Flickr and other Multimedia

I was a bit late getting to the week 3 exercise (OCPL was sponsoring a Literary Festival, Literary Orange, on April 21. I was tied up with that, along with all the other usual things.)

I looked at some of the Libraries using Flickr - I liked what Westmont Public Library was doing, posting pictures of the new books of the month. I thought having pictures of every branch, like Hennepin County would be one way to help people find their branch and for our visual clientele, the pictures would be great.

I like the fact that all of the libraries recognize that it is good to be out there - Flickr is a social photo exchange and it is good to have a presence here, and gain more recognition. The fun pictures of events and things at the Library can also help people see what the library has to offer.

But you have to keep this up and change the pictures regularly - otherwise I could see the Flickr postings getting really stale, really fast.

I like the podcasting idea - having a stash of podcasts for people with information on things like how to put in flooring, etc. would be useful and I can see a role for the library in this. You could do library program podcasts - lots of possibilities.

IM Screen Name - Sparklnbev

Well, its Friday and I finally got around to the week 2 reading and exercises.

I was originally going to try Google Talk, just because I tend to use all things Google (though I am convinced they want to take over the world!). But I ran into a problem with downloading on my work PC. As fixing that would involve grabbing one of our IT guys for help, and since they are all out in the field swapping out computers (ALL of our public access computers are being replaced with new models - that is 32 branch locations), I thought it would be better for me to just opt for AIM.

I did try and access Meebo, to see about a quick chat, but Explorer was having problems too. (Maybe looking ahead to the weekend? Who knows?)

Wikis

I took a look around the various Wikis and I like many of the features that I saw.

We have been looking at and testing Mediawiki software for the development of tools like the ones these libraries have developed. The challenge for us is to find a wiki framework that is easy to use for all staff - and we have staff that range all over the map in terms of their technology skills. The University of Connecticut staff site has a nice "Create a Wiki Page" link at the top of their pages - that's probably something we would need to have. Some of my staff would take to this like ducks to water, while others would be completely baffled.

I do think the whole point should be to make something useful for staff, so that they can better help customers. So it needs to be easy to support and maintain. Most of the wikis I looked at have lots of good information, but I do think we would need to work on getting everyone comfortable with the software, to truly take advantage of the wiki format.

The First Posting

I just finished looking at the library blogs for our Infopeople class on Web 2.0 and EBranches.

I generally liked all of the blogs, though I think the Ann Arbor Public Library has done the best job of incorporating the blog into their web presence. I liked their use of visuals too - it is easy to get around, covers everything and has lots of navigation landmarks to help people get around. Of the other examples, I like the Lansing Teen News blog because Teens are actual contributors.

I was interested to note that most do allow comments, but you have to register first.

Those were the highlights of my quick review of these sites.