The process of participating in 23 things has been very good for me in order to keep up with new and emerging technologies. It has been good to have to think beyond the needs of our own work environment to try to envisage how these technologies will impact on or be able to be used by the university.

I have learned to create and maintain a blog, use RSS feeds and use podcasting. I plan to maintain the usage of podcasts on my newly acquired Ipod. The RSS feeds are already being used and considered for wider usage in the university and the library, I personally find multiple RSS feeds as a blizzard of information sometimes repetitive and useful if you like to skim.

I believe students today would make use of most of what we have experienced in doing the 23 things and will probably expect them to be used in a learning environment. Larning has become more about the individual and the digital technologies are ideal for individual learning although the social networking aspects keep individuals in contact with others. The digital environment means a greater reach for information gathering and integration. It is also cost effective to learn and teach digitally and learning is happening all the time. the responsibility for learning may now lie with the individual and the use of digital technologies will allow the greatest disemination of information.

I have chosen the site Medstory from the list of Web 2.0 award nominees to examine. I chose a topic that I had done other general research for recently on the web.
Medstory was OK with clear though rather brief entries, I suppose neccesarily not too detailed due to the target audience being the general population. In comparison with academic medical journals, it was of course far easier to read and understand but left me wanting more information.

There are a substantial number of links to various other sites which were useful and informative and the links occurred without difficulty.

For a public library this would be an excellent resource but I would have thought that for an academic library it would serve as a first base stepping off point for the development of knowledge about a particular health issue.

One of the links spotted was to Medline which is a database listed in the ECU library catalogue. National bodies also appear as links, so Mestory is good in that respect.

Just had a look at a quick video on Yahoo videos that explained social tagging in an easily understandable way. My first impression is to think I don't have the time to set this all up but then you think that it will help to organise the stuff you use and want to access quickly and easily but I am a little concerned about this sharing thing as not everyone has the same aims or intentions and maybe it allows other to enter my space a little more than I want them to. Clearly the whole digital thing requires a rethink and a reworking of how we want to function and global interchange means >4 billion other people to deal with! I had trouble dealing with the ones in my town!

Another triumph! Found a way to add the Flickr image. My prior choice did not have the neccessary facility, so not a fault in the tools, just one of those things. How this will be of use to the library would require a bit of thought, but definitely would be more attractive to the current students than the tools used to date. Also it is a lot more interesting and stimulating for the staff creating the presentation than the old ways much more flexible, attractive and diverse.

Tried to add an image from Flickr to my blog with no success. The buttons that Help advised would be there to assist were not there , the bar a t the bottom of the page said error on page. Tried other images and other ways of adding the URL with the result that the link was indicated on the page but would not show or open when clicked. Clearly more practice required. FAQ makes it all seem so easy but the reality is a bit different. Blocks on my work PC further complicated the matter and inevitably time ran out. To be revisited, no doubt this is easy enough once the skills are developed and all tech blocks are overcome.

Library Lizard

The results of the digital camera combined with the inimitable compositional style of the digital whizz that papillon has become. Clearly the infinite flexibility of todays technical environment makes the creation and dissemination of high quality communications possible but not always achieved by the user! Rapid and clear display of text and images is a few clicks away for every moderately savvy computer user and is limited only by the imagination. Seeing what others create and foresee the uses of is invaluable for someone who does not have a great deal of vision of their own but who enjoys the bravery of some who explore and extend the limits of available technology.

I have just whizzed through looking at a number of Wikis and they are certainly more interesting and relevant to libraries than blogs. It was interesting to note that the Library Success wiki had the notification "Because of vandalism problems, e-mail confirmation is now required". You cannot edit without identifying yourself. It was only a matter of time and the ususal suspects spoil the open and co-operative aspects of a useful tool, causing a shutdown of sorts.