iGoogle and Mozilla 3.0

I looked at personalised homepages among other things this week. Lawrence had showed us his Pageflakes page at the end of one of the sessions and I really wanted to see what it did. I tried Pageflakes but quickly got bogged down- maybe I just didn’t have the time to concentrate that day and I am short of patience sometimes! So next I tried iGoogle. It was a lot of fun setting the theme up and adding pages and applications. The I went to look at what they actually did and deleted at least half since they didn’t really give me anything useful. I managed to display my Flickr photos in the Flickr widget and got my Facebook site on the home page. Then I tried setting up a personlaized page for non-standard iGoogle content. Here is where I began to feel frustrated as it didn’t seem to support many of the RSS feeds I wanted. I got a few working but have had to let it lie for now as I ran out of time.
On the Browser side- I have mostly used Mozilla for a while- because (as mentioned above I am freqently impatient) it is much quicker than IE. Mozilla 3.0 which I have recently downloaded is the best yet. It remembers which websites I had tabbed open and loads them the next day like magic. I love this as both in Acq and Subs Man I usually have to have multiple windows open and it saves time getting started. I also have the add-on Stumbling which has practical as well as social aspects. Not only can you find unusual content but also see who else is interested in the obscure subjects you are. Although when I have tried serious subjects like- I don’t know “e-journals” or something I get very little.
Opera seems very high tech and much more integrated with moblie phone technology than others browsers. I found it a bit scary so-far. Shall try again soon and have a more coherent comment.
Finally- I got a response to one of my Blog postings from outside our group! so I guess the internet world is really listening. I like it

Potential to provide Library services via mobile phones

I think that using mobile phones for communication between the library and students will probably prove to be the most popular way to exchange information with the students. They always have their phones and they don’t need to log in etc… I definately found that it got better results when I was working in a bookshop and mass texting customer when goods arrived. There are commercial business of course now that offer text reference services. A friend of mine works for AQA (Any Question Answered) and answers general queries by text (such as how long would it take a Stanna Stairlift to get to the moon) and it is popular enough for her to support herself after a fashion even though she only gets 30p of every pound spent by the punter! Surfed around for examples of how libraries were using text referencing and I could only find US based ones. Such as:
The Times-Reporter
Posted Mar 27, 2008 @ 10:54 PM

Starting Tuesday, the Tuscarawas County Public Library at New Philadelphia will begin offering instant messaging reference service. During open hours, reference staff will respond to questions that allow short answers via instant messaging on the library’s Web site at www.tusclibrary.org
Wednesday, August 20, 2008 4:26 PM EDT
y cant i find my sox…u know where they r

Queens Library staff probably can’t answer this question for you. But this is one of the few exceptions – librarians there can actually respond to a surprisingly wild variety of inquiries including texting,

I’m sure there are UK ones as well…
I also found this referencing service in a library in Kansas that had all its’ links for IM, Chat, Text, & E-mail on one page and I especially liked it so here is the link if you are interested:

http://www.lib.k-state.edu/reference/vref/

My camera phone and it’s contents!

Steve in the Kitchen

Uploading a photo from my phone is a first for me. I usually just use my digital camera. I had to download software and hope that it all worked as there were no instructions with the phone but the phone managed to communicate after the downloads were complete and all was well… Next time I witness a crime I’ll be ready to record the perpetrator face with my camera and publish it!!!!!

Bookmarks and IM

This week I migrated all my bookmarks to Delicious on Monday and started tagging and using them on Tuesday.  I realized as I started using them that I hadn’t really thought out how to organise them and could do better when I get the time. I started using the IM to send messages/questions to Karen in IRD. That’s been very helpful and fun as well. Then Ann did some upgrade on Thursaday night to my PC in acquisitions and BAM I have no profile! All my bookmarks and settings etc…are gone BUT I still have my book marks on Delicious so it’s has been a good week for showing me that web based applications are very useful! Hopefully next week when Subs Man is fully manned and I will have a bit more time to play.

IM and it’s use

I realize I haven’t written anything about IM yet. I was a bit disappointed when I activated it on my work computer in acquisitions. The computer immediately began to run slower so I haven’t used it for a while. It may have been just a problem with IE-the problem didn’t seem severe when I switched to Mozilla. I guess I’ll try again. I would guess that the library might be thinking of using IM to inform users when books they have recalled or their Interlibrary loans etc… are ready for collection and I know that other libraries use IM for this. But I also heard it worked better at Universities where students were required to purchase laptops and have them connected to the university internet. Here, as far as I know, that isn’t true and we can’t be sure that users even have internet access at home. On the other hand I think all students have mobile phones and I have used “Telephony” software commercially to send out “Pick up” notices by text message direct to user/customers’ mobile phones. With this system all the mobile phone numbers are added into a batch screen at once and the program sends the text message (“Your book/item is ready for collection at Central Library Issue Desk”) or whatever) to all phones all at once- It was a great time saving device and we had a very good response rate from customers who would often show up immediately to pick up their books. It might be a better method of almost instant messaging here.

RSS Feeds

I like the RSS feeds I set up in Google Reader. I already had an account- (a friend of mine in California insists that Google Mail is the best place to chat live but then is never online when I am) so am used to the setup. I think it is ideal for keeping up with journal and book new content. I’ve set up a few book related feeds- I especially like reading publishing news from various websites (Bookseller, Abe and Alibris) and here I can get most of the new stuff in one place. Most of the info is in “small bite sized chunks”. The news feeds are good but the papers I really like to keep up with (the local ones in NC and TN where my family live) don’t have feeds every day. I’ve still been going to their main websites as usual.

Blogs

I know I’m behind in posting my responses. I have been reading/viewing the suggested resources and trying things out but haven’t had time to report…very bad. Blogging is good as long as you have the time to organize your thoughts and type- something I have lacked the last week or two. The interface here is very easy to use. It’s very much like the comment option in the VLE I used for my online course- except there you couldn’t add media. My daughter has a Photoblog at

I like to check it frequently for new content and I can see that keeping up with a blog where you are interested with what’s new is great- as long as the blogger has time to make the entries! Something I often lack sadly.