I was going to write this in several installments .. but as it’s currently 4.34am, one entry it shall be ..

This has been one of those assessments that sounds to other people to be .. well, too easy. “A blog? Pfft! Do a real course!” But .. it has taken time, and lots of it. Each entry has been based on (for me) usually at least several hours of ‘fiddling’. Perhaps for those people who were experienced in all applications we explored, it would have been elementary. But even though I was familiar with most programs, I certainly hadn’t used them in the way we were required to for each task. So, there were times when I swore at my computer; where I gave up and ‘saved’ the entry for later; and when I wasted time browsing other peoples blogs in envy. But there were moments of triumph, too; small squeaks as I achieved something new.

To the designers of the project – do not worry that there is too little to do! There is more than enough. Perusing other peoples’ blogs, I noticed that those who were clearly proficient with the technologies simply upped the ante, and wrote more – more complicated versions of what I was doing, or on other topics altogether.

I think perhaps therein lies the main difficulty of a project like this: its self-directedness. Whilst we were given good guidance in the tutes, the rest was up to us – the amount, and complexity, of material we produced was not prescribed. This is post-grad – so I don’t expect, or desire, to be spoon-fed. But on the other hand, I feel intimidated and slightly deflated by the ‘extra work’ that other students have clearly put in .. despite the fact that I know I did what was ‘asked’. In an essay, by contrast, there are specific limits, and people are penalized for going ‘over the limit’.
Having said that, we need to learn to be flexible in our approach to both learning, and delivering information ourselves, so I wouldn’t actually advise changing this element, despite my difficulties with it.

With a ‘continual’ assignment like this, I think there will always be more potential for ‘life’ to interrupt, and make it difficult for people to a) keep up with the weekly tasks and b) complete them to the standard you might like.

In our group, Krista was struggling to get around, having broken her knee (I believe it took up at least 2 extra hours of her day); Kit had medical issues (especially re: not being able to see properly!) which slowed her down considerably; and I had family issues, and had to move house in the last week of the assignment. As I write this I’m still drowning in a sea of unopened boxes and strewn clothes, trying to get to know new housemates who are still strangers to me.

So in terms of being able to get the most out of the Adventure – by reading and commenting on the group’s blogs, and helping each other learn through each of the tasks, I think we all did the best we could, in sometimes difficult circumstances. When I asked questions (both on my blog and directly to my buddies), they were usually answered, even if just to say “sorry I can’t help you.”

At times I was concerned about our lack of interaction, so I tried to re-connect the group, through email and/or catching up in person; other people did this too, particularly Krista – who also made a special effort to comment on most of our entries. The thing I enjoyed most about the group aspect was getting to know my classmates better (both my buddies and others along the way).

On an individual level, my main regret in this assignment is that I chose WordPress. Having read other students’ blogs, the majority of whom chose Blogger, I very much wish that I had followed suit. Any friends I have that are into blogs had recommended WordPress, but I have struggled to understand why.

I think perhaps this has much to do with their preference to take any option that doesn’t involve expanding Google’s already vast empire. Whilst I certainly sympathise with this view – it doesn’t change the fact that I found WP much more difficult to navigate. It just didn’t speak to me (as pretentious as that phrase is); I didn’t find its design to be intuitive; and it doesn’t plug into many of the ‘add ons’ that Blogger does [see my gripes about this in earlier posts and comments].

Most frustratingly of all, I found the ‘free’ designs it offers to be both limited, and largely unappealing .. whilst I drooled in envy at Blogger’s options. To remedy this, at one point I purchased a more ‘me’ design from a site called themeforest.net, but as it turned out, I couldn’t display it without hosting my own ..  something-or-other .. I didn’t understand the jargon, I just knew it wasn’t doable. Nevertheless, I suppose this was yet another learning experience – both of the pros and cons of different programs, and learning to just ‘run with’ the situation as it is.

Librarians and other information professionals must be innovative and flexible in the way they think about and deliver information services. Assignments like this demonstrate the myriad of options now available with which to do this – and challenge us to think beyond the square. I hadn’t considered many of the potential uses and benefits of Web 2.0  in a library context, so it was great to have the space and permission to do so. Those who deliver this course next year will need to assess what new Web 2.0 tools have emerged in the meantime, and consider incorporating those into the Adventure. Perhaps Twitter will be old news by then!

Adios. With thanks to Krista, Wyl, Kit, and Louisa.

Nearly every week I’ve discovered something new that I know I’ll continue to use when this is over. I hadn’t heard of a ‘mash-up’, but apparently I’ve been using a variety of them anyway, without realizing it ..

Being a vaguely serious bike-rider, I jumped at the chance to check out Bikely.com. Put very simply, Bikely helps cyclists share knowledge of good bicycle routes. It can be quite tricky traversing a car-dominated city by bicycle, particularly when you need to travel an unknown route to a new destination. However, the chances are, someone has cycled that way before you. Bikely makes it easy for him or her to show you the best way. You can draw your favourite bike paths onto the map, and view everyone else’s. It is yet another example of an interactive, information-sharing site, propelled by everyday users rather than a site manager.

All of this has very little (well, nothing) to do with information management. But it could one day help me determine the best route to my IM-related job(?). Hmm, drawing a long bow, here ..

My brain tends to explode at concepts such as ‘mashups’. Whilst I understand the idea in principle, the ins and outs of how programmers devise these things is beyond me, at least at this stage. Yahoo Pipes intrigues me, though, and it’s on my list of ‘things to explore when I get time’.

Whether or not I understand it – the interactive and DIY direction that the Internet is heading in (and is already at) excites me. 1) because it allows for more diversity of content, and 2) because it takes the exclusive power out of the hands of those who are ‘in the know’ of programming.

Franz Joseph Glacier

I remember a time when people used to get lost. Not in the primary-school kind of way (get it?) .. but, hmm. Anyhoo, don’t you remember struggling with a Melways or roadmap, twisting it at all angles in a vain attempt to re-orientate yourself? I’m not that old, and I do! But as with all things Google, Google Maps has taken over the world. I can’t recall the last time I opened a paper map.. thing. My first point of call is always Google Maps. Especially ‘Get Directions’. I write them down, and off I go.

Auckland, at dusk

But I’m not pining for the good old days, here – I love the new days. It seems every second friend of mine now has an iPhone or equivalent thereof, so now the system is mobile – whenever we jump in the car, there’s no arguing about wrong turns, or speeding because we’ve gotten lost so now we’re running late. It’s brilliant. At the same time, there is a part of me that freaks out about ‘street view’ – the fact that I can look up the house I grew up in, and see my Mum’s gardening efforts .. well .. it’s weird.

My last holiday was in February, when I set off on a small solo tour of New Zealand. I have marked some of the main places I visited .. such a magic country, I think I could be very happy living there. I have also included a few photos .. not that any of them do the place justice.

The photos were reasonably simple to imbed .. but the Google Map. took. ages. I have a My Maps account, having made them in other classes (both at RMIT and Melb unis), but I just kept chasing my tail. Murphy’s Law, I suppose. But please .. admire my map. Worship it. Or at least glance at it for a moment .. to make it worth it!

Milford Sound

Mt Cook

Because I already had a Yahoo account (thanks Delicious), setting up an account took about 2 minutes. I don’t have a digital camera, so I just copied a few photos that I had been tagged in on Facebook, and created a small photo-stream. To add my page to my blog wasn’t difficult either – you just need to copy the URL to the Flickr ‘widget’ provided in the WordPress dashboard. You can now view my photos on the right-hand side of my blog – too easy!

In the past, whenever I’ve needed photos for projects etc I’ve always searched using Google Image Search .. but, as with TeacherTube,  I now have a whole new option .. thanks Doc Man 1! muhahahaha. This whole thing has made me feel a little behind the times, really .. like I’m just discovering things that other people have known about for years. But it’s better late than never I suppose ..

The now widespread availability of broadband internet is a huge factor – even just five years ago, it wasn’t a given that people had high-speed internet at home. Now, people watch YouTube videos on trams and at picnics, on their iPhones.

There used to be a feature on YouTube that allowed you to see how many videos you had viewed on the site (providing you had an account with them). Last time I checked, I had hit well over 4000. Perusing the site, I realised this was a pitiful number by comparison to most regular users. For whatever reason, the ‘counter’ is currently not available. According to one member:

I’m hoping it’s just a glitch and YouTube will restore it soon. I was proud to have that there because I had watched almost 30,000 videos.

30,000?? And why is he ‘proud’? This says something to me – like the race to have more ‘friends’ on Facebook than anyone else; or ‘friends’ on Myspace; or books on LibraryThing; or ‘tweets’ on Twitter .. there is an element of competition in Web 2.0 circles that I find somewhat disturbing. It reflects just how important they have become to so many (particularly Gen Y), to the extent that the lives people live online almost surpass their real-life ones. Is this necessarily an improvement?

But I digress. Whilst I was familiar with YouTube, I can’t say as I was aware of the many other video sites mentioned in the Adventure. So I have been experimenting with a few, particularly TeacherTube. It’s brilliant! I have always just searched YouTube for ‘how to’ type videos, but now I have a whole site I can mine for those .. whee!

Here is a video I nabbed from YouTube in attempt to ‘embed’ one in my blog ..  it too is educational – how to set up a WordPress blog! I wish I had of thought to look this up earlier ..  you’ll need a spare 45 minutes to check it out, though



Libraries and other information organisations are already taking advantage of this technology. The RMIT Library, for example, has numerous ‘vodcasts’ available that visitors can view to ‘get to know’ the library and its various features. This acknowledges that different people learn in different ways, and that for many, watching/listening to a video would be much more helpful than trying to read instructional text.

I can see huge potential for other information organisations to exploit video technology also – particularly those involving complex processes, which could be explained visually. A ‘how to’ guide to many of the complex catalogues we have to use would be a good start!

I heard about LT a long time ago and set up an account, but it was one of those (many) web-based things I just never followed up. So when I visited the site again, I had to request that my username & password be sent to my email address, because I’d forgotten them ..

I’m yet to add very much to my account, but what I would like to be able to do, is add my LT page to my Blog .. does anyone using WordPress know if this is possible? I know that Krista has added it to hers, but she’s using Blogger – which, on reflection, I’m starting to wish I chose, too. It just seems that every time I go to do something, it’s either more complicated, or not possible at all, to do it with WP .. unlike in Blogger, which (probably because it’s Google-owned), easily plugs into most tools.

Little help?

This week I decided to check out ‘Delicious’, mainly because 2 of my group members had already used it before. I, on the other hand, was somewhat of a social bookmarking virgin.

Delicious is a social bookmarking service that allows users to tag, save, manage and share Web pages all in one place. It is, quite simply, a brilliant tool. In the past I have had to wade through a tangled web of saved bookmarks. Not only does Delicious cut out this frustration, but it allows you to make the most of other peoples’ bookmarks. Genius.

I made the mistake, however, of downloading the Firefox Add-on for it .. an avid Firefox user already, I was quite content with my saved favourite tabs – and found that the Delicious toolbar simply cluttered my web experience. So, after a few days I deleted the Add-on, and will use my Delicious account from the Web only.

From what my group and others have said re: their experience with other social bookmarking sites, a key advantage is numbers – how many people are using the site? Citeulike, for instance, may actually be a more useful site for researchers, but it won’t gain that status (I don’t think) until its user-base expands considerably.

The main use I will have for these sites is .. research assignments! I’m actually jittering with excitement right now, at just how much easier I think they’ll be now thanks to these .. ! [*nerrrrrrrrrrrrd*]

But back to Twitter .. it’s novel in some respects, and vaguely useful in others .. but not enough to get me excited. When this ‘adventure’ is complete, I will happily tweet no longer. I just. don’t. care.

Twitter certainly has the capacity to inform, galvanize and connect people. I have friends who have used it to help organize rallies; advertise local musicians’ gigs; or canvass opinion on social or political issues. Or – as in my case – to simply keep up with what’s happening in friends’ lives. I have 2 friends who live in Sydney, and due to our bursting social calendars, we don’t often get a chance to catch up – but because they’re both regular ‘tweeters’, I probably know more about their lives than if they lived in Melbourne. Whilst this is cool, it’s also a little scary, isn’t it?!

The notion of people being ok with sharing hourly updates of their lives seems to cut against the grain. Human beings used to prize their privacy; any unnecessary intrusion into it was seen as “peering over your neighbour’s fence”. Now, millions of people voluntarily offer this personal space for others to invade. Obviously the same can be said for Facebook, Myspace and other Web 2.0 programs, so perhaps it’s the intensity of use re: Twitter that I can’t see the appeal in. It can verge on addiction for some people – a friend that I have known for years has changed since using it; it has become a way of life for him. Now, whenever I catch up with him, he spends half the time listening to me, and the other half pretending to, whilst he obsessively ‘tweets’ – looking not at me, but his phone. Wasn’t there a time when replying to an important text message in front of someone (without first apologizing) was considered rude?

Nevertheless, despite my misgivings, I can see potential for Twitter to be used for good rather than evil – even within the IM sector. I have signed up to several Library-related sites, such as the Library of Congress site .. if I lived nearby, for instance, I would have known that there was a “Poetry Reading at Library of Congress on March 12 (‘It’s never too late for love’)”. The ability to disseminate information to the public quickly and easily is clearly appealing to many organizations.

The major drawback, however, is that from my experience, Twitter seems most popular with – and useful for – people who have the internet on their mobile phones (because information is updated so quickly). So at this stage companies/organizations are still only reaching a comparatively small portion of the market.

As for using it – I put out a request for my ‘buddies’ to add me so that we can follow each other, but only one person responded .. and I believe another person has a ‘conscientious objection’ to Twitter (which I can identify with). I will endeavour to address this at our meeting on Tuesday.

Because I haven’t actually tweeted before, I still haven’t mastered Twitter ‘language’. i.e the ins and outs of what @ and # and links etc .. it’s more complicated than one first assumes. So I will experiment some more, and re-blog when I’m an expert!