Blogging from my iPhone

Just downloaded the iPhone WordPress App, now checking to see if it works. Off to CILIP Umbrella conference tomorrow.

I’m starting to see the point of Twitter

I had a whole post planned about how I was starting to get Twitter,  I was just being a bit lazy about actually writing it. Then I get to work this morning and see this post on Joeyanne Libraryanne, which basically says everything I was going to say, so you should just read that.

I am playing with Twitter really, just trying it out and seeing what happens. I seem to be much better at saying what I want in 14o characters or less, plus it’s great for a quick rant when work annoys me. I’ve also been linking to some of our online stuff, I’m not really expecting much, but a local events guide started following me today, so it will be interesting to see if any thing comes from that. This is me by the way.

It’s been quite a week for new (to me anyway) online toys. I’ve also been playing with Wetpaint (for a wiki I’ve been building – more of which later) and Screentoaster, a free online screen recorder. (Found via Phil Bradley) I am liking both of these a lot.

In the meantime

Too much going on, but here’s an interesting article in the Guardian about OCLC and WorldCat.

Why you can’t find a library book in your search engine

Isn’t librarian good enough?

In Edinburgh Librarians are apparently now going to be called Audience Development Officers.

Qype

I was just idly trying out  Twitter Search and put in the name of the library not really expecting to find anything, but up came a not so good review which led me to Qype. It’s a site that anyone can add to, there are quite few reviews for libraries on there, some good, some not so.

It got me thinking about how important it is to keep an eye on sites such as these, they can be invaluable in giving feedback that we may not otherwise get. I’ve already set up a feed so I can monitor Twitter for any mentions we may get.

First day back

So, haven’t missed much in  library land since I’ve been away.

The first day back was ok, slight problem in that my work PC decided to die sometime over Christmas, so most of the day was spent wandering around jumping onto other people’s  when I could, not helped by the fact that my colleague’s PC did exactly the same thing.

I was very impressed with the IT department though (not something I ever thought I’d say) they came to look at the PC within an hour of me reporting it and I’m getting a new one tomorrow. I will be spending the next few days trying to remember passwords for all my favourite sites. I also asked for Firefox to be installed on the new one, it was on the old one, so shouldn’t be a problem, but I may have used Enquire as the reason I need a decent browser, I just can’t cope with IE6 anymore.

I’d forgotten that I’m starting an ILM management course this week. It’s seven days taught and apparently 14 hours study time on my own. Should be good and hopefully useful should I ever decide to try my hand at managing people. I was a little put of my the course manual which was written  in Comic Sans. Surely that shouldn’t be allowed? I may mention it on any evaluation.

The holiday’s over

The way Christmas was this year, along with a complete library shutdown and a couple of days of leave has meant that I haven’t been at work for two weeks. I’m really not looking forward to going back tomorrow.

I have totally switched off which is a bit unlike me. I currently have over 1000 unread items in Bloglines and a tentative plan to start work on my portfolio came to nothing.

I’m really not looking forward to going back tomorrow.

Books on the DS

Nintendo are releasing books to read on the DS. It’s all classic stuff, 100 books for about £20. I already have  a DS, so will probably give this a go. It’s a cheap way of trying out e-books.

Still not sure how you can improve on the original though.

Working on a Sunday

Well I say working, what I really mean is playing with Wordle. I have to come up with some fliers for an event on Wednesday to promote one of the websites that we have. I tried to do them at work, but it wouldn’t work on my work PC and it was too cold in the reference library to use a PC there. (plus I was enjoying having an entire office to myself just a little too much.)

I have been away this week, staying with people who bizarrely have no interest in libraries at all, as a result I’m finding it hard to concentrate at work, especially as it’s very nearly time for Christmas and a two week break. I have a vague idea of working on my portfolio for some of that time.

I did manage to have a flick through the latest Update and it seems everyone is thinking learning 2.0 at the moment, Lewisham seem to have done quite a lot in this area. I did just try to read the fancy new version online as my copy is at work, but it wouldn’t let me read it as it kept saying I wasn’t logged in, even though when I tried to log in, it said I was. I gave up after five tries I will just have to read it at work tomorrow.

If you can’t say anything nice…

I haven’t really had anything good to say about libraries for a while, the one I work in or nationally. I’ve been keeping quiet so this doesn’t become one long rant.

I always knew I should have done this anonymously.

Anyway onto the good stuff.

Info Junkie just posted about the 23 things learning programme which is kind of strange as I’ve been asked to do some Web2.0 training for staff and am hoping to use exactly that programme. I’m just in the process of putting a project plan together which I will then take to our senior management team. I’m going to sell it along the lines of the Frontline reader development training where staff were given an hour or so a week to work through the online course.

Of course the next step is to get the IT department to unblock all the sites that I will need to use to put the programme together and that could take a while.

I just need to make my plan very convincing.