isn't the staff available to devote to this pursuit.

Online software

I just can't believe how much free online software is available on the net. Why would I bother installing expensive, well known programs. I had no idea and as I am about to purchase my first new computer I am so glad I discovered Google.docs and Zoho before rushing off to have something installed.

Google.docs seems like a simple to use word processing program well suited to novice word processor users. Zoho word processor is more elaborate and has more features. You can share, collaborate, chat and email from this site and I think it has huge potential.

I haven't had the time yet to visit all the programs available on the sites you suggested but the fact that they are free is a great help to those of us on limited budgets.

On the library front, no more flash drives or floppies, all can be saved online.