#22 NetLibrary

I'm very familiar with NetLibrary since I select ebook titles for Auckland City as a member of the Collection Development Team.

Ebooks definitely fill a need for titles where all the reader requires is immediate access to content. They are particularly useful when students are studying a topic such as the Treaty of Versailles at the same time and all lending copies are out on loan. A keyword search of "Versailles" retrieves 5 available NetLibrary titles.

The growth of ebooks is a significant development in library service delivery. But there are a number of issues related to them. First, some publishers are still reluctant to offer new titles in electronic format for fear of losing hardcopy sales. And secondly, ebooks don't fully exploit their electronic nature. They are often nothing more than a scanned image and don't have the live links that users have come to expect from sites such as wikipedia.

Personally, although I've browsed through dozens of ebooks, I've yet to actually read one online cover-to-cover. I suspect my experience is fairly universal.

#21 Podcasts

After browsing through a lot of boring podcasts I located a promising one: http://feeds.feedburner.com/AmateurTravelerPodcast

I added the feed to my Bloglines account and listened for a while.
This site is more than a radio station dedicated to a particular topic. Besides, travellers' tales, it has links to current news items, photos, even broadcasts of weather reports (perfect for when .

For library-related podcasts I chose Library Geeks, where "librarians, geeks, and library geeks to geek out about libraries."
http://geeks.onebiglibrary.net/feed.xml

and Libvibe
http://libvibe.blogspot.com/2007/11/libvibe-5-november-2007.html

Came across a few moderately interesting reports (such as the public library that inserts advertising material into the books it issues). But overall I'm not a big podcast fan. I'd rather watch video or skim through text.

#20 YouTube

I'm a regular user of YouTube.

It's great for sourcing videos that aren't readily available elsewhere. For example, Tony awards performances highlighting the best of Broadway haven't been screened on New Zealand television for many years and are not even available on the official Tony awards website.

Best musical 2007, Spring Awakening:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgkdoIz5tmE

One of the best features of YouTube is the tantalising links bar that shows you related videos at a glance. Browsing can take you off on to all sorts of fascinating tangents.

One option for libraries is to post videos of library events/concerts on YouTube with direct links from the library catalogue. Even better, moving images on our home page could help attract fickle browsers.

#19 Google Maps

Google Maps is Web2 at its best.

Features I love:

• a variety of ways to pan in any direction: you can use the friendly hand that allows you to grasp and pull the screen image (for big moves) or you can click on the arrow icons (for more measured moves)


• the intuitive zoom tool with both a plus and minus function and a ladder scale that lets you zoom instantly from street level to outer space (faster than a speeding bullet)


• the choice of a map view, satellite photo view or a hybrid (combination of the two)


• Best of all: the My Maps feature lets you create your personal version of a map highlighting places that you choose. e.g. the location of the hotels where I'll be staying in Zurich and Berlin:


• http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&ie=UTF8&ll=47.376848,8.543673&spn=0.015984,0.038624&z=14&om=0&msid=107700956014156770666.00043efe2aac9d3f04f50

Ta Prohm

Ta Prohm (Angkor, Cambodia)

The jungle tames
the temples there.

The jungle claims
the field.

The jungle cures
all worldly care.

The jungle lures.
I yield.

# 18 Zoho agogo

1. Created an account at Zoho writer http://writer.zoho.com/index.do

2. Created test poem (Ta Prohm) using Zoho Writer. Then clicked on Switch to, selected Zoho Show (which takes quite a while to load) and created test poem (Daydream number 8567b) as a slideshow presentation (like PowerPoint) http://show.zoho.com/public/onlyme/Daydream%20number%208567b

3. Managed to export Ta Prohm from Zoho to my blog after figuring out which login and password it was asking for. The process worked, but once again I discovered extra line-breaks that I could only delete by going into html and replacing the breaks with <>. Without intending to I'm actually becoming a competent user of html! I never thought I'd see the day.

Zoho Show is a great tool for presenting short poems as a slideshow where you can choose the time delay. In this case I chose a leisurely 3 seconds.

#17 Building sandcastles in the PBwiki sandbox

1. Logged in to PBwiki and added favourite movies http://acllearn.pbwiki.com/Favourite%20Movies
and music
http://acllearn.pbwiki.com/Favourite+Music

For the music titles I also included a direct link to their entries in our library catalogue.

http://acllearn.pbwiki.com/Favourite+Music

2. At first I accidentally created new pages (only me top movies & only me top movies) instead of adding to the existing favourite pages. I struggled to delete these pages. When I entered edit mode, I could delete the content but not the page itself. Finally, I discovered a live grey link in the Page Information section that allowed me to delete the pages (after making sure I really wanted to): "Really? This will irretrievably delete this page and its revisions.
YES, REALLY." I was touched by the wiki's concern that I might accidentally consign valuable data to oblivion.

It's fun to add favourites. But to be honest, for movies I'll still continue to use aggregated sites like metacritic.com and rottentomatoes.com.