Week 12 Reading Post: Let the Blogging Resume – Podcasting, Flckr and lots to say!

My thoughts on Podcasting…At first I wasn’t sure what the big deal was, but after reading the excellent presentation from this week (really clearly laid out and in my opinion much easier to get into than the wikipedia article – well done!!) and the first two articles I can see what the hype is all about.  It is definitely an interesting way of disseminating information I like the idea of mixing up traditional broadcasts, etc and trying new and innovative things like the lawyer described in the second article from this week.  My first reaction was how different is podcasting from traditional radio broadcasts, etc., but now I see there is so much more that can be done with podcasting aside from the recording capacity.  Not to mention the fact that the potential continues to grow at rapid speeds in the library and academic worlds.   

I was thinking about uses in the library and the idea of bringing more and more of the traditional in library services to the virtual realm and I started to think about the story telling class I took last summer.  Storytelling is such a fantastic way to engage the kids.  However, the reality is that not everyone can bring their children to the library as often as they’d like, in fact I can only imagine how many kids a hard time getting to the library to participate in the live story telling event.  Similarly I recognize that some children do not have the internet at home, but I still see podcasting married with storytelling and new innovations to bring it further ahead than traditional stories on tape as a huge step towards serving more and more of our untapped populations in the public library world. Further we could get the tweens and teens involved in volunteer programs where they create the pod casts, learn to use the audio equipment, and practice their story telling, skills to the benefit of the younger library population.   

My thoughts on IM…in the work place we have it and don’t use it and I don’t understand why!!!  We have SharePoint 2003 and it has IM capabilities but nobody uses it, some claim its because we lack policies surrounding it, however, its internal not external, policies are out there and can easily be manipulated to suit our needs.  Policies exist regarding MSN or IM to the outside world, and their quite simple it’s not allowed, perhaps this is a contributor to the inhibitions we have with our internal IM, I’m not sure.  Yet another “low buy-in situation” in the corporate world where I work…strange!  

In contrast my younger sister’s generation lives and breaths IM.  She avoids the phone like the plague and is rather grumpy when MSN is not the answer to our communication needs!  She has only ever used reference services at her university through IM and probably always will.  To her this is the answer to library services.  In fact, I’m not even sure she’s set foot in the library, but is about to embark on post graduate education.  Thankfully she is quite proficient in the world of electronic research and communicates regularly with the library through IM.  

Since I’m on about IM now I loved the best practices section in the “IM me” article (definitely worth adding to our own collection of Social Software “best practices”).  The second article on IM, the AOL case study at first seems like a really good plug/marketing attempt for AOL – but I like the idea of using what they already know and I like that you can target students with dial up or without the ability to make a long distance call etc.  As for the being away bit – showing away with a message makes the most sense.  To me it isn’t any different than the “back in 5 min” sign left at the desk if a reference library isn’t available.   

My Thought on Flickr (almost done! Sorry for the lengthy post I’ve been away 3 weeks!!
Reading week and then two simultaneous blog breaks for my move…I just have so much to make up for  

My thoughts on Flickr begin on a personal note: it’s so great for my family to keep in touch and up to date with pics!  My sister, and I are all over the place with school and my mom is a photo fanatic!  I introduced her to Flickr a few months ago and every month she uses her monthly limit to keep me up to date on babies in the family, her spoiled Chihuahua Trouble (who recently had his pictures professionally taken), and recently we’ve been using it for her to show me samples of wedding “things” she’s preparing for me from a distance.   

As for the uses in the library the first Flickr article from this weeks readings does a great job outlining the possibilities and again I think the “policy heads-up” section is another great contribution to our best practices work for this course.  I also thought the 16 Ways to Use Flickr @ Your Library blog post was great!  I particularly liked #14 “Create a VIRTUAL TRAVELOGUE of your city or town.”  It’s a fun twist on a typical travel blog and it highlights your own town.  Just having moved to
Whitby I would have loved to check something like this out to get acquainted with my new place! 

Okay I’m done for tonight and I’ll resume with the case studies/catching up on my commenting this week once I can say I am officially unpacked and settled in!  Thanks everyone for you nice posts regarding my move!!  Cheers!