Boh, I'll miss you, little blog.

So, I'm pretty sure that is the Web 2.0 Training all wrapped up. Although I never have written a blog before, I've become kinda attached to this one. Maybe I'll even miss it.

I would consider myself pretty technology and web savvy, and this course has forced me to further investigate things which I otherwise had a general, but not particular deep knowledge of. Which is great.
I think I will definitely keep my Twitter account, but personally, the rest of the accounts I created will fall by the wayside.

Out of all of this I have realised how useful a wiki an be in organising internal information. Something which I really think my library system could do with. I always have and always will think that blogs and social media have a huge part to play in libraries and I really hope that some of the opposition to online and digital resources will dissolve away in libraries over time.

People really need to remember that all technology evolves, and to not use online resources is really stupid. What if people refused to use magazines, or DVDs or audio in libraries? What if we had kept libraries as private institutions only for the rich? Libraries are against censorship - why passively stop our patrons accessing information just because it is online or in a different format?

And as a parting thought, here is something for everyone to remember: Information overload, the early years - Five centuries years ago, a new technology swamped the world with data. What we can learn from the aftermath.

W00t!

Geocaching

I don't think regular Geocaching is appropriate for libraries. It's a lot of fun, but really, other than just getting people into the building I don't see much point.

However, we could maybe apply the principle small scale within the library, or even within a library system. Maybe the older sport/hobby of letterboxing could also be used, where a the participant carries a logbook and collects stamps. This could be used as an interbranch/library way to get people to visit libraries that they otherwise wouldn't.

I have gone geocaching before and it has always been lots of fun, and never have we found anything nasty or inappropriate in the boxes. Once again, like any sort of unregulated or democratic sort of activity, I think that you will infrequently have problems because 99% of people are normal, good folks just like everyone else. A bit like the Internet really.

Podcasting

Podcasts are something that I think could work for public libraries really well. I think that adding and promoting a list of links to podcasts that other organisations have relevance to libraries.

Here at Swan we are planning on having monthly promotional themes, and I think we very quickly and easily add a couple of themed/subject specific podcasts to our catalogue each month. Once again, like other resources, it is not so much libraries producing the resource, only guiding people towards where they can access it.

As the training blog mentioned ABC does podcasts/vodcasts really really well. In the past I have downloaded quite a few from the science/environment pages and Triple J, especially a lot of their Live at the Wireless live music sets. You can find their pod/vodcasts and live stream at http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/live/podcast/.