Conclusion

I enjoyed the photos and images segment. It happened just as I was going overseas and was pondering which photo hosting sites to use. I settled for Flick-r and the 500 image limit is not bad. I now use Facebook for these uploads. Folders or albums are created once you exceed the number allowed (around 200?). However I haven’t encountered problems to date.

With our new search facility, we’re already incorporating tags on our website, and we’re using wikis, widgets etc for different desk and off-desk functions. Pretty cool! Of course there are always better ways of doing things more efficiently and that’s one thing I’ve learnt from this program: remain alert and open to new influences/technologies.

I’m amazed how many libraries have incorporated these new technologies. Some work better than others, and it’s an object lesson that once these technologies have been used it’s important to keep on top of these so the website doesn’t look stale and the additions like after-thoughts.

Libraries have shifted away from just being static repositories of material and are trying to engage with users as never before. As the public moves more into social networking we try to capture their interest by employing some of these communication devices but in the final analysis we still communicate with our users in fairly traditional ways. Many companies have tried to use social networking sites to communicate with their customer base but unless they've thought it through, this communication can be fairly static and not as agile and up-to-the-minute as, for example, Twitter.

Technology ramblings

Social networking sites are of interest to me, not because I spend a lot of time on them but it's an interesting modern phenomenon. Friends and relations have asked me to join up otherwise I'll miss out on news (especially about their most recent overseas trip), photos and just generally keeping tabs on them. So I've relented and opened a Facebook account. It's left to be seen how much use I make of it!

Zoho writer

The last time I used Zoho writer was when I added information on the newspaper collection to the trial slv wiki. That was some weeks back but I'm back investigating this application under Week 7 of the Learning 2.0 programme.

In the meantime the SLV desk diary has been launched and trialled for about 3 weeks or so and it's a good resource. I found out that if someone's asking about Christmas opening hours we need to publish the notice for each day between 25 and 31 December or you won't get a complete picture.

Text generator

This is exciting! The text collage generator came up with this cool graphic. Being of unartistic bent I wouldn't have been able to come up with anything like this on my own so I'm really impressed. There is a rider that the image "may be subject to copyright" so I'm owning up to "borrowing" it for research purposes. Makes me wonder about artistic compositions generally and how easy it is to use the hard work of others.
The URL is http://www.languageisavirus.com/textcollage.html

Not exactly the rooftop of the world but the view from my office.

Flickr-ing

It was interesting to compare the downloading of a photo from flickr and another taken with my mobile phone. Both are quite simple processes but on the photography side of things one can see that photos taken by a mobile phone's just not as good.
Flick-r is huge and one can waste a lot of time (as I did!) comparing different views of places that I'd seen in Europe. I had previously uploaded a selection of my Europe photos to flick-r but the limit of 200 is a little on the small side.

Grand Place, Belgium

I was amazed by the architecture in this square in Belgium and this is a photo by Paul Smits that I found on flickr. A great fish eye view of Grand Place.